YMMV / Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman

• Alternate Character Interpretation: Tempus's description of the boring, pacifistic future (coupled with how easy it is for him to get loose because everyone's a pacifist) can make you wonder if the utopia Superman will usher in would be a good thing or not.
• Arc Fatigue: From the first attempt at the wedding, to the actual wedding finally happening, takes eleven episodes. While annoying on DVD, this must have been intolerable in 1996, especially since there was a four and a half month season break right before the home stretch.
  • It was, particularly since the first attempt at the wedding had been intended and promoted as the actual wedding. Scheduled for Valentine's Day Weekend, beautiful heart-shaped wedding announcements had been printed and distributed, including to ABC News anchors who displayed them on the air. At the last minute the network insisted that they change it, ostensibly for fear that people would stop watching after Clark and Lois finally tied the knot. Or was that it? Various explanations exist. Were the show creators, the network, or both, trying to coordinate with the comic books, where Lois had just broken off their engagement? Or did the comic book creative team have them break up on request from the show/network? In any event, just say "frog-eating clone" (or just "clone", or "clone and amnesia") to a FoLC (Friend of Lois & Clark) and watch what happens.
• Bizarro Episode: "Soul Mates", which involves Lois & Clark jumping between Hollywood History time periods. Each time, Clark is a heroic rogue with a mild-mannered alter-ego, while Lois is trapped in a Shotgun Wedding by Tempus.
• Complete Monster: Lighthearted as this show is, it still packs in numerous nasty villains:
  • Tempus, one of the most recurring villains of the show, is a witty criminal mastermind who originates from a utopian future created by Lois and Clark. Considering this future tedious and longing to tear it down and replace it with a hellish dystopia, Tempus tries various schemes to make this happen, attempting to murder an infant Superman with Kryptonite and leaving Lois stranded in a time period where she'll have no legal rights in his first appearance, and trying to frame Superman as a hostile alien invader before trying to leave a building full of people to blow up with a bomb he's activated in his second. In Tempus's last appearance, Tempus traps Superman outside of time and mindwashes America into voting him in as President; personally murders or disposes of various loose ends who might compromise him; tosses his bodyguard to his death for a cheap laugh; and ultimately tries to trigger a global nuclear war to annihilate the entire planet while gleefully attesting he simply wants to murder billions for the fun of it now. Even Tempus's snarky demeanor fails to mask the utter lunatic he truly is, and he stands above even Lex Luthor as Superman's most vile enemy.
  • "Honeymoon in Metropolis": Thaddeus Roarke is a tycoon who runs a company called Apocalypse Consulting. After losing a military contract to Lex Luthor to develop a coastal defense system for the Navy, Roarke plans to sabotage Luthor's system so that the Navy will pick his system. Roarke is working with a Congressman Ian Harrington who works on the House Subcommittee on Defense and is giving Roarke information about Luthor's system. Roarke eventually reveals his scheme to Harrington, that he plans to cause a massive disruption in Luthor's system that will result in it creating a giant tidal wave which will destroy Metropolis and several cities on the coast, which horrifies Harrington. When Roarke discovers Lois Lane and Clark Kent have been spying on him, he tries to kill them by putting a bomb in their hotel room.
  • "A Chip Off The Old Clark": "Anonymous" is a mercenary who works for the highest bidder. Anonymous is hired by terrorists to destroy an ongoing peace process between two countries, Tanzor and Fostonia. Anonymous learns of a young boy named Jesse who has some of Superman's powers and kidnaps him. Anonymous hires a hacker to hack into Tanzor's nuclear defense system and then shoots the hacker so he does not have to pay him. Anonymous has Jesse kidnap the President of the Tanzor and uses truth serum to force him to reveal Tanzor's nuclear launch codes, planning to launch a nuke at Fostonia's capital city. Lois Lane arrives and tries to trick Anonymous into surrendering by pretending to have a gun, but Anonymous tricks Jesse into pressing the launch button. Discovering that Jesse has lost his powers, Anonymous decides he is no longer useful and tries to use poison gas to kill Lois, the President and Jesse.
  • "Super Mann": Steve Law is a Nazi who awakens from suspended animation in present-day Metropolis to help lead the world into the Fourth Reich. Establishing himself as the nastiest of his three compatriots, Law tries to have a Western sympathizer in his inner circle murdered when he tries to renege and unflinchingly executes his own associate when he tries to abandon the mission as well. Law spearheads the mission to crush the world himself by threatening to detonate bombs in Metropolis, Washington, and LA if America's government doesn't surrender, trying to detonate the bombs as soon as he's able and even dismissing all of his own men who will be caught up in the explosions as "martyrs to the cause".
