4. Lois & Clark: The New Adventures Of Superman
In 1992, Warner Bros had reacquired all the TV and film rights to Superman and as such, began production on a new Superman TV series. Rather than continuing with the Superboy series that ran from 1988-1992, they had producer and writer Deborah Joy LeVine develop a new take on the character. LeVine incorporated numerous elements from John Byrnes 1986 revamp of the Superman comics, such as making Clark Kent more aggressive and assertive and being the primary personality with Superman being an alter-ego, as well as Lex Luthor being depicted as a ruthless corporate tycoon instead of a mad scientist. Just as the title suggests, the focus was more on the relationship between Teri Hatchers Lois Lane and Dean Cains Clark Kent, becoming more of a soap opera-style take on Superman. While Cains performance as Clark was fairly good, there was almost no differentiation between that and his portrayal of Superman. Hatchers Lois, on the other hand, was inconsistent. She went from being a strong-willed woman, and these scenes are when she shines, but then she was alternately depicted as a hopeless romantic and a damsel in distress shrieking for Supermans help. I was in elementary school when this show was on the air, and man did I love it. But when I had a chance to watch it on DVD a few years ago, I could barely get through it. With the exception of John Sheas Lex Luthor, virtually every single villain to appear on this show was one-note and poorly cast. And even Luthor went from being an intimidating villain to nothing more than a jealous ex-boyfriend. Frequent romantic foils were introduced to challenge Lois and Clark, almost all of them successively worse than the last, although special mention has to be given to Tracy Scoggins irritating Cat Grant. Once Lois and Clark actually got together and began dating, any spark that existed between Cain and Hatcher pretty much evaporated into thin air. In order to try and regain some of this chemistry, the producers relied on a succession of cheap tricks, the worst of which being a fake wedding episode, in which Clark married a frog-eating clone of Lois, while the real Lois was kidnapped by Lex and became afflicted with amnesia. People seem to have fond memories of this series, but looking back on it, the flaws of turning Superman into a romantic comedy become more and more painfully obvious.