- Title: Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman – Madame Ex
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With both its stars now appearing in different roles in Supergirl it seems like a good time to turn our attention back to Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman for Throwback Thursday. The show’s Second Season premiere, “Madame Ex,” introduces Emma Samms as Arianna Carlin, The Daily Planet’s new syndicated psychologist who is actually the recently-deceased Lex Luthor‘s (John Shea) ex-wife who has big plans of revenge for Lex’s death. One of Arianna’s plans involves subliminal messages to turn the populace of Metropolis against their hero. Wanting something far more personal for Lois (Teri Hatcher), Arianna uses a double of the reporter to help ruin the Man of Steel’s good name while also making the reporter’s friends and family begin to question her state of mind. As for Superman, she has a Kryptonite bullet surprise in store for him.
Both someone impersonating Lois and her mental state coming into question are themes the show will bring back to explore later in the series. “Madame Ex” also introduces Denise Crosby as Dr. Gretchen Kelly, a scientist equally obsessed with Lex and bringing him back from the dead. Unlike Ariana, who bows out after this episode, Gretchen will return a couple of times this season before seeing her mad-scientist scheme come to fruition. The show wastes no time in foreshadowing Lex Luthor’s resurrection, but it will take some time for the villain to rise from his grave. Although his return is teased over the first-half of Season Two, Lois & Clark‘s sophomore year will spread its wings a bit and offer a far less Luthor-centric season the second time around.
The first episode of Season Two marks a couple of cast changes to the series. Along with Lex moving to a guest-star in only a handful of episodes the show also says goodbye to Tracy Scoggins as the office sexpot Cat Grant. With the show turning up the romantic heat on Lois and Clark it makes sense to remove Cat, although the show does miss the opportunity to infuse her humor in future episodes. And in one of the show’s more controversial moves, Justin Whalin replaces Michael Landes as Jimmy Olsen which gives the character more youthful exuberance but turns out to be a detriment to the Clark/Jimmy friendship which is never quite the same.
This was a great show and I’m happy to see Cain and Hatcher showing up on Supergirl.