  • "The People vs. Lois Lane" & "Dead Lois Walking": Professor Jefferson Cole is a narcissistic, brilliant mind expelled from S.T.A.R. laboratories after he attempted to sell weapons technology to those who would misuse it. Breaking out of jail years later and possessed of a vendetta toward the people who locked him away, especially Lois Lane, Cole frames Lois for murder by rigging a gun to go off in her hands and kill his own henchmen, later using his illusory technology to further discredit Lois until she's sentenced to death. Cole murders one of his own minions who tries to clear Lois's name in remorse and reveals his trump card is to rain down hybrid-Kryptonite on Metropolis to horribly kill its entire populace, all out of petty spite for the city having "shunned his genius".
• Crosses the Line Twice: Everything about Tempus's bid for President, from naming himself John Doe to mind-controlling everyone with a phone, declaring war on the Amish who don't have phones, shoving a bodyguard out a window while proclaiming that even Reagan couldn't get away with this, and naming a convicted criminal who killed his parents at age 3 Secretary of State.
• Do Not Do This Cool Thing: In the DVD commentary on the Episode "Season's Greedings", writer and actor Dean Cain said that it was really fun for him and the rest of the cast to act like greedy children. The message he intended to send is that it is a bad thing to be greedy (or at least a bad thing to be very greedy). It did look very fun being greedy, and the character did not suffer any penalty for greed because their greed was a result of the Toy Man's evil toys. So the overall plot has the characters having fun by being assholes, and getting away with it because they have an excuse. The episode was very entertaining.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Tempus is a fan-favorite villain.
• Fandom Rivalry: Particularly fans of The Adventures of Superboy TV series, which was probably axed by Warner Bros. to avert the possibility of two competing Superman shows. While nobody will claim that Superboy was a milestone of television, it left a bad taste in many fans' mouths which still persists today.
• Fanfic Fuel:
  • Mindy Church was never caught onscreen; many fanfics have her receive comeuppance in some way, whether it happens between Seasons 3 and 4 or in stories beyond Season 4.
  • What became of Cat Grant following the first season.
  • Where did the Doorstop Baby come from?
• Genius Bonus: In the pilot, Clark crashes at the Hotel Apollo while he looks for work. The name is an intentional reference to his Superman persona. In Hellenistic times and especially in modern times, Apollo became identified as the god of the sun, and Superman's powers (especially in modern times) come from his body absorbing solar radiation.
• Harsher in Hindsight: Viewers who are concerned about Donald Trump may see unintended Foreshadowing in some aspects of "Meet John Doe" and "Lois and Clarks", in which Tempus uses subliminals to create mindless followers, arranges his election as U.S. President — he even says "Make America Great Again!" ^note Trump borrowed this slogan from Ronald Reagan, so we can presume that's where Tempus got it — holds Big Brother type rallies, and gets away with horrific acts before being outwitted and brought to justice. There's a bit of Vladimir Putin foreshadowing in the mix, as Tempus orders his assistant to jump out the window For the Evulz.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Long before Mercy Graves made her debut in Superman: The Animated Series, Beverly Johnson had a recurring role on this show as Mrs. Cox, Lex's personal assistant who also served as his bodyguard and chauffeur. For bonus points, Cox is a black woman; 25 years later, a live-action Teen Titans show cast a black woman as Mercy Graves.
  • The episode "Vatman" features a clone of Superman who is created by Luthor and acts like a teenager despite having the body of an adult. Picture him with the appearance of a teenager and you'd have an adaptation of Kon-El with his original 90s personality and his 2000s revised origin.
  • In "The Night Before Mxymas", Mr Mxyzptlk (Howie Mandell) asks Superman, "So, are we ready to make a deal?"
  • In "Resurrection", Lois and Clark disguise themselves as greasers in order to sneak into a prison visitor's area. Their aliases? Angel and Spike. For bonus points, the creator of Buffy and Angel would later get to direct a movie starring Superman.
  • Fred Willard makes guest appearances as a U.S. Presidential candidate. We all know how well that went...
  • In "Don't Tug On Superman's Cape," Lois has an Imagine Spot where Clark acts like James Bond and she's stuck in the role of a Bond Girl. Teri Hatcher would actually go on to play one not long after the show ended.
    • The villain of season one's "The Rival" is a corrupt media mogul named Preston Carpenter who seeks to control the world through staged news events that he creates and reports on. Replace "Preston Carpenter" with "Elliot Carver" and you have the plot of Tomorrow Never Dies, the Bond film Hatcher would star in. For bonus points, Hatcher's character in that film was married to (and later betrayed) Elliot Carver, making this twice that Teri Hatcher has helped foil such a villain.
  • Cress Williams appeared in "Never On Sunday" as Baron Sunday. 22 years later, Williams would play another DC hero who initially operated in Metropolis.
  • In "Dead Lois Walking," after breaking Lois out of prison, Clark compares her current situation to The Fugitive. A few years later, another Superman actor would play Dr. Kimble in the short-lived 2000 remake.
