Superman & Lois: Series Recap

Our good friends Jason and Tristan join the show to recap and geek out over the entire four-season run of Superman & Lois.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
The Superman, Superman.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
Hey, I like it.

Speaker 1 (00:08):
Superman, It's catchy, sticks with you. The kind of name
that looks great squashed across three columns, Supermanman, Supermans. My
name is Clark Kent, and yes I am Superman.

Speaker 2 (00:30):
Hello everybody, and welcome to Podcasts Full of Kryptonite. And
I'm I'm I'm a little sad tonight. I'm I'm very
very happy but also a little sad because the Superman
and Lowest series has come to an end. We've had
the end of our four seasons. We've had the season
four finale, the story, this story is over, but we

(00:51):
get an opportunity to come and kind of do a
recap of these four seasons. And basically for me, I
just I kind of want this to be both a
I'm sad it's gone, but also, man, did we get
an amazing Superman story in these four seasons. Like there
have been Superman shows that have gone longer than four
seasons and maybe did not tell the story as well

(01:13):
as this four season show did. So that's that's kind
of the focus of what we're doing here on this
episode is showing our appreciation, you know, nerding out a
little bit about some of the stuff that we got
to see over the course of these four seasons. And
to do that, I have, you know, by the end
of the spoilers let me let me throw this out here.

(01:33):
We may spoil some things here and there, so if
you haven't finished the series, just kind of be aware
of that. And my first spoiler is, as we got
later on in season four, there was a whole gaggle
of super folks by the end of it, and so
I've brought some super folks here with me tonight as well.
You're gonna recognize their voices. First of all, we've got Tristan,

(01:53):
and Tristan is wearing the correct uniform for this recording
with his Superman shirt.

Speaker 3 (01:59):
That's right, John, I am.

Speaker 4 (02:00):
I'm here for it for our final rundown of a great,
great series, one of my favorite series of all time.
So yes, got my Superman shirt on and ready to go, all.

Speaker 2 (02:11):
Right, and Jason Colvin has got Jason, I think you
also have the appropriate uniform on because what you're wearing
is you're wearing the Krypton white when everybody's on Krypton
and they've got the white robes and everything. So that's
what I'm assuming yours is.

Speaker 1 (02:25):
That's what I'm going for. Yeah, Marlon brand.

Speaker 2 (02:30):
I've got the black Mine is actually Star Wars, but
I'm just gonna say it's the Black Death of Superman stuff.
So then we're all appropriately dressed and it's it's all
good to go. Good it is. It's fun to have
you guys here with me. I know we've been on Jason,
you and d and I had been doing the show
for the first three seasons and had a great time

(02:52):
doing that. And then Tristan, I know you've been on
several times joining us for this, so it's just it's
fun to have a bunch of Superman geeks on here
to talk about the show.

Speaker 4 (03:01):
Absolutely, I figured if I stood outside of your window, John,
holding up my stereo a long enough playing the theme,
that you'd eventually let me on.

Speaker 3 (03:09):
And it worked.

Speaker 2 (03:09):
So and then when I opened the door, you had
all those like love actually cute cards and you were
just trying to tell me, like how much you love
Superman and you wanted it.

Speaker 3 (03:16):
Yeah, yeah, that's exactly right.

Speaker 2 (03:18):
It was. It was touching. It was touching. I cried
a little bit.

Speaker 1 (03:22):
I'm really glad that you've continued going with this. John
because when you know, de and I had to bow out.
But in de Sens's regrets, he wish you could be
here tonight. But I've just enjoyed continue to listen to you,
and and uh so I'm here to kind of put
the lid on it and have fun with you guys.

Speaker 2 (03:40):
Yeah. Yeah, Well, and to give a little bit, a
little bit of a preview for this show. I am
crazy enough to keep going with this because I love Superman.
And I was sitting around a little while back and
I thought, you know, I don't really want to stop
doing this, partly because I made a new logo for
the podcast and I was like, well, I don't want
that to just last a couple of weeks. I love it,
thank you. And so I'm sitting there, I'm going, what

(04:04):
do we do next? What's the Superman show? I haven't
watched in a while, but I really really loved And
I thought, no, Smallville. Smallville is next, So so probably
gonna take a little bit of break after this. This
episode should come out. This episode may be people's Christmas gift.
This I think will probably come out Christmas Day, So
happy holidays and Merry Christmas. This is your gift. And

(04:25):
probably take a break of a couple of maybe a
month or so, and then I think maybe early to
mid February, I'm gonna start putting out. And I made you.
I looked at the schedule for Smallville, and I'm like, oh,
dear Lord, if I do all ten seasons of Smallville,
we're doing this until twenty twenty nine. So what I
might do instead is I might cover a few episodes

(04:46):
of the show per episode and just do it that way.
But I'm kind of looking forward to that. I started
rewatching Smallville the other day, and I think I've four
or five episodes into the first season, and I'm loving
it just as much as I did when I first
started watching it. But then at the same time i'm
watching it, I'm going, I know this came out in
two thousand and one, but this thing is so late nineties.

Speaker 4 (05:09):
Yeah, And it seemed to me like they took a
bit from the X Files they started doing. They started
off with the Monster of the Week stuff, you know,
which I was always a sucker for.

Speaker 2 (05:19):
Yep, yep, Chloe's Chloe's Wall of the Weird, and the
Freak of the Week mm hmm, yep. So here's actually
I'll make a quick tie in which I did not realize,
and I don't think I ever mentioned this when we
were doing this podcast for this show, is you know
Jonathan's girlfriend Candace and her dad. That was the He

(05:40):
was kind of the drunk and he was selling some
of the x K and some of that stuff.

Speaker 1 (05:44):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (05:45):
I did not make the connection that he was the
first freak of the week on Smallville. Whoah, same after
he was he was the scarecrow boy on Smallville in
the very first in the very pilot.

Speaker 1 (05:59):
That's cool, that's cool.

Speaker 2 (06:00):
We got connection until I was looking up some stuff
the other day, but that was kind of cool.

Speaker 1 (06:04):
By the way, I was going to tell you, John
We've got a new listener this week. Our good friend
Jeff