Lois Lane: Future Star Reporter? Maybe for a Tabloid!

[GHScorpiosRule]

Hated, loathed, Despised Erica Dance's "Lois", because she was SO NOT Lois Lane.

 

She grated, was obnoxious, and worst of all, a moron. It's like the show runners decided at the last minute to grace her with all the instincts of a great reporter that was never there, at the last minute. UGH. And this character had NO BUSINESS showing up in Smallville during Clark's high school and college years.

[Bitterswete]

Hated, loathed, Despised Erica Dance's "Lois", because she was SO NOT Lois Lane.

 

She grated, was obnoxious, and worst of all, a moron.

 

It was like she was a parody of Lois Lane. They started by giving her all of Lois's bad qualities (because Lois can be rude and overbearing sometimes) but left out the good ones (her drive, her determination, her need to earn the right to be called the best). And they tossed in some extra annoying qualities besides.

 

I sometimes got the feeling Lois was supposed to be SV's version of Cordelia Chase, the person who's rude, tactless and clueless, and says all of these insulting things to people that you find yourself laughing at almost in spite of yourself.

 

The problem is that the SV folks couldn't write the kinds of awesome lines Cordelia had. And Charisma Carpenter hit those lines out of the park, which I can't really say for ED. (Although that could also be blamed on the writing.) So, because I didn't think Lois's "rude and tactless" routine was funny, I just thought she was obnoxious.

Edited July 11, 2014 by Bitterswete

[BkWurm1]

Yeah, without Lois Lane being the best, her acting like she was the best when she was miles away from any kind of special made her far too easy to ridicule. What was worse was when they decided she was no longer on the show just for wacky hyjinks, they didn't back up her bluster with anything real. They just pretended she'd paid her dues.

Like when they had her reminiscing about the days when she'd beg to do an obit at the Planet when never once on the show did she ever do grunt work. Hotlines, pet obits, filing,filing,filing...Yeah, that was all Chloe.

I still fume about Lois grumbling about her journalist teacher. Teacher? Class? Hell no! That never happened.

Edited July 13, 2014 by BkWurm1

[Clawdette]

I began watching Smallville on TNT and caught the train at season 8. I finished seasons 9 & 10 and then began with season 1. My opinion of Lois greatly improved as I went along. I did not particularly care for her when I came in for the last three seasons. But when I cycled back around and caught the evolution of the character, I really liked her.

Part of this may have been a reaction to my dislike of the Lana Lang character. I hated the way she was drawn and understand the whole "Lana Lang effect" that was coined on TWOP. I thought Lois exhibited much more ingenuity and initiative than Lana and felt she was a better partner for Clark. My only quibble with their relationship is that I never felt that Clark articulated clearly to Lois that he was over Lana.

[BkWurm1]

My opinion of Lois greatly improved as I went along. I did not particularly care for her when I came in for the last three seasons. But when I cycled back around and caught the evolution of the character, I really liked her.

 

That's kind of fascinating.  I always assumed that if people came in during the late seasons when Lois had been magically gifted with qualities and habits that the character had not earned that she would be more liked than if a person had been watching from the start.  I could tell she was better written in the 10 season than any of the prior ones but by then I saw it as completely fake and not based on anything that came before. 

 

I hadn't thought of how Lana might make the now forgone conclusion of Lois look so much better by comparison. Thus is the strength of the horridness of Lana, lol. 

 

I watched from the beginning and no, was never a Lana fan but I wanted Chloe to continue in what I saw as the Lois Lane role and by comparison, Lois never impressed me but I did feel terrible for her fans with how they ended the Lana and Clark relationship.  No, they couldn't let them recognize like adults that they weren't in love with the real person, just a fantasy version.  No that would be way too mature.  Nope, they had to have Lana leave because she was literal poison to Clark.  Way to make Lois always 2nd choice.

 

Actually then the show did something I thought was worse than second choice, it made her not a choice at all.  It just had a machine from the future say he was going to be with her so in the end he just complied with destiny (when before that the whole theme of the show had been shaping your own destiny) because he was too afraid of being alone. 

 

He might as well have been alone if even within the show's universe he and Lois still couldn't be bothered to have gotten married SEVEN years after their first attempted wedding - a wedding that almost didn't happen because Lois decided that Clark was a god and he shouldn't waste his time on something like love proving to me at least that she didn't know him AT ALL.  It was salt in the wound when they had Chloe have to explain it to her.  Ugh.    So maddening. 

 

And what was that hug between Clark and Chloe at the halfway point at the finale.  Not only did Oliver look outright jealous, Clark then just leaves his mom and Lois without a world and goes to brood in the barn, lost and afraid now that CHLOE had left.  Toss in the earlier symbolism of CHloe saving his life by stopping his wedding and the finale was a microcosm of why I was confused and mislead during the whole series run. 

 

OH show, why are you still messing with my mind??

Edited July 23, 2014 by BkWurm1

[Flyingwoman]

 

I sometimes got the feeling Lois was supposed to be SV's version of Cordelia Chase, the person who's rude, tactless and clueless, and says all of these insulting things to people that you find yourself laughing at almost in spite of yourself.

 

The problem is that the SV folks couldn't write the kinds of awesome lines Cordelia had. And Charisma Carpenter hit those lines out of the park, which I can't really say for ED. (Although that could also be blamed on the writing.) So, because I didn't think Lois's "rude and tactless" routine was funny, I just thought she was obnoxious.

Interesting. I thought she was more the show's Anya: older than the other Scoobies, but not necessarily more mature, she'd seen something of the world - but you still couldn't take her anywhere without something artless and tactless falling out of her mouth. The key being the artlessness: her blunt lack of tact was closer cousin to Anya's relentless sincerity than to Cordelia's mean-girl barbs, in my opinion.

And I didn't think that was a bad thing. Honesty - as opposed to bitch-iness - can be fun if you're not on the receiving end of it, and since I never thought we were supposed to take either character particularly seriously, I mostly just sat back and enjoyed the awkwardness.

As to what happened later, that's another story. I thought Cordelia managed to mature while still retaining her materialism and entitlement, which made her development seem very real. Anya struggled to learn what real connection to others meant. Lois, on the other hand... Would an Anya bestowed with Willow's sweetness and Angel's sense of guilt and responsibility still be Anya? And would she have made a good love interest for Buffy if she had? I felt as if Lois didn't mature so much as she morphed into another person, one with Chloe's drive and Lana's early season innocence/purity, in order to fulfill a mandate. It made me miss the obnoxious girl who barreled in without knocking and drank straight from the carton.

[Bitterswete]

And I didn't think that was a bad thing. Honesty - as opposed to bitch-iness - can be fun if you're not on the receiving end of it, and since I never thought we were supposed to take either character particularly seriously, I mostly just sat back and enjoyed the awkwardness.

 

The problem for me was that the audience was supposed to find Lois being rude and tactless highly amusing. But, to me, it just wasn't.

 

Anya was hilarious. So even as I winced over whatever came out of her mouth, I was usually laughing too. And I think they reached a point where Anya being so clueless stopped making sense. But it was still funny. 

 

Same with Cordelia. Yes, she was bitchy and even downright mean sometimes. But the stuff she said was so funny that I often found myself laughing in spite of myself.

 

Lois's antics were not funny. So, since the stuff she said and did wasn't making me laugh, I tended to focus on the fact that she was being rude, or obnoxious, or a moron.

 

I'd also add that I don't think Lois's rude and tactless behavior was supposed to be about cluelessness, which implies that she just didn't know she was being rude or tactless. Lois knew. But because she was so brash and aggressive (which are traits many version of the character have), she just didn't care if others thought she was being rude, pushy, impolite, etc.

 

 

[Flyingwoman]

The problem for me was that the audience was supposed to find Lois being rude and tactless highly amusing. But, to me, it just wasn't.

Anya was hilarious. So even as I winced over whatever came out of her mouth, I was usually laughing too. And I think they reached a point where Anya being so clueless stopped making sense. But it was still funny.

Same with Cordelia. Yes, she was bitchy and even downright mean sometimes. But the stuff she said was so funny that I often found myself laughing in spite of myself.

Lois's antics were not funny. So, since the stuff she said and did wasn't making me laugh, I tended to focus on the fact that she was being rude, or obnoxious, or a moron.

I'd also add that I don't think Lois's rude and tactless behavior was supposed to be about cluelessness, which implies that she just didn't know she was being rude or tactless. Lois knew. But because she was so brash and aggressive (which are traits many version of the character have), she just didn't care if others thought she was being rude, pushy, impolite, etc.

Oh, granted, Lois' shtick was seldom laugh-out-loud funny on the way that Whedon's characters were. And yes, she could be deliberately snide(a thought on that below), but I can't help but think that if a young Cordelia Chase had been transported through time and space to Smallville, she would have eaten Lois alive. Lois didn't have the ambition, the smarts, or the instincts to keep up with someone like that (Tess, for instance).

As for deliberateness, clueless vs mean, most of her really obnoxious behavior was directed at Clark, which I don't believe the show ever really explained. Whatever the in show reason for it, it came across for me in at least two cases as Jerkass Has A Point*: when Clark decided to date a the patricidal girl who rufied him into marrying her (and as I say this as someone for whom Clalicia was a cute couple and a welcome relief from Clana), and when she was predicting a boring life life with Lana for him after graduation if he. I know the last was supposed to be ironic, but also, with Clark's attitude at the time, also kinda echoed the sense I was developing that this version of Clark Kent really was going nowhere.

I get that may not be enough to redeem her for everyone, though; two comments aren't much. I still enjoyed the character more in her rudeness than I ever did when they re-wrote her to be an acceptable love interest.

*to which tv tropes page I would link if I knew how

Edited August 30, 2014 by Flyingwoman

[BkWurm1]

Lois didn't have the ambition, the smarts, or the instincts to keep up with someone like that (Tess, for instance).

 

So true it hurts and it still breaks my heart just a little bit.  This was supposed to be Lois Lane. She was supposed to be so awesome that the most amazing man on the planet fell hopelessly in love with her. 