  • In "Church of Metropolis" to get around Intergang's threats if he seen in the south side Superman disguises himself as a police officer. Twenty-four years later his actor is now a police officer.
  • The Final Episode aired on June 14, 1997, the same month and day that another Superman adaptation would come out 16 years later.
  • Kevin Sorbo originally auditioned for the role of Superman. Jump two decades, he ends up playing a Decomposite Character to Lar Gand/Mon-El (who usually substitutes Clark Kent/Superboy), in a story arc ripped clean out of the series.
  • In "Strange Visitor (From Another Planet)," at one point Superman says, "I am a man, Lois."
  • "I Now Pronounce You..." has Jimmy making small talk (and perhaps even flirting) with Lois's cousin Cindy who is described as being a Serial Spouse. She even asks him if he's ever been married. The next live-action Superman series had Jimmy marry a different cousin of Lois's whose name also began with a C.
  • In the pilot episode, Clark expresses doubts about wearing a cape.
  • In "Faster Than a Speeding Vixen", Lois imagines she and Superman having multiple babies (and one of them develops superpowers), one is named after Clark's adoptive father and one is named after Lois' father. Fast forward in the comics, they give birth to Jonathan Samuel Kent.
• Moral Event Horizon: Tempus is such a charming, funny villain it's easy to forget he's also the most evil villain in the show, casually establishing this in his first episode by leaving the infant Kal-El to slowly die from Kryptonite exposure as part of a plan to dismantle the utopia Superman creates in the future.
• One-Scene Wonder: The government agent from "Double Jeopardy".
• Retroactive Recognition:
  • John Shea is probably best known as Lex and playing Adam on Mutant X.
  • Brad Garrett had a role as Reverend Bob in "I Now Pronounce You..." long before he became famous for playing Robbie on Everybody Loves Raymond.
  • David DeLuise (best known for Megas XLR and Wizards of Waverly Place) appeared in "I've Got A Crush On You" as one of the Toasters.
  • The first Jimmy Olsen is being stalked by death every moment of his life ...Not unlike this show, come to think of it.
  • As for the other Jimmy? He once saved the world from Jeremy Irons' eyebrows.
  • After leaving the Daily Planet, Cat Grant parlayed her years of gossip column experience into commanding a space station.
  • Inspector Henderson is initially played by Brent Jennings, better-known as Jive Turkey vampire Mr. Trick (Jennings reprises the role of Henderson in Superman: The Animated Series). After that he's Richard Belzer, i.e. John Munch.
  • Ching (that is, the first one) ended up marrying an Earth woman named Brenda.
  • Det. Calleigh moonlights as Lana Lang for an episode.
  • On that note: Hey, Warrick, nice dreadlocks!
  • In Season 2's Christmas Episode, Jimmy Olsen's girl of the week is (fittingly) Dr. Christmas Jones.
  • And he follows it up with dating Bloodrayne. Seriously, what is it with Jimmy and these women?
  • Raymond's brother Robert used to be an unfunny clergyman named "Reverend Bob" (Bob's actor also would go onto to voice both Bibbo Bibowski and Lobo months later in Superman: The Animated Series).
  • Bobby Singer once stole a scientists' invisible suits (maybe he needs them to help with demon hunting?)
• Seasonal Rot: The fourth and last season is generally considered the weakest due to the aforementioned Arc Fatigue and Denser and Wackier plots.
• Strawman Has a Point: The D.A. Mayson Drake dislikes Superman but is in love with Clark Kent. In her first appearance Superman asks her why she dislikes him and gives several legitimate reasons for a clean official to dislike him:
  Mayson Drake (to Superman): "Do you have a license to chase criminals? Do you read them their rights? If you injure someone are you insured?"
  • She also discusses how Clark is standing up for the law despite the inherent risks, and says how she'd like to see Superman do that without his powers. To her, Superman isn't a real hero because he's not human, or at least is not with all human weaknesses. Sadly, the last thing she learns is they're the same person.
• Values Dissonance:
  • The character of Cat really would not fly today particularly in a workplace setting. Not only does she kiss Clark without his consent, but she keeps on pursuing him even after it becomes painfully obvious that he is uncomfortable with it, saying out loud that she loves it when men play hard to get. The reaction to her sexual harassment from the other characters is also reflective of the time, with Jimmy calling him a ladies man and Lois getting deeply jealous. At no point does Perry look at this and consider calling HR either.
  • The season 3 episode "Never On Sunday" with its Hollywood Voodoo stereotypes and casual racism probably couldn't be made today or would have to be entirely different, taking into account that Voudoun is a real faith with many devotees worldwide.
• The Woobie: Alternate!Clark, who's bullied by Lana Lang, never became Superman, and had his Lois disappear.

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