Pilot Rewind: When Teri Hatcher and Dean Cain reimagined Superman in 'Lois & Clark'
Welcome to Pilot Rewind, Yahoo Entertainment's flashback series revisiting the first episodes of the most memorable series from TV history. Time to leave your Fortress of Solitude and watch Teri Hatcher and Dean Cain as DC Comic's premier power couple, Lois Lane and Clark Kent.
The Pilot
"Pilot," Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman. Written by Deborah Joy LeVine and directed by Robert Butler. Originally aired on Sept. 12, 1993 at 8 p.m. on ABC.
How It Started
The Daily Planet newsroom is only big enough for one star journalist and that's Lois Lane (Teri Hatcher). Metropolis's most intrepid reporter is flying high at the city's leading newspaper, going undercover to score major stories and pursuing a one-on-one interview with power broker Lex Luthor (John Shea). But then a fresh-off-the-bus Smallville transplant named Clark Kent (Dean Cain) finagles his way onto the Daily Planet masthead and Lois suddenly has a rival — even though Clark would much rather be her friend... and possibly more. But there's no time for sparks to fly in this super-sized two hour episode when a Luthor-branded space station is set to launch with a bomb on board. Preventing that disaster isn't just a job for Lois and Clark — it's also a job for a certain superhero sporting a skintight red-and-blue costume that his adopted mother made.
What Else Was On
Lois & Clark wasn't the only super-expensive two-hour pilot that premiered on Sept. 12. The New Adventures of Superman was pitted against the inaugural adventure of a futuristic submarine known as the SeaQuest DSV. That NBC sci-fi series was set to be the fall's marquee event, boasting the star power of Oscar nominee Roy Scheider, teen heartthrob Jonathan Brandis and an extremely personable dolphin, not to mention the behind the scenes involvement of none other than Steven Spielberg. But CBS had its own ace in the hole, programming the Season 10 premiere of Murder, She Wrote at 8 p.m. with Angela Lansbury's super-sleuth Jessica Fletcher cracking a murder case in Hong Kong. Her antics abroad were followed by the TV movie Sherlock Holmes Returns — in which Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's 19th century detective re-emerges from suspended animation into early '90s San Francisco. Meanwhile, Fox kept things light and funny with its two-hour comedy block of Martin, Living Single, Married With Children and Daddy Dearest.
The Buzz
Lois & Clark premiered 15 years after Christopher Reeve made audiences believe a man could fly on the big screen. And critics appreciated that the series gave Lois equal billing alongside the Man of Steel, grounding the superhero antics in a Moonlighting-esque romance. But the pilot's super-long runtime proved a dealbreaker for some.
"The most startling special effect achieved by Lois & Clark isn’t X-ray vision or the ability to leap tall buildings in a single bound. It is that Superman has been transformed into an interesting, likable fellow." — Ken Tucker, Entertainment Weekly
"Cain, Hatcher and everyone else here strike just the right tone of playfulness. It’s the writing that sends this parody into orbit, however. Lois & Clark is a series that flies." — Howard Rosenberg, The Los Angeles Times
"This 105-minute pilot takes too long to get airborne, without having Clark don his supergarb until the last act. On the plus side, that last sequence bodes well for future episodes, assuming those anticipating the big moment haven’t tuned out already." — Brian Lowry, Variety
"How much longer can Lois fail to notice the resemblance between Clark and his invulnerable alter ego? Lois & Clark, perhaps with a bow to Maddie and Dave in Moonlighting, hints that dramatic changes in this decades-old relationship are on tap. ... Viewers, however, may not have that stamina." — John J. O'Connor, The New York Times
By the Numbers
The Man of Steel was no match for the Solver of Murders: Murder, She Wrote was the clear victor in the Sunday-night sweepstakes, regularly finishing well ahead of both SeaQuest and Lois & Clark, which never cracked the Top 50. But both freshman series showed enough signs of life that the networks stood by them despite the high costs. Renewed for a sophomore year, Lois & Clark underwent a creative overhaul that brought in more villains and turbocharged the central duo's romance. The series ultimately lasted four seasons, and ends with Lois and Clark embarking on a new adventure: parenthood.
Best Scene
After being profoundly unimpressed with Clark during his first days on the job, Lois turns up on at his Metropolis bachelor pad and gets an eyeful of his shirtless farm boy bod. Already flummoxed, she gets even more confused when she scopes out Kent's diet and discovers that his refrigerator and shelves are filled with nothing but junk food. Hatcher's reactions throughout the scene are priceless, and give this version of Lois and Clark their own distinct vibe.
On the Superman side of the equation, "making the costume" montages are always a superhero story highlight, and Lois & Clark features a great contribution to the canon with an extended sequence of Clark's mom, Martha (K Callan) subjecting him to various ill-advised spandex looks. The whole thing is scored to Bonnie Tyler's "Holding Out for a Hero" and ends with Clark rocking Superman's vintage red underwear on the outside of his pants look. "One thing's for sure — nobody's gonna be looking at your face," Martha Kent quips. You just know that's something that Martha Wayne would never say.
Worst Scene
It would be easy — too easy — to single out any scene featuring early '90s CGI effects. So instead, we'll point to the unheroic moment where Clark follows Lois home after her date with Lex Luthor and proceeds to spy on her from outside her apartment. Way to be a super-stalker, dude.
Best Quote
"Don't fall for me farm boy — I don't have time for it."
Runner-up: "It's it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's just a guy in a pair of tights and a cape."
Sign of the Times
Because this was the '90s, anything that's not a heteronormative romance gets shaded by the writers. Take Cat Grant, the Daily Planet's sex-positive gossip columnist, played by '80s bombshell Tracy Scoggins. Established as the mirror image of the work-focused Lois, Cat is repeatedly ridiculed for her cleavage-baring outfits and promiscuous after hours activities. Scoggins is basically playing a proto-Samantha Jones, but Kim Cattrall thankfully got to be celebrated instead of shamed. There's also an awkward moment where the newspaper's excitable editor Perry White (Lane Smith) finds Clark hiding in a storage closet and some strained "coming out of the closet" jokes ensue. Not great, Superman!
Parting Thoughts
As origin stories go, the Lois & Clark pilot effectively establishes what's going to set The New Adventures of Superman apart from the character's older on-screen adventures — specifically the emphasis on the workplace relationship between the title characters. In fact, the Superman-specific sequences tend to be the weak spots of the two-hour opener, all too often putting the brakes on the snappy patter between Hatcher and Cain, who are super-charming together. Finding the right balance between Lois and Clark and Lois and Superman would prove to be a challenge throughout the show's run and something that subsequent series like Smallville and Superman & Lois arguably navigated more successfully. At the time, though, this version of DC's power couple made our hearts soar.
Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman is currently streaming on Max.