 

Honestly, if she had been any other character, her "wacky" comic relief stuff wouldn't have been a problem.  I've read many fan fics where they capture how Lois acts in the show just spot on and I kind of love her - but only because she's not being forced into becoming the iconic expectations of Lois.  I liked her brash, protective affection she had for her favorite cousin.  Her habit of saying the wrong thing and being absolutely clueless is funny when no one is pretending she's a brilliant world respected reporter.  It's great fun when she treats Clark like her slow little brother but to turn It around and make them a romantic couple, it was just ick, ick, ick.   

 

Most people agree that she started out in her first episode and even the second one as a not badly written character.   She had a reason for treating Clark like a brain damaged wasko and she had a purpose, finding out what happened to her cousin.  Even her father the General had a reason to be mentioned.  But by even by the end of her second episode, they dumb her down and she can't even manage to finish high school and they didn't even bother to come up with a good reason why.  She just didn't show up enough?  Everything was down hill  from there. 

[Gwen-Stacys]

I watched Smallville from beginning to end and am willing to be in the minority (on this board) and say that I loved Erica Durance's Lois. She brought a different energy to the show in season 4, a freshness that it needed because it was starting to feel very stale. She was blunt and sarcastic and headstrong, shrill and buzzing-gnat-esque annoying...that's how I remember Lois being in the comics, just on a lesser note. They showed from the beginning that she had great investigative instincts in that she often showed up to the scene of a crime/on-going crime before Chloe and Clark without even a modicum of situational insight that they had. She could defend herself if it came down to it (accurate to new comic Lois who is trained in Martial Arts), but because of her lack of insight, she was always in over her head.
 

Was she perfect? No! But no one on Smallville was perfect. Clark was mopey and judgmental, Chloe was intrusive, judgmental, and big brother-ish, Lana was Lana-sue (though I loved KK), Jimmy wasn't really Jimmy and I could go on and on.
 

I never subscribed to the Chlois theory, to be honest. I didn't even know it was a thing until I got a livejournal during season 6 or 7. I don't know, I just never got a Lois Lane feel from Chloe, and when she mentioned that Lois Lane was her cousin (in season 2 or 3?), I took that to be a shout out to a character that they weren't allowed to have at the time. Plus, the fan boys might've rioted if they changed Lois Lane that much.
 

It really surprised me that there were that many Lois-haters when I got involved in the fandom and that they were so vehement about it. I mean, Erica was only meant to have a 4 episode arc, but was brought on as a regular because they'd gotten so much positive feedback. But I guess to each their own. I loved Lois. I liked her relationship with Clark and thought that she fit him in a way that none of his other girlfriends did. She told him off when she should've; she treated him like a regular human with real faults; she surprised him; she pushed him; and she made him laugh/smile. I thought they were cute.

[Bitterswete]

She was blunt and sarcastic and headstrong, shrill and buzzing-gnat-esque annoying...that's how I remember Lois being in the comics, just on a lesser note.

 

My problem wasn't with SV!Lois having negative traits because, as you pointed out, other versions of the character had them, too. Lois from Lois & Clark, for example, could be just as headstrong, sarcastic, rude, etc. But, to me, that worked for L&C's version of Lois in a way it just didn't on Smallville.

 

Was she perfect? No! But no one on Smallville was perfect.

 

Perfection isn't what makes me like a character, and a character having flaws isn't what keeps them from working for me. In fact, some of my favorite characters are deeply flawed. So Lois not being perfect wasn't a problem. It was just that something about the way character as written on SV! just didn't work for me.

 

I never subscribed to the Chlois theory, to be honest.

 

Neither did I. But I actually think a lot of that theory came from Chloe fans who were afraid that, since she wasn't a canon character, she was more likely to be killed off at some point. But if she was somehow Lois, the writers couldn't kill her off.

 

But while I never thought Chloe was Lois, I did buy her more as the dedicated journalist Lois is in the comics. With SV!Lois, I just didn't buy it, even when they were suddenly telling me she was, and trying to retcon how she actually became a reporter.

 

It really surprised me that there were that many Lois-haters when I got involved in the fandom and that they were so vehement about it. I mean, Erica was only meant to have a 4 episode arc, but was brought on as a regular because they'd gotten so much positive feedback.

 

That actually happened with SV a few times. Kara/Supergirl being the perfect example. At first viewers loved her, wanted her on the show more, and were even hoping she'd get a spinoff. But SV ended up making her so boring that interest in the character even being on SV (let alone getting her own show) pretty much faded.

 

That happened with me with Lois. At first, I actually thought she was great. But the longer she was on the show, the more that "she's great" feeling faded.

Edited September 5, 2014 by Bitterswete

[DigitalCount]

But while I never thought Chloe was Lois, I did buy her more as the dedicated journalist Lois is in the comics. With SV!Lois, I just didn't buy it, even when they were suddenly telling me she was, and trying to retcon how she actually became a reporter.

THE RETCONS. My goodness. They actually had Jimmy say the line that he'd been in EDLois' shadow ever since arriving at the DP, this despite Jimmy interning there since S2 and working there since at least S6. Did Lois use the Legion Ring to go back in time too far between S8 and S9? Get it together, Smallville, yikes.

Edited September 8, 2014 by DigitalCount

[BkWurm1]

My problem wasn't with SV!Lois having negative traits because, as you pointed out, other versions of the character had them, too. Lois from Lois & Clark, for example, could be just as headstrong, sarcastic, rude, etc. But, to me, that worked for L&C's version of Lois in a way it just didn't on Smallville

 

 

The reason why THLois worked in L&C is because her character being rude, sarcastic and having a tremendously high opinion of herself came with the context of Lois having worked her ass off to get where she was.  She'd proved she was the best and until Clark proved himself, she resented being saddled with someone with so little experience.  Also important to remember is THLois stopped being terrible to Clark very quickly.  By the end of the first year, he was her best friend, someone she couldn't imagine not seeing or taking to each day. 

 

On the other hand, EDLois only had any context for her sarcasm and elevated opinion of herself the first episode when she thought she was dealing with a brain damaged Kal.  After that she became the ignorant, unambitious, pest that put down Clark because it amused her but no real relationship was ever developed.  Even two seasons later in 6 when Clark and Olive and Lois were supposed to be hanging out together it felt weird and out of place because he and Lois didn't have that kind of friendly relationship.  Evenentually the show stopped worrying about showing growth and just started making outrageous statements that came out of no where and where IMO based on nothing ("Sometimes I think you know me best of all"  WTH!!!!!?????)  That's not even touching on the joke that her path to journalism took.  The show treated her as a joke or worse so it's no wonder I never saw her as anything else. 

 

I think because of the lack of context that came with EDLois, I think that is why I eventually saw her as phony and a joke and it went from there to a massive  retcon for the final two seasons, first with her "skills" as a reporter (and her journey - no you never worked in classifieds or did the pet obits or have a journalism teacher even) and then later with her character even wanting to be in a relationship with who Clark really was.  I still have rage issues about the fakeness of it all..

[BkWurm1]

I liked her relationship with Clark and thought that she fit him in a way that none of his other girlfriends did. She told him off when she should've; she treated him like a regular human with real faults; she surprised him; she pushed him; and she made him laugh/smile

 

And I would say this applied to Chloe.  People sometimes tried to say that Chloe held Clark up on a god like pedestal but only Lois actually thought of him as a god and even in the final episode, it took Chloe to explain it to Lois that Clark needed human contact.  Insert head shake. 

[BkWurm1]

Because in action/superhero flicks, the (male) protagonist's main romantic interest almost always ends up being the woman he fights with or next to on screen, regardless of who he started with.

 

I read this quote over from a thread in the Arrow forum but It reminded me of one of my big frustrations with Smallville. 

 

I can remember a time with I thought TPTB naturally were going to have to go Chlois since it was Chloe that had been fighting at Clark's side since the inception of the series (and by at his side I mean up until the point where the super stuff kicked in and even than sometimes).  Then season 8 and 9 practically destroyed that relationship both working and personal. 

 

The show as of season 9 tried really hard to push Clark and Lois together but at the same time it also worked very hard not to let her in on the secret.  Clark might have been treating Chloe like the hired help, but he still went to her for his information rather than Lois.  Sometime he accidentally stumbled into stuff from her but he made it a point NOT to include her in his hero work except for the occasional phone call. 

 

In season ten, Lois also remained apart from most story lines.  Tess is actually brought in to work with Clark. Even after Clark "lets" Lois in on his secret (which only happens cause once murderous machine told him he should) he still doesn't let her in on the details of his side life. 

 

There's an episode where Lois finds something out that she thinks Clark should know but she realizes she doesn't know how to find him and jumps through all these hoops to deliver the message only to find out Tess (who she didn't even know about being part of the gang) had already delivered the message.

 

And the part that really 'effed with my mind, the show decides to sell this as a good thing. 

 

Clark you go do your hero thing, and I'll stay in my corner and do my thing certain that there's nothing I could do to help.  ??  Again, this was presented as a positive part of their relationship that Lois would know about Clark's work but not care to get involved unless it couldn't be avoided.

 

Later there was an episode where Oliver and Clark went into the Phantom Zone for some rumble with Zod (I skimmed the episode) and though they are trapped and there is real concern about keeping the gate open, Lois's only contribution to the problem is making sure the gate is not closed.  Otherwise she just goes on with her life blindly assuming he'll figure out how to save himself.

 

I'm fine with Clark being competent on his own but the degree of Lois's lack of concern seemed to echo her severe misunderstanding that Clark was some kind of god and that petty human relationships were a waste of his time.  Her belief in Clark seemed to not be based on actually understanding the risks Clark took or even the understanding that he could and in the past frequently did fail. 

 

Again, the show seemed to see all of this as some kind of positive, like it was a good thing that Lois was fine just doing her own thing and hearing about Clark's day later on. 

 

It's at such odds from Clark saying all he's wanted is to have that partner working side by side with him like his parents had.  It's also a huge departure from Lois knowing in her soul that she would never find happiness unless she could be the priority in her man's life - no matter the reason. 

 

It just seems to me that that neither Lois or Clark got the kind of relationship that they really needed and in what was supposed to be the telling of one of fictions best love stories, well that's really sad. 

[Flyingwoman]

And the part that really 'effed with my mind, the show decides to sell this as a good thing.

Clark you go do your hero thing, and I'll stay in my corner and do my thing certain that there's nothing I could do to help. ?? Again, this was presented as a positive part of their relationship that Lois would know about Clark's work but not care to get involved unless it couldn't be avoided.

I'm fine with Clark being competent on his own but the degree of Lois's lack of concern seemed to echo her severe misunderstanding that Clark was some kind of god and that petty human relationships were a waste of his time. Her belief in Clark seemed to not be based on actually understanding the risks Clark took or even the understanding that he could and in the past frequently did fail.

Again, the show seemed to see all of this as some kind of positive, like it was a good thing that Lois was fine just doing her own thing and hearing about Clark's day later on.

It's at such odds from Clark saying all he's wanted is to have that partner working side by side with him like his parents had. It's also a huge departure from Lois knowing in her soul that she would never find happiness unless she could be the priority in her man's life - no matter the reason.

It just seems to me that that neither Lois or Clark got the kind of relationship that they really needed and in what was supposed to be the telling of one of fictions best love stories, well that's really sad.

Yeah... I had on a big fat rant on a similar vein over on The Other Site round about season 9. It seemed creepy that the show was so determined to keep Lois out of the know. My theory then was that she would not learn The Secret until the finale, because knowing it would involve her, and involving her would taint her somehow.

First part turned out to be wrong, but I still stand by the second part. I agree that it seemed as if the show very carefully kept her separate from the messiness of Clark's business both before and after she learned. For one thing, if she didn't know Davis was capable of destroying all life on the planet or that Clark had destroyed the towers then she couldn't be asked to choose a side or voice an opinion. For another, if she were to become too involved, she might, like the women who came before her in Clark's life, have developed an agenda of her own. That would never do. Above all, said the show to me, Clark must never be with someone who had her own ideas about the way things should be run. He should only be with someone for whom all other considerations were secondary. Thus to me it eventually made perfect sense that this Lois would be this Clark's soul mate, because being loved was her greatest desire and the only story for her they had to tell.

This is why I find the Lois who barges in and drinks out of the carton from seasons 4 through 6 preferable to the Lois who wants someone important to love her, like her boss or The Blur ( or Clark, once he became sophisticated and started wearing a suit). All of the major conflicts she grappled with from Season 7 on had to do with finding love of some kind, because that was the only source of motivation she had as a character. (I'm discounting her success as a reporter because that process was not important enough to her for the writers to show it on screen.) That was what drove her. Not revenge or lust for power or truth or justice or protecting Clark or protecting the planet or crafting an identity for herself separate from her father's machinations or finding connection in spite of her otherness or any of the other things that were shown to motivate the rest of the characters on the show. What Lois had was the desire to be loved.

Now granted, wanting love is probably a better master than revenge or a desire for power, but very few people are defined solely by one thing. Clark's other great love, Lana, wanted revenge and power, but also safety, the truth, to define herself rather than being defined. She also wanted love, but ultimately she lost out on a life with Clark because other motivations (her desire to steal the suit and, I guess, try to do some good in the world thereby) got in the way. The same, I think, is true for Chloe; she wanted love, but she also wanted to save the world. But for both of them, it was apparently too much. Multiplicity of motivation is a detriment, especially if it leads one to question Clark or remind him that he shouldn't kill people or condemn them to Kryptonian hell. If one wants the love of Clark Kent, one needs to be single minded in loving him, trusting him implicitly, and willing to swallow whatever bullshit he shovels out. That single-mindedness was what Lana and Chloe both ultimately lacked. But that is exactly the story they had been building for Lois.

Needless to say, I don't think the show did itself, or Lois , any favors by going this route. I was never wrapped up in the character, but as mentioned earlier, I did like her early on. At least in the first few seasons she was on the show she threw herself with gusto and gauche into whatever aimless adventure the universe brought her way. However, once she got the job at the DP, that part of her seemed ... not absent, but much less prominent. Again, we seldom if ever saw her struggle on the job, so the only conflict with which we could agonize with her was her desire to be important to someone. To do that however, the only thing that could be important to her - important enough to how she saw herself and the person she wanted to be - in other words, important enough to develop into a two-year story arc - were her relationships with Clark and The Blur. That was the woman Clark supposedly needed, so that was the woman she would be.

And that, I think, was kind of a shame.

Edited for typos! So many typos...

Edited September 26, 2014 by Flyingwoman

[BkWurm1]

This is why I find the Lois who barges in and drinks out of the carton from seasons 4 through 6 preferable to the Lois who wants someone important to love her, like her boss or The Blur, or ( or Clark, once he became sophisticated and started wearing a suit).

 

This is painfully true but at the same time, the reason why she so desperately wants to be loved is because he father never could give her the kind of secure love that she wanted or needed.  He may have loved her but her needs never could come first over his other responsibilities and while that reasoning then supports perhaps an over the top desire to find some kind of super special love, it remains the direct opposite of what she ended up going after and the direct opposite of what she wanted.

 

Her cheerful disconnect from Clark's world makes me view her whole relationship with Clark as some prize she thinks she won by keeping it shallow enough not to be a complication in his life.  

 

It would be one thing if they'd shown that Clark had evolved to the point of not needing the same kind of support he'd always had but right down to the last episode he still needed the same kind of help and still needed someone to save him before he could save everyone else.  Lois is not that person.

 

Her best qualities seems to be she comes with less baggage, thinks Clark is a god,  and came with a guarantee  that she wasn't going to blab about his secret .     

 

At least in the first few seasons she was on the show shethrew herself with gusto and gauche into whatever aimless adventure the universe brought her way.

 

The Lois in the final season was a completely different character.  She became passive and pliable and the bestest little woman just sitting at home waiting for that guy who's soooo much her superior that she'd never dream of questioning him.  

 

Maybe that's that ultimate male fantasy.  To be placed on a pedestal and nearly worshipped. 

 

That might be great on the ego but in the long run it places a terrible burden on Clark to keep up that pretense of perfection, to never be able to lean on someone else, and to feel like failure is never an option. 

[Flyingwoman]

This is painfully true but at the same time, the reason why she so desperately wants to be loved is because he father never could give her the kind of secure love that she wanted or needed.  He may have loved her but her needs never could come first over his other responsibilities and while that reasoning then supports perhaps an over the top desire to find some kind of super special love, it remains the direct opposite of what she ended up going after and the direct opposite of what she wanted.

 

Her cheerful disconnect from Clark's world makes me view her whole relationship with Clark as some prize she thinks she won by keeping it shallow enough not to be a complication in his life.  

 

It would be one thing if they'd shown that Clark had evolved to the point of not needing the same kind of support he'd always had but right down to the last episode he still needed the same kind of help and still needed someone to save him before he could save everyone else.  Lois is not that person.

 

Her best qualities seems to be she comes with less baggage, thinks Clark is a god,  and came with a guarantee  that she wasn't going to blab about his secret .     

 

The Lois in the final season was a completely different character.  She became passive and pliable and the bestest little woman just sitting at home waiting for that guy who's soooo much her superior that she'd never dream of questioning him.  

 

Maybe that's that ultimate male fantasy.  To be placed on a pedestal and nearly worshipped. 

 

That might be great on the ego but in the long run it places a terrible burden on Clark to keep up that pretense of perfection, to never be able to lean on someone else, and to feel like failure is never an option.

Replied in the Clark thread.

[loveigniting]

And this character had NO BUSINESS showing up in Smallville during Clark's high school and college years.

 

 

Kind of like Lex and Oliver and Chloe, too, then? None of them should have been anywhere on this show in Clark's teen years and Chloe should never have existed. The qualities that she had that a lot of people define her by (her teen journalism days, her unrequited love for Clark, even her darker edge) were stolen from comics!Lana. Lana on the show is mostly an amalgamation that didn't really exist before Smallville. Lois is the second oldest character in the story (6 pages behind Clark) and if she doesn't belong there, the aforementioned characters definitely don't belong. 

 

I loved Lois. I didn't love everything they did with her, but I loved her. Majority of comic book fans and writers who have an opinion about Smallville say, and I agree, that Erica's Lois was the closest to comics!Lois, yes, even some of the comic relief stuff. She's a hard to like, divisive, flawed character, especially when the hard shell is all we see. 

 

I didn't like her entry into journalism or her lack of ambition in the beginning, but it didn't hugely bother me. Part of the way Lois has been defined in the mainstream was copied for another placeholder character and DC had restrictions on when she was allowed to move through her paces to become the . Besides, working at a high school newspaper isn't the be all and end all of how career journeys start, nor is it indicative of certain future in journalism, and eventually Lois did work to get to where she needed to be. She didn't sit at a computer and google, which has never been how Lois Lane traditionally investigates. Lois went out and jumped completely into the fray. 

 

As for her entry into journalism, Perry came on the show and a tractor falling out of the sky led to his revitalization. He was also working for a tabloid show. Lois followed a similar trajectory so the double standards are hilarious to me and will never stop being hilarious and transparent. I didn't mind that she didn't go to college. Neither did anyone on this show - there was some rando line about Chloe taking night classes (lol ok which we never saw and ever heard about again and I'm going to dismiss that the same way people dismiss Lois having taken journalism classes)  and I'm usually side-eying people who act elitist about the importance and merit of a college education especially in this day and age. 

 

I hated her Grant storyline - Teri's Lois also had an affair at work, but I didn't like that either. I loved that Lois never killed anyone nor advocated murder. Literally the only character on the show (excepting maybe Martha & Jonathan though Reckoning exists) with that strange distinction but oddly fitting. Comics writers say that Lois is eternally consistent in her morality and she is and she was on Smallville.

 

Mostly, I loved Lois casually but the fandom and its double standards towards The One Acceptable Female Character (usually an everywoman white geek girl) versus every other female character somehow in competition for a place and sometimes a man, its misogyny, and its slutshaming (towards the character and the actress) made me strident in my love for the character. Never ever here for the basic transparent mess of the Smallville fandom. People act/acted as if Lois Lane was a title that someone could earn. Lol no son. 

 

 

And I would say this applied to Chloe.  People sometimes tried to say that Chloe held Clark up on a god like pedestal but only Lois actually thought of him as a god and even in the final episode, it took Chloe to explain it to Lois that Clark needed human contact.  Insert head shake.

 

 

Chloe told Clark that he should kill Lex and she justified it by calling him a god. She implied that he was godlike enough to be beyond the rules of human morality such as murder. She justified people maybe killing to protect Clark and compared his situation to how God (capital letter intentional) must have felt during the crusades. In 9x01, Clark told Chloe that he wasn't a god when she asked him to go back and save Jimmy. Now, she didn't explicitly say it, but Clark reacted like she did. So, according to this vein of thinking, Chloe did see Clark as a god too.

 

Here's two of the aforementioned examples:

 

Both from 7x19:

 

Clark: What do you want me to do, Chloe? Kill him? If I do that, I'd just be turning into him myself.

Chloe: Whether you like being on this pedestal or not, you were put in this position. And someday, you're gonna have to play god.

 

Clark: Chloe, the person who did this may have kidnapped Lex.

Chloe: If they did, they only did it to save you. 

Clark: That's the last thing I need ... someone going around killing people in my name.

Chloe: That's probably how god felt about the crusades.

 

And even while Lois talked about Clark's godlike caliber during their door scene in the finale, she very clearly mentioned he had baggage he came with. I didn't see that as awful. She didn't compare Clark to God (capital letters intentional) and try to justify murderous actions people were doing to protect Clark. She didn't tell him to kill anyone or expect him to kill anyone because he's God and beyond the constraints of human morality.

 

In a manner, Clark is of godlike caliber - he's a man with such great powers and he uses it for good. That doesn't mean Lois worshipped him as God. She was softer during their relationship in the latter half of S10 (there were two episodes that felt pretty off to me but typically Lois is softer around Clark than anyone else) but she didn't do everything he wanted.  She didn't expect him to be beyond rules of human morality. And, she only changed her mind in the finale when her insecurities were allayed and she was convinced it was the right thing to do. 

 

Lois in the conversation with Chloe, in the same way as Chloe in Savior, doesn't imply godhood but she goes on about her own insecurities. I found it understandable but misguided. And, she certainly didn't say Clark should disavow all human contact, but that she didn't want to be the reason why someone died or someone got hurt. After walking in Clark's shoes, she had a clearer idea of what he heard everyday.  I found it hilarious that Chloe jumped to the 'he's not a god' line of thought though because of the way she acted towards him for years and the way she behaved in s9 after their distance, as if her god had turned his back on her. I wonder when she came around to the idea that Clark doesn't just need to be a distant Kryptonian savior (which she supported and pushed in early s9) because we never saw that. Maybe she saw it when she put on Fate's helmet on something. Anyways, in the end, it was Clark's words and their talk that convinced Lois, not Chloe's explanations (tho it was all just a way to create drama for the episode)

 

Tbh, this show and Superman mythology in general go overboard with the god allusions, especially the Jesus ones, even when it's justified.  

 

This is getting to be shipper talk and lmao I remember the other site too and the environment there so I'm gonna leave it because it's not worth it. The show's over. I would have made different choices with Lois sometimes but, for the most part, I adored her. I adored her in early seasons a lot when we didn't see behind the facade and I loved her a lot in the latter seasons when we saw behind the mask Lois put up. Comics writer Kurt Busiek had a quote about Lois masking a warm heart and so did Dean Cain IIRC - I think the latter said that the hard shell Lois puts up early on isn't who she is underneath and I agree with that for all Lois(es) and for Erica's Lois as well.

Edited March 20, 2015 by loveigniting

[BkWurm1]

Perry came on the show and a tractor falling out of the sky led to his revitalization. He was also working for a tabloid show. Lois followed a similar trajectory so the double standards are hilarious to me and will never stop being hilarious and transparent.

 

No, Perry was first a highly respected journalist that had built up such a name for himself that a high school editor thought of him as her hero.  He then had a huge story on Lionel Luthor who then through intimidation and other underhanded means cowed him into dropping his story and in being so disillusioned and ashamed, he fell into a bottle and turned to tabloid journalism, something he held in such contempt he could only stomach it completely blitzed out of his mind.   He stopped drinking and got his act together not because a tractor fell out of the sky but because he woke up to the fact that he put a good kid’s life in danger because he was such a drunk and that in this kid, he saw courage and true goodness. 

 

 

Lois on the other hand sought out the tabloids and until she ran into the reality of nobody believing her because she had chosen to write for a garbage rag, preferred and valued the Inquizitor over the Planet.  Perry earned his place then butted heads with the Luthors and had to fight his way back to reclaim his good name  in the biz.  His story mirrors Chloe’s more than it does Lois’s

Chloe told Clark that he should kill Lex and she justified it by calling him a god. She implied that he was godlike enough to be beyond the rules of human morality such as murder. She justified people maybe killing to protect Clark and compared his situation to how God (capital letter intentional) must have felt during the crusades. In 9x01, Clark told Chloe that he wasn't a god when she asked him to go back and save Jimmy. Now, she didn't explicitly say it, but Clark reacted like she did. So, according to this vein of thinking, Chloe did see Clark as a god too.

 

Here's two of the aforementioned examples:

 

Clark: What do you want me to do, Chloe? Kill him? If I do that, I'd just be turning into him myself.

Chloe: Whether you like being on this pedestal or not, you were put in this position. [by others like Tiege] And someday, you're gonna have to play god.

 

Clark: Chloe, the person who did this may have kidnapped Lex.

Chloe: If they did, they only did it to save you.

Clark: That's the last thing I need ... someone going around killing people in my name.

Chloe: That's probably how god felt about the crusades.

 

Thank you for providing the quotes.  Having the power to make life and death choices is playing god and Clark had such power and what was he doing in 7-19 while Lex was closing in on a way to control him and his powers?  He was mooning over a girl in a coma. She wasn’t telling him to kill Lex, she was telling him to get off his duff and do something about this potentially world ruining event.  She’s telling him to face reality and not stick his head in the sand which he didn’t do which led to Lex stripping him of his powers and led to Doomsday showing up and the Kandorians and eventually Darkseide and if he’d just actually been proactive and worked on the problem of Lex findign the orb, he could have stopped all the death and destruction they caused.  Instead by sitting on his but, he played god and did nothing. 

 

As for “probably how god felt” it was a metaphor for people doing terrible things in your name.  A metaphor is an example, a way of relating, not an accusation of being. 

 

The thing is in Fortune, Lois flat out says to Oliver that Clark is a god. [And Oliver agrees] Maybe not the god, but she thinks of him as a god and after living a day in his life decides that he doesn’t have time for pesky non god like things in his life like love or friends or any kind of a life of his own.  She and Chloe understand his power but Chloe understood the man and his foibles and needs – always had while Lois saw this perfect guy she couldn’t measure up to. 

 

I was thrilled for my Chlarky little heart when the show went there but on behalf of ALL the other Lois Lanes that I actually did and do continue to love, I was incensed.  The show made me need to reject ED’s Lois as a counterfeit Lois in order to protect my love for the other Lois’s past and future. 

 

 

 

I wonder when she came around to the idea that Clark doesn't just need to be a distant Kryptonian savior (which she supported and pushed in early s9) because we never saw that

 

 

Chloe didn’t push Clark away and tell him to be a distant Kryptonian savior.  She told him she needed him but he abandoned her and then dropped his humanity on the basis of what a kryptonian monster did.  Then when he surfaced months later she wanted him to undo the horrible thing that had happened and he wouldn’t and she was mad at him for being a hypocrite (cause he was willing to play god to benefit himself before) and yet she still didn’t abandon him even though they were fighting and he treated her like a minion for most of the season and it took Waller to get it through his thick skull what an asshat he had been and he admitted it to her and eventually said she was right about Watchtower and pretty much everything - not that he ever said as much to anyone else.  He froze her out but she still kept after him to do the right thing (like stop the towers that would have let Zod take over the world)  and was heartbroken any time he was in danger or when it seemed he would have to leave.

Edited March 21, 2015 by BkWurm1

[BkWurm1]

By season 9 & 10 I found the writers were writing for a different show.  On that show Clark was suddenly so in love with Lois that he would turn his back on the rest of his friends and family and let the word fall apart, only to find the will to do anything or accept help when she was back in his life.  I never watched that show.  I heard about it in that episode but the origin of these "feelings" didn't come from the prior 8 years of the show. 

 

This was the new show where she had a journalism teacher as a nemesis and did obits and classifieds - something no, she never did at the Planet, that was Chloe. 

 

The retcons were immeasurably painful but I think what I hated most was that in the end, despite Clark having said all through the series that what he wants is someone that can accept him for who he is and have that person to work with and share his life, we saw in season 10 that Lois didn't much care to get involved with the heroing stuff he did.  He could tell her or not, in fact she'd rather concentrate on her own career.  Seven years into the future she pretends at work not to even know him so she's not even sharing work with him in that way.  And last we saw she still had to be informed and persuaded by her cousin how she was suppose to see Clark and deep down she thought sharing her life with him was unimportant.

 

Of course Lois gets shafted too since all she's wanted is to know she comes first in the man she loves life and yeah, that's not happening - that's an awfully long engagement dearie. 

Edited March 21, 2015 by BkWurm1

[SteveS]

Erica did an amazing job portraying Lois Lane! Right from the start, coming to Smallville fighting for truth & justice for her cousin, throughout the seven seasons to becoming the star reporter & Clark's companion Forever!

Even with the restrictions on journalism & her romance with Clark, she still was shown investigating in most episodes & the attraction between them from the start. The very first episode she was in, Clark stopped her & just had to find out who she was. He was drawn to her. Anyone else, he would have flown off. She was attracted to him at first sight as well. The second episode, he was eyeballing her up & down when he was in the shower. Lana saw their connection right away & the dunk tank scene Chloe saw it too.

Lois investigating what was thought to be Chloe's murder was such a brave thing to do & she found her & saved Clark at the same time. Her first article for the Torch she connected with the readers & even received fan mail. Four years at the Torch neither Clark nor Chloe were ever shown to have gotten fan mail. Lois has a natural talent as an investigative journalist.

In the finale, they weren't hiding their relationship. Co-workers were at their wedding & talk of Oliver Queen going psycho & everyone having to evacuate the church was no doubt gossip around the DP, and she wears her engagement ring. Lois told Clark he could stop with the bumbling reporter act because no one was looking. They were hiding Clark being Superman. Clark & Lois chose to have a Christian ceremony, so in the eyes of God & their eyes they were married that day, they are just going to finalize it for the state with the rings. They have been & will continue to live the vows they took that day. They have been living together since the Abandoned episode. So, no idea what that last statement of "that's an awfully long engagement dearie " is supposed to mean. They are still madly in love with each other & the responsibility of becoming the star reporter & saving the world as Superman, has interrupted getting the rings finalized, but that's a very Lois & Clark thing!

Once the restrictions were lifted, her career & relationship with Clark took off. Clark's attraction to Lois to becoming friends & falling madly in love with her was the best part of the show for me, along with him maturing into Superman. Well done Tom & Erica!

[BkWurm1]

I'll save my longer reply when I'm on a better device but they did not get married in the church. The ceremony was not completed therefore the church would not have recognized a marriage. No one viewed them as married. And they were shown not to have gotten around to it in the next seven years which usually is a sign of a bigger problem in a relationship. In that scene they are pretending not to be together. She's scolding him before she sees no ones looking. Something I also saw as not encouraging.

[BkWurm1]

Even with the restrictions on journalism & her romance with Clark, she still was shown investigating in most episodes

 

 

Most episodes?  I'll concede that she was doing some investigation when she was looking in to Chloe's death but most of her characterization from those two intro episodes was dropped like a hot potato.  She tried to investigate after Chloe insisted she join the Torch (did one story) but had to be rescued and until her Barndoor Awakening, she was mostly comic relief as she dated and drank and peddled muffins.  She exchanged muffin peddler for campaign manager and then played video games and dated while she worked for Mrs. Kent.  

The very first episode she was in, Clark stopped her & just had to find out who she was. He was drawn to her.

 

 

 

 

That's not what happened on my screen.  He was standing butt naked in the middle of the road - just released and still walking around in a complacent daze when she hit him with her car.  He followed her orders to do things in the same way that he then followed his mother's orders until he heard that signal and  flew away.  Nothing indicated he was drawn to Lois.  Later when she invaded his shower he looked her up and down in horror.  Again, that was her early intro.  By the time Krypto rolled around he thought of her like his sister and enjoyed when she slipped in poop.  Until the original show runners were forced out, Clark and Lois's relationship was one of tolerant and teasing siblings. 

 

I recall when suddenly the gears shifted and they were supposed to be love interests even Tom Welling wondered when that happened. 

 

Four years at the Torch neither Clark nor Chloe were ever shown to have gotten fan mail.

 

Chloe got death threats.  That beats fan mail in my book. 

 

Once the restrictions were lifted, her career & relationship with Clark took off

 

Also known as what happened when the creators and guiding force behind the show left.  Their vision for Smallville left with them.  The replacements threw away what was original and special to Smallvile and scrambled to recreate something for the lowest common denominator.  And still they managed to say the only reason Clark is with Lois is because a) Lana is now Kryptonite poison and b) a previously evil computer traveled back in time and told him he might as well date Lois because it would be safe to tell her his secret. Such a heartwarming tale of taking the road to the sure thing.

 

I honestly can't believe how badly they flubbed a Lois and Clark romance.  He chooses to break up with her and only dates her again and shares his secret - not because he's so in love with her or trusts her, but because forces from the future said she's safe.  Then once she knows his secret, she considers him a god completely above her and thinks he should not waste his time on anything resembling a normal life and it takes the girl that had been shown to be in love with him for most of the series to explain to Lois who he is and what he needs in life.  And then on top of it all, they are still not married seven years in the future. 

 

We never see them get married.  Clark actually runs off and knows he's not going to make it to the courthouse on time.  Maybe she might be able to stall or maybe they once again won't get married since apparently they don't prioritized their wedding.  What, J'onn refused to cover for him for even a couple hours?  No friends and family were even going to try to be at their wedding?  And even if they did get married, would he be allowed to tell people or would he still have to call her Miss Lane at work?  Hey, maybe hiding their whole relationship is their kink.  Just doesn't sound like a epic romance to me.     

[SteveS]

They got engaged in Icarus & their co-workers knew they were engaged. Lois is still wearing her engagement ring at the end of the finale. They were not hiding their relationship. Lois tells Clark to "can it, no one's paying any attention" in reference to his bumbling & dropping the papers on the stairs.

Muffin peddler kicked Lex's butt in the election even with all his power & money! It was good enough for Clark's mother so it's good enough for his wife. I picture all the nasty posters on this subject going into Starbucks & yelling at the workers there as they look down their noses at the working class. Nothing wrong with working in a coffee shop.

Lois was investigating in Crusade, Gone, Facade, Devoted, Pariah, Recruit, Krypto, Lucy, Forever, Exposed, Hypnotic, Sneeze, Arrow, Reunion etc. so yes, most of the episodes she was in before the restrictions on journalism were lifted for her.

We will just have to agree to disagree when it comes to Clark & Lois. However, we both like Chloe, so cheers to that!

I just have to say that Allison & Erica are both such wonderful people and I do think if you met Erica you would like her too. Maybe even rewatch with a gentler approach.

Edited March 30, 2015 by Lisin
Snark the show, not your fellow posters

[BkWurm1]

They got engaged in Icarus & their co-workers knew they were engaged. Lois is still wearing her engagement ring at the end of the finale. They were not hiding their relationship. Lois tells Clark to "can it, no one's paying any attention" in reference to his bumbling & dropping the papers on the stairs.

 

I'm not confused.  Yes, seven years in their past they got engaged and yes probably co workers knew of it but by the time we see them FINALLY bothering to plan on finishing the wedding, they no longer use each other's first names in public at work.  He calls her Miss Lane - like she is his boss!!  It went IMO well beyond anything that could be explained away by his bumbling act. 

 

You use first names with your fiancé whether you are a klutz or not.  They were hiding their relationship from casual eyes. Perry probably knew - maybe but a lot of change happens in seven years.  Would anyone still even work there that knew about their failed attempt to get married?  Maybe, but after seven years of NOT rescheduling it and not even acting or speaking to each other like they were on personal terms, I don't think anyone would assume the engagement ring even came from him still.  

 

Muffin peddler kicked Lex's butt in the election even with all his power & money! It was good enough for Clark's mother so it's good enough for his wife. I picture all the nasty posters on this subject going into Starbucks & yelling at the workers there as they look down their noses at the working class. Nothing wrong with working in a coffee shop.

 

Nothing wrong but then my point was that she did spend a lot of her time not investigating, but rather working as a muffin peddler before her jump into politics.

 

Lois was investigating in Crusade, Gone, Facade, Devoted, Pariah, Recruit, Krypto, Lucy, Forever, Exposed, Hypnotic, Sneeze, Arrow, Reunion etc. so yes, most of the episodes she was in before the restrictions on journalism were lifted for her.

 

I disagree about it being most of her episodes and would also debate the definition of investigate but it really is probably pointless.  I suppose I could just say that I feel that Chloe investigated in all of her episodes so Lois's "most" doesn't speak to me so much. 

 

I just have to say that Allison & Erica are both such wonderful people and I do think if you met Erica you would like her too.

 

Where do you have it that I have this hatred for the actress?  I don't know her.  I hated the character and I wasn't impressed with her acting for most of the show's run but I'm not the one dragging real life people into this . I have no problem separating the character from the actress and while I have no desire to watch her work, I don't have personal feelings toward a stranger.  Same thing applies to Kristen Kruek.  I don't enjoy her acting but from all reports she's an extremely kind and lovely person.  I do not and would not make such statements about hating anyone. Ok, maybe Charlie Sheen, but that has to be a free pass.

Edited March 30, 2015 by Lisin
Removed quotes of removed content

[Bitterswete]

I just have to say that Allison & Erica are both such wonderful people and I do think if you met Erica you would like her too. Maybe even rewatch with a gentler approach.

 

I have no problem separating the character from the actress and while I have no desire to watch her work, I don't have personal feelings toward a stranger.  Same thing applies to Kristen Kruek.  I don't enjoy her acting but from all reports she's an extremely kind and lovely person. 

 

What BkWurm1 said. I can think an actor is the nicest, kindest, most awesome person ever, but that doesn't mean I'll think their characters or storylines are well-written. If I really like an actor, I might feel bad if I think they are being given bad material. But me liking them doesn't make the material less bad.

 

I actually don't have a huge problem with ED's acting. She's not the best actress ever, but I've liked characters played by actors who weren't particularly great either. But something about their roles was so well done or interesting that I could look past the occasional, shaky acting.

 

SV's Lois Lane just did not work for me. There was just so much wrong with how the character (and her relationship with Clark) was done that I couldn't invest in the character, or buy how her storylines played out. (Like how she was suddenly such an awesome reporter.) 

 

That being said, I remember finding ED's Lois very likable on occasion, so I think I could've like the character if she'd been handled differently. But SV just dropped the ball with her in too many ways.

[GHScorpiosRule]

Bitterswete

 

I went ahead and liked your post cuz I agreed with everything except the last paragraph. So, it was like a "MAJORITY RULES!" kind of thing.

 

I have nothing more to add that you and Bkwurm already stated, and much more clearly and eloquently.

[BkWurm1]

I didn't hate Lois all the time.  I loved her loyalty and love to Chloe but all too soon they made them virtual strangers.  They shared an apartment (and apparently took turns with the bed) for years but after Lois's first couple seasons, they hardly even interacted.  I really feel this was a wasted relationship.  The good Chlo-Lo moments in the later seasons could be counted on one hand. 

 

I also enjoyed the early sibling vibe between Lois and Clark.  In Lucy he expressed how much he liked having sisters in the house. 

 

Lois one day seeing him in a button down shirt and suddenly developing the hots for him squicked me out though, especially since Clark was still treating her like his overbearing sister, (squeaking his chair to annoy her).

[Gwen-Stacys]

Nothing wrong but then my point was that she did spend a lot of her time not investigating, but rather working as a muffin peddler before her jump into politics.

I think the previous poster was more or less assuming you were calling her a muffin peddler as a way of insulting Lois and was simply explaining that just because she sold muffins, that didn't make her less than. Or any less smart or talented. She worked there because most people have to work to eat/live (also, I always thought she was doing it more as a thank you to Martha Kent than anything else) and she didn't know what she wanted to do with her life yet. Plus, she was technically a high school student living in a small town (in season 4). When she did finally go to college (and then proceeded to get kicked out), she continued working at the Talon because it was a job.

 

Most of your problems with Lois' character seem to stem from the restrictions on her (as the previous poster was trying to say). She was stagnant mostly because she wasn't allowed to do much. She couldn't be a journalist (because DC Nay-nayed that), she couldn't work at the planet, etc etc. So when she did start writing, she started at a tabloid paper. And, as someone who lives in the real world where jobs are hard to get and if you don't have the right connections (Chloe only got into the planet because one of the Luthers helped her get her foot in the door, if memory serves me correct.) it is often very hard to get any upward mobility whatsoever, I see nothing wrong with her starting out in the tabloids. When she finally did get into the Dailey Planet, it was because Grant was drawn to her personality and had even read some of her stuff in the Inquisitor. He liked her writing before he met her and said as much.

 

(Aside: And I think thoughts like that, as well as poo-pooing on people who didn't go/don't go to college, are kind of off-putting in a way. Some people on these boards may not've had the opportunity to go to college or had to start all the way at the bottom and got as far up as they did through sheer luck and being in the right place at the right time, a la Lois in Smallville. Just a thought.)

 

As for what investigating means, it very literally means to carry out a detailed examination or inquiry, especially officially, in order to find out about something or somebody or to take a look or go see what has happened. In all of those episodes SteveS mentions, Lois does just that.

And same as they mentioned before, Lois is a very divisive character. But,  she was always seen as a feminist icon because she went against the status quo, even in her earliest incarnations ---a female working and thriving in a very male dominated world. SVLois wasn't nice, or cheery, or sweet, etc in the slightest. She wasn't book smart (or computer savvy, as seems to be the go to characteristic for acceptable female characters (if they're not streetfighters) nowadays) but she was street smart. She benefited from being an Army brat in a way that she was exposed to things that Clark wasn't able to living his entire life in Kansas. And that's how she was good at investigating without the aid of randomly being able to hack government entities (way harder than they make it look on the show, and the people who do it often spend years at it....not minutes) or superhuman abilities.

 

Crusade/Gone - Lois was looking for her cousin, even figured out on her own that it wouldn't have made sense for Lex Luther to've killed Chloe (and that he was probably being set up for it)

 

Facade - Lois starts writing for the Torch for the extra credits, manages to stumble onto a story bigger than most HS articles are; writes about it and then flips it and even ends up writing an editorial about how people's obsession with their outer appearance is more detrimental than good

 

Devoted - she helps Clark and Chloe with the whole cheerleader love potion in the Gatorade debacle; is the one that helps them sneak into the party, uses Clark's good looks to her advantage to steel evidence, etc etc

 

Pariah - figures out that Alicia didn't commit suicide and figures out who actually did kill her/framed her

 

Recruit - the entire episode is her trying to clear her name/prove she didn't put a football player in a coma (which if she had...good for her? Handsy drunk guys are the wooooorst)

 

Lucy - meh, no real investigation here. Most of the things she figured out was because she knew her sister. And even her unease with Lucy's visit came from the fact that she knew her sister wouldn't just up and visit her out of the blue.

 

Forever - helps Clark find the crazy kids Forever High school art show

 

Exposed - she helps Chloe look into the murder of a stripper (even goes so far as to actually strip in order to help her cousin out. now if that's not love, idk what is)

 

Hypnotic - I honestly don't remember this episode. I just remember it being the one that broke up Clark and Lana for nteenth time

 

Sneeze - she is literally trying to figure out how the Kents' barn door ended up miles away from the home;

 

Arrow - Investigates the arrow; does so well that she actually gets kidnapped because of it (at this point, I believe she's actually a journalist. It's tabloids, but journalism is journalism)

 

Reunion - figures out who's trying to get revenge against Lex, Ollie, and co and how he's doing it

 

In Combat, she scooped Chloe and Clark on the location of the fight club by simply looking at a picture and seeing something they'd previously dismissed (She recognized the numbers and letter on the wall in the background of the picture were military, and because of her years living with her father she knew what they meant --base name and building location.) --again, street smarts.

 

And I could literally go on, because most of the episodes after this point are Lois sticking her nose into something and getting herself into trouble (mostly because she's largely out of the "there are aliens among us" loop).

 

TL;DNR - it's fine if you don't like Lois. She's meant to be a divisive character. A love interest that isn't sweet and caring, etc etc. She's rude, arrogant, prickly, and standoffish ---and to be honest, that's why I loved her.  (Although it's very interesting that, as disliked as she was, people still talk about her to this day so vehemently.... 6 years after the show went off) some may not have found humor in her character, there were plenty that did. I actually used to watch Smallville with an ex of mine (back when it was still on tv) and he would only watch the episodes with Lois in them because he didn't like anyone else. Same with my mother and my uncle (that grew up reading Superman comics).

 

I will agree with you, though, on the Chlois front. There should've been way more scenes with the cousins together, because the ones we did get were awesome. I would've loved to see more of them investigating together, and then maybe having Chloe get fired/quit and Clark comes in and takes her place. Then you'd still have the dynamic of Lois not wanting to work with Clark, but then there would've been a more personal motive behind it. But that's just me *sips tea

Edited July 16, 2015 by Gwen-Stacys

[Bitterswete]

Most of your problems with Lois' character seem to stem from the restrictions on her (as the previous poster was trying to say). She was stagnant mostly because she wasn't allowed to do much. She couldn't be a journalist (because DC Nay-nayed that), she couldn't work at the planet, etc etc.

 

For me, the restrictions had nothing to do with it. Restrictions or no, there were different ways they could've gone with the character. But they chose to go in a way that made it very hard for me to take Lois seriously, both when the show itself didn't take her seriously, and when they suddenly decided she wasn't comic relief and I was supposed to see her as a serious reporter who had worked her way up from the bottom (which so didn't happen), and was all filled with integrity, sharply honed reporter's instincts, etc. Which flies in the face of how she was portrayed the first four seasons she was on the show.

 

 

Aside: And I think thoughts like that, as well as poo-pooing on people who didn't go/don't go to college, are kind of off-putting in a way. Some people on these boards may not've had the opportunity to go to college or had to start all the way at the bottom and got as far up as they did through sheer luck and being in the right place at the right time, a la Lois in Smallville. Just a thought.

 

Lois didn't have to do much "working her way up" from what I recall. She fell into some pretty cushy jobs pretty fast. And pretty much the minute she set foot in the DP (thanks to Grant) she was getting the kinds of cushy assignments most reporters have to hustle for years to get.

 

It was only later, when they decided to make SV!Lois more "iconic" that they were suddenly telling us how hard she'd worked to get where she was, and how she had slaved away at the bottom for so long when she first got to the Planet. Which is definitely not how I remember it playing out.

 

I also want to throw in that Lois not going to college has nothing to do with how I saw her (thanks to the writing). I would've felt the same about her if she had four degrees but was still written the same way.

 

 

And same as they mentioned before, Lois is a very divisive character. But,  she was always seen as a feminist icon because she went against the status quo, even in her earliest incarnations ---a female working and thriving in a very male dominated world. SVLois wasn't nice, or cheery, or sweet, etc in the slightest.

 

I have been a Lois Lane fan for as long as I can remember. So SV!Lois being pushy or rude or even a little arrogant (traits commonly found in the Lois character) are definitely not why I had problems with her

 

 

A love interest that isn't sweet and caring, etc etc. She's rude, arrogant, prickly, and standoffish ---and to be honest, that's why I loved her.

 

And, again, Lois not being perfect and having flaws was not my issue with her. Some of my favorite female characters are way more flawed than Lois could ever dream of, so it's not about Lois not being all sweetness and light or whatever.

 

My problem was that SV treated Lois like a joke for too long. Then, when they decided we should take her seriously, they didn't built up to that in an organic way that I could actually believe. They just flipped some switches, pulled some retcons, and that was it. And that wasn't enough for me.

Edited July 16, 2015 by Bitterswete

[Gwen-Stacys]

The going too fast and landing in certain jobs or attaining a random skill set is not an exclusively SV!Lois Lane trait. As I mentioned above in my earlier comment. Chloe gaining the ability to suddenly be able to hack into government and millitary databases, before Brainiac, out of the blue or Lana being a jiu jitsu master all of a sudden). Clark even got a job at the DP (in the basement with Lois) after filling out an application and no previous work experience. So if one character is going to be faulted for having a sped up storyline, every character (minus Lex and Oliver) need to be faulted as well. Even Lois' cousin (The OG!Felicity)

 

And okay with the college thing ---I only brought it up because it was used in arguments (on this board) as a means to shat on her character and her accomplishements. That was what I was responding to. If that's not how it was meant, then I am sincerely apologizing for misinterpreting those statements)

 

And Lois did work her way up. I even mentioned as much. She got a job at a tabloid article because she sold them a story (the barn door story) and they hired her. She worked at the inquisitor for at least one season of Smallville. She got her job at the DP (in the basement with the other interns, obit writers, and Chloe) because she was asked to write a story she pitched to her cousin and was overheard. Did the story get published? No. But how she got her job is ligitimately how some people luck into jobs in the real world. It happens. And to top it off after thant, I don't think there was ever even a mention of her being on the front page (her stories were usually burried in the back, same as Chloe's were) until around season 8. And that was mostly because she wrote about stories that no one else was paying attention to and then it blew up. (And if I'm not mistaken, there was even an episode where her story was given to someone else).

 

My problem was that SV treated Lois like a joke for too long. Then, when they decided we should take her seriously, they didn't built up to that in an organic way that I could actually believe. They just flipped some switches, pulled some retcons, and that was it. And that wasn't enough for me.

Welcome to the world of superheros where things get switched around and retconned (it even happens in the comics). But the retconning didn't only apply to Lois, it happened to ever single character on the show (sometimes multiple times). If you don't like Lois you don't like her and that's fine. Like i said, she's not for everyone (and she's not meant to be). But I liked her. And YMMV greatly, and that is o-kay. Different people see different things and cling to certain types of characters.

