- Title: Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman – Foundling
- wiki: link
With a new Superman now out on Blu-ray and DVD every now and then I’ll continue to take a look back at the hero’s more memorable moments on both the big and small screen. Lois & Clark waited more than halfway through the First Season to give its own take on Superman’s origin story. When the globe Clark (Dean Cain) stole from the Bureau 39 warehouse in “Strange Visitor (From Another Planet)” begins displaying recorded projections of Jor-El‘s (David Warner) messages to the son on the eve of Krypton’s destruction Clark finally learns his true name, the identity of his parents, and the circumstances that brought him to Earth.
During the days the globe is active it is also coincidentally stolen when Clark’s apartment is robbed by a young thief (Chris Demetral) who decides to sell it to Nigel St. John (Tony Jay). Although Clark still telepathically receives each of the remaining messages, so too does Lex Luthor (John Shea) who learns the important truth that the Man of Steel arrived as a baby and has been living on Earth for decades. Superman eventually retrieves the globe and discovers Luthor’s underground menagerie of priceless artifacts, but the villain himself is long gone.
Lois‘ (Teri Hatcher) discovery that Clark was holding out on her with something valuable tied to Superman creates some friction between the partners (and continues to play on the theme of Lois holding others, mostly Clark, to higher standards than she holds herself). However, by the end of the episode the reporters are back on speaking terms, the globe is safely locked away in the Fortress of Solitude (or at least the young Clark’s tree-fortress version of Superman’s famous lair), and thing get back to normal.
Aside from introducing David Lerner and Eliza Roberts as Jor-El and Lara, and finally giving our hero some background into why his spaceship crash landed on Earth, “Foundling” also introduces the thief-turned-copy-boy Jack who will make a handful of appearances during the final episodes of the season. Sadly, the episode’s B-story concerning a bet whether or not Jimmy (Michael Landes) and Cat Grant (Tracy Scoggins) are distantly related is pretty forgettable.
