Today, starting at 8:15pm Mountain Time (10:15pm Eastern Time, 7:15pm Pacific Time for crying Canucks fans), I will be doing a liveblog of the full 90 minute pilot episode of the 90s adventure series Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman starring Dean Cain, Terri Hatcher, Lane Smith, and John Shea.
So now that the show is over, here's some basic thoughts:
It actually flowed and had better pacing than I expected that it would: a lot of 90s adventure shows could really drag in parts, but the hour and a half kind of flew by. The charm of Dean Cain was pretty evident pretty quickly, and his in-costume and glasses-without-costume was different enough looking that you didn't feel totally unconvinced that nobody could figure it out.
The Lois crying during a movie scene and the Luthor snake scene were the only two parts of the show that really seemed unnecessary. They didn't really seem to advance the characters or the story, not that the story really needed much else. It was,as I said, pretty obvious from the get-go what was going on, even if you didn't already know "Lex Luthor = bad guy" before the show even began filming.
You can also see how the character of Kat vanished by the end of the first season: Scoggins was the weakest link of the cast, the writing for the character was the worst of the major cast (Bains was written/acted worse, but she's dead by the end of the third act), and she doesn't really "bring" anything for future stories. It would perhaps work better if she was another news anchor, a more direct rival to Lois professionally.
I forgot to mention it during the liveblog, but Luthor's party with the exclusive access (and for a famously reclusive man who avoids the spotlight) somehow managed to have Kat/Perry/Jimmy in the crowd. C'mon guys, spring a little for additional extras.
The special effects were...decent for 1993 I guess? They certainly didn't age well, and did I mention the giant shoulder pads on Terri Hatcher? I feel I should make sure I mention this on the off chance it hasn't come up already.
Now if you'll excuse me, I need to re-watch this and try to spot Mark Frazer.