[Bitterswete]

The going too fast and landing in certain jobs or attaining a random skill set is not an exclusively SV!Lois Lane trait. As I mentioned above in my earlier comment. Chloe gaining the ability to suddenly be able to hack into government and millitary databases, before Brainiac, out of the blue or Lana being a jiu jitsu master all of a sudden). Clark even got a job at the DP (in the basement with Lois) after filling out an application and no previous work experience.

 

And I had problems with all of that. I've ranted plenty about how ridiculously easy it was for Clark to get a job as a reporter at the DP, how equally ridiculous Lana becoming a martial arts master in two lessons was (never mind the other, similar things they did with her), and so on. But since this is the Lois thread, I try to stick to my issues with her character when I'm in this thread.

 

And Lois did work her way up.

 

We'll agree to disagree on that one. The fact that Lois didn't immediately start at the DP and worked at other jobs isn't the same as "working her way up" in my books. Yeah, she worked at a tabloid, but she didn't seem to be struggling all that hard at it, or scraping tooth and nail to move up to a better paper. (At the time, she didn't really care what kind of paper she worked at.) And, when she started at the DP, like I said, she was getting plum assignments pretty much from the get go.

 

Later, after Grant was killed off, they did back off of that, and she wasn't having it as easy. But, after the retcon, the show tried to paint her "climb to the top" as being harder than what I actually saw.

 

 

Welcome to the world of superheros where things get switched around and retconned (it even happens in the comics).

 

Just because a retcon (which is different from a "reboot") happened elsewhere (with another character, in the comics, etc.) doesn't make Lois's retconning less annoying to me. And I don't like it in other places either. (I've complained plenty about the other retconning SV did.)

 

I just don't like it when a show/comic/etc. tries to tell me, "We know we told you something else, but forget that. What we're telling you now is how it's always been. And we're just too lazy to make things work without retconning." Or, even worse, "We bet you don't even remember what we told you before, so we're going to tell you something completely different and expect you not to notice." It's just lazy, and feels like an insult to my intelligence.

 

In Lois's case, rather than trying to let her grow and develop into the kind of character they wanted her to be, they simply made her into that kind of character, and threw in some retcons on top of that. And, as a result, I just did not buy her character change.

 

If you don't like Lois you don't like her and that's fine. Like i said, she's not for everyone (and she's not meant to be). But I liked her. And YMMV greatly, and that is o-kay. Different people see different things and cling to certain types of characters.

 

I actually don't dislike Lois all that strongly. She just wasn't a very well-done character. (And, yes, I can come up with a list of characters SV didn't do very well, including Clark.) And, like I said before, I actually found Lois likeable a few times. But there is just so much wrong with the way her character was handled, and it probably annoyed me so much because I am a fan of the Lois Lane character.

Edited July 17, 2015 by Bitterswete

[GHScorpiosRule]

Bitterswete though I disagree with your 

 

I actually don't dislike Lois all that strongly.

, I had to like your post, because I agree with the rest.

 

Because me? I? Loathed, despised, hated this incarnation of Lois.

[Bitterswete]

Because me? I? Loathed, despised, hated this incarnation of Lois.

 

The thing about Lois was that, unless she was actively doing something obnoxious or annoying, I was usually okay with her. Of course, she was doing stuff I found obnoxious and annoying most of the time. But when she wasn't, I could usually tolerate her. And there were times when I found her really likeable. Of course, those moments were few and far between, but they did exist.

[GHScorpiosRule]

The problem for me (and I went off on it ad naseum, I think over on TWoP) was that I don't like Erica Durance. That is, I don't think she's a good actress, and the way she portrayed Lois, just grated, starting from her arrogance, presumptuousness, and entitlement from the moment she walked through the door at the Kent farm.  The way she just made herself at home and moved her ass into their home. And yeah, Clark could be a jerk, but I didn't like how he ended up having to deal with her, or do things her way. It's one of the reason, I laugh and snicker  gleefully in the episode that gave us Krypto Shelby, when she stepped into a pile of dog shit.  And when Clark laughed, I laughed along right with him.  Like she gets to make demands and decide what name he gets? 

 

Now Tom Welling had chemistry with just about everyone and everything, but I always just got a sibling vibe with him and Durance's Lois. Heck, I think I even said he had more chemistry with Shelby than he did with her.

 

And I don't care what DC suits said; Miles and Miller decided they wanted Lois, and so I blame them for bringing her onto this show, in a time, where Lois had no business being.  I might have accepted it eventually, if they and their successors, had continued and made this show, like, an alternate reality type of world; but no. Once DC gave their thumbs up, all of a sudden, switch lighting? (I can't remember the word that's used), and suddenly Lois is this competent reporter and she and Clarke are in wuv.

 

This show had so much potential. So.Much.

[BkWurm1]

of a sudden, switch lighting? (I can't remember the word that's used),

Light switch is the tern you are looking for. :). From the Smallville dictionary:

Lightswitch: Term used to describe sudden, unexplained skill development, character change or behaviors. From an episode [quoting Lex]: "The road to darkness is a journey, not a lightswitch." (Example: Lana getting a scholarship to art school in France at the end of season three, despite never doing art work prior to that)

Edited July 18, 2015 by BkWurm1

[BkWurm1]

Chloe gaining the ability to suddenly be able to hack into government and millitary databases, before Brainiac,

In the real world, yes this is absurd but in TV world, they showed steady progression of Chloe's hacking abilities over many, many years. It's not like Lana getting a ha full of self defense lessons and being an expert (or suddenly an artist good enough to get into a Paris art school).

Lois had one high school paper article and no interest in the job until a barn door fell from the sky. Thinking she DID die when the plane crashed and the mysterious circumstances of her and Martha Kents survival stirred nothing but a barn door that was reasonably explain enough that she included that explanation in her article makes no sense. Then putting that aside, even putting the Inquizitor aside, when Grant hires her not only was no mention of any of her articles mentioned as having hit the front page, but there was NO mention of any of her articles being published. Still, she never wrote an obit. No , Lois went on out of town assignments.

(her stories were usually burried in the back, same as Chloe's were) until around season 8. And that was mostly because she wrote about stories that no one else was paying attention to and then it blew up. (

Both the assertion that her stories were buried in the back with Chloe's and that Lois was doing stories no one was paying attention to are not supported by what happened in season seven. Again, there was never confirmation she EVER was good enough to get published prior to the opening of season Eight where suddenly Lois is so good that Tess won't kill her and risk the prosperity of her paper. And the stories they did talk about (that Grant wouldn't publish) were either stories she couldn't prove or Lex stuff which Grant shut down.

Most of your problems with Lois' character seem to stem from the restrictions on her (as the previous poster was trying to say). She was stagnant mostly because she wasn't allowed to do much. She couldn't be a journalist (because DC Nay-nayed that), she couldn't work at the planet, etc etc. So when she did start writing, she started at a tabloid paper. And, as someone who lives in the real world where jobs are hard to get and if you don't have the right connections (Chloe only got into the planet because one of the Luthers helped her get her foot in the door, if memory serves me correct.) it is often very hard to get any upward mobility whatsoever, I see nothing wrong with her starting out in the tabloids. When she finally did get into the Dailey Planet, it was because Grant was drawn to her personality and had even read some of her stuff in the Inquisitor. He liked her writing before he met her and said as much.

For the record, again, Chloe first got an internship completely on her own merits with no help, then a year later, Lionel pulled strings to get her a column which he then cancelled when she wouldn't feed him the dirt he wanted and then as a college freshman she applied for an intern position which the Editor in Chief called her down to the Planet to rub it in her nose that she didn't get it and when Chloe refused to give up and brought her a story that she could prove, had her start where Pauline Kahn had started, at the bottom. So no, Chloe already had a foot in the door before Lionel and afterwards she had to work hard to overcome her past Lionel connection

Grant was Lex's puppet until the end and anything he did is suspect especially since Lex hand picked Lois to do his interview and when he was firing all the competent reporters, he made sure to keep Lois. So do I think he liked her personality and admired her writing? Nope. I think he was told to target her by Lex and then way later after he was sleeping with her started spouting stuff about having loved her stuff from the Inquisitor. Would Grant have even been alive to have read her articles on the Green Arrow or was that a other memory Lex implanted. Like I said, no credibility with me or the audience.

As for the problem with Lois starting at the Inquizitor, it's not that she started there, it's that she didn't have a problem with their ethics or the lying or the making up fake headlines. She believed it was superior to the Planet. It wasn't until she discovered she too then had no credibility cause she worked there (duh!) and Grant dangled fame, did she even have aspirations to work elsewhere.

Finally, the mere fact that Lois came with all these restrictions that made her a silly and stagnant character is enough reason for why she shouldn't even been on the show. The only thing done worse to her character and credibility than the restrictions on her was what happened when they were lifted because there was NO attempt to make her credible in any aspect of her "journey". Once they got the go ahead, they just flipped their switch and started writing her as if they'd always written her that way. I was there for the whole frighten ten seasons and lord help me I'm still caught up in the PTSD. I won't soon forget what really happened.

People are free to like Lois or not care about all the Lightswitches thrown to make her even resemble her comic counterpart but I do care and therefore there isn't anything that can ever be said to make me like this Lois. This Lois still causes second hand mortification and fury every time I dwell too long on her.

.

Edited July 18, 2015 by BkWurm1

[Chloe]

In the real world, yes this is absurd but in TV world, they showed steady progression of Chloe's hacking abilities over many, many years. It's not like Lana getting a ha full of self defense lessons and being an expert (or suddenly an artist good enough to get into a Paris art school).

 Once they got the go ahead, they just flipped their switch and started writing her as if they'd always written her that way. I was there for the whole frighten ten seasons and lord help me I'm still caught up in the PTSD. I won't soon forget what really happened.

People are free to like Lois or not care about all the Lightswitches thrown to make her even resemble her comic counterpart but I do care and therefore there isn't anything that can ever be said to make me like this Lois. This Lois still causes second hand mortification and fury every time I dwell too long on her.

.

 

I agree. They forgot about everything written previously in the show. You also mentioned they said that she had been to uni and had a teacher....what???? She just attended there some months and IIRC we don't even know if she studied journalism, because she had never been interested on that before her stay in the Torch in S4 to finish her high school credits.... The worst thing is that I don't hate Smallville Lois, I like how ED portrayed her given the script she had and I love Lois in Superman's universe (despite Smallville influenced me on loving her less).

 

There is also the fact that Chloe was fired form work while she became a successful journalist. I couldn't stand that. I think there was a scene that never got aired in which Lois apologies to Chloe for this situation (even if it is not her fault). I think I read about that in Kryptonsite. They should have used that scene. Chloe's progression in terms of  passion for journalism and her love for Clark just disappeared.

 

She was there only to save the day, be a hacker, and lead the Justice League .... well, she deserved all these and her previous traits. Maybe they thought that was too much and Lois should be more important? Ok but then they should have written her differently the previous seasons.

Edited October 12, 2015 by Chloe

[BkWurm1]

So in the season four thread I admitted to liking Lois initially in her first two episodes (more the first than the last) but it then quickly went down hill from there.  And so I started wondering in which season did I hate her the least.  

I can rule out 8, 9 and 10 .  I couldn't stand how the show used her these years.  I really hated how pretty much everything they did with her from here on, whether it was romance, career, adventures, and even personality, was basically accomplished via lightswitch when the new show runners came in.  They didn't grow the character, they just retconned the past.  Poof!  Start of season eight she's the bestest reporter evur!  It's also the season when she suddenly while not whammied that Clark is hot and random evil alien chicks started assuming she and Clark were a thing.  In season nine she started lecturing Clark on how to be a reporter and Clark got his share of the lightswitch since now he was suddenly in love with the woman he barely interacted with in season eight.  By the end of season nine Lois dumped Clark but when she found out he was the Blur, she was suddenly back interested.  I think if I'd never seen the show before season 10, I might have liked Lois since they drastically tamped down on her shrillness and her arrogant stupidity but giving her a brand new personality made no sense in her seventh season so, it stays on the uber hate list.  

Season 4 had some great Chloe/Lois interaction but it was also when they took a character with possibilities and just IMO dropped the ball, writing to her worst traits and made her unrecognizable to me as Lois Lane.  By the end of the season, I hated even the sound of her voice.  In season five, I found her mostly pointless and badly in the way.  They had to shoehorn her in in anything she did, bouncing from muffin peddler to Chloe's sidekick to Jonathan's campaign manager to Martha's chief of staff.  I liked her with Oliver in season six but hated her working for the Inquizitor.  Season seven had her being hired at the DP by Lex's cloned brother and yet STILL being shown to be just a terrible reporter.  I hated how she worked for nothing and appreciated what she had even less, willing to throw away her journalistic integrity to keep sleeping with her editor, the totally not sketchy cloned baby bro of Lex. )(Meaning totally sketchy, lol)

There's just sooo much to hate.  But I guess if I was to pick one season for the least to hate, I guess I would pick season 6.  I liked her with Oliver.  I liked her well enough around Martha.  I thought she had some fun stuff with Jimmy.  Nobody was yet pretending she was a real journalist or any good at it.  So yeah, I hated Lois the least in season six.   

[DittyDotDot]

You know, I can't say I ever really disliked Lois, but just didn't understand why she existed at first since I thought they had a growing Lois in Chloe. But, over time, I grew to like Lois as a character and really enjoyed her relationship with Chloe.

I did think they had a tendency to write Lois all over the place, though. Like how she didn't have an interest in journalism until she suddenly was the bestest journalist ever. Or how she didn't seem to have any interest in Clark until she suddenly was madly in love with him--but that goes both ways on that front. And, I thought it was very weird they wrote her as not so much being in love with Clark himself, but with the super hero more than anything.

I don't know, for all her contradictions, I still enjoyed her more in the later seasons than I did at first. I think they finally found her voice more towards the end of the series whereas at first I'm not sure they knew what to do with her. 

[BkWurm1]

On 7/1/2017 at 8:12 AM, DittyDotDot said:

I don't know, for all her contradictions, I still enjoyed her more in the later seasons than I did at first. I think they finally found her voice more towards the end of the series whereas at first I'm not sure they knew what to do with her. 

I don't disagree that she was more tolerable in the final season or two, but by then it wasn't IMO so much that they found her voice, than that they suddenly ignored what her voice had been for years and wrote her as a different character.  I freely admit I wasn't open to the sudden "changes".   I certainly wasn't going to start liking Lois when anything newly good about her only seemed to happen at the expense of a IMO better written and developed character.   It never seemed like a coincidence how the show pushed Chloe out of journalism by season eight and Clark's life by season nine, just when they waved their wands and declared Lois too important to the DP for Tess to kill when she wanted to at the start of season eight or in season nine when Clark cut Chloe out of his personal life but now was out of the blue totes in love with Lois and joining the DP. 

They even had Lois say lines that directly contradicted what we'd seen from her past.  Like talking about working her way up from dealing with the tip line and  pet obits (or maybe it was classifieds, it was something like that.) No that was Chloe we saw working her way up at the DP.  Lois was handed a job based on the word of a Lex's cloned brother who said her prose "leapt" from the page, an artificial human whose every memory was programmed and who was working Lex's agenda from the start who then started sleeping with Lois.  There was EVERYTHING sketchy about that.

 Especially when even after Lois was hired in season seven, (later supposedly because Grant/Julian had previously loved her work for the Inquizitor) and she was immediately sent on coveted out of town trips, the show didn't even let anything she wrote be shown to be published, only picked apart and mocked.  And while Chloe told Clark that all the established and good reporters were systematically being run out of the DP, we had Lex Luthor hand picking Lois to do his exclusive interviews (armed only with Chloe's research which remains hilarious) and later Chloe fired, Grant/Julian killed, Lex taking over running the DP but Lois moving on up.  

But that was before the new show runners took over.  After the new team arrived, they started rewriting who Lois was, not through growth or characterization, but just with the characters acting like the new alternative reality version was the way it had always been.  And sadly because Lois and Clark in the comics are so iconic and well known, the new show runners were allowed to get away with it, the remaining audience accepting what was true in other stories as true in Smallville even though it wasn't.  

If the many previous seasons hadn't existed, I could have accepted how the story ended, how Lois was portrayed, but I watched ALL 10 seasons so I can't ignore the majority in favor of a couple that finally wrote Lois as who Lois Lane was supposed to be, but ran a character that had been there from the start pretty much off the show.  (Even if they in the end mostly/kinda gave back to Chloe everything they took away during the time Lois was being newly positioned at the DP and in Clark's life) 

I guess for me, anything good about Lois at the end doesn't count if everything else about the show is trampled on to get there.  Even Clark's journey was ruined by the new show runners trying to line up to the comics.  Suddenly it didn't matter that on Smallville, Clark's journey had always been about trying to forge his own destiny, not bow to AI Jor-El's more than suspect intentions or Jonathan Kent's sometimes fear based and rigid world view.  Instead it became all about destiny no matter if it was shoehorned and the past overwritten to make it work or not.  And Lois was just a part of that destiny.  Just a box to check off on list.  Either it in my opinion makes everything that came before irrelevant or what came after as one giant, disappointing retcon.  

I wish the show I thought I'd been watching had been the show they'd finished making.  Oh what COULD have been! 

Edited July 2, 2017 by BkWurm1

[bettername2come]

I don't hate Erica's Lois Lane - that title is reserved for Kate Bosworth's Lois. I think she was introduced well, if too early. I always thought she and Tom had chemistry, even if it was sometimes a sibling vibe in seasons 4 and 5. I I believed it when they started moving into a romantic relationship. A lot of the things I don't like are more writing than ED's performance, even if she's not the finest actress. Not giving her a proper intro into her journalism career or a college education (which bugs me about Clark too), starting her interest in journalism with a stupid barn door, taking away from Chloe's story, emphasizing Lois's negative characteristics over her positive attributes to the point where someone pointing out positive things about her rings false, not letting her and Clark get married for seven years after they get engaged. On the other hand, Lois loved the Kents, searched for answers when everyone thought Chloe was dead, she was tough, she was protective, she fought for the people she loved, and she tried to do what was right and get the truth.

Edited September 24, 2017 by bettername2come

[BkWurm1]

I hate Lois as THE LOIS but I found when her characteristics and personality were aimed in a different direction, I liked her well enough, just not in the iconic Lois Lane shoes so no to anything with her being a reporter, that always rang false and no to her and Clark because first she was interested in the "normal" guy that Clark never was and then she was all about him being the hero and I just never believed she knew and loved HIM.  Honestly, I think the reason she was with Clark beyond discovering he looked good in a dress shirt, was because of his mom and Lois's feeling of connection to the Kent's house.  She'd never really had a rooted existence.  The closest she came to having a home was with the Kents.  

What she explained about why she couldn't be with Oliver when she found out about him being the GA even though she still had feelings, really rang true.  It wasn't about him being a vigilante.  It was how him having a calling would get in the way of what she needed from him.  She'd spent her whole life growing up knowing the most important man in her life, her father, could never put her first and in Clark, she thought she found a nice, normal good guy that could do that but instead he was the exact kind of relationship she knew was wrong for her and nothing in the show ever said anything about that had changed.  And then the only reason Clark lets her back into his life romantically and then tells her is because she now came with the stamp of approval from DESTINY! 

Except half of what the future Brainiac convinced him of in his little intervention ended up being crap, like having to bury all of his connection to the past.  It was only embracing his past that allowed him to finally fly.  So if one thing was wrong, why should we buy into anything that destiny was selling?  Brainiac had an agenda even if it was no longer evil.  He was still trying to get Clark to do what he wanted. 

Basically, the show did a bang up job of explaining why this Lois and this Clark were a terrible fit.  I wasn't even looking for this stuff after the end of season 8 but what they wrote just kept digging the whole deeper.  

Kate Bosworth's Lois was a far better journalist than EDLois.  Kind of a crap mom, risking her kid to do some light B&E but otherwise I found that aspect of her character more believable.  (I had bigger issues with the movie than with Lois or Clark, really the nearly the whole plot and character of Lex was a retread of the first Superman movie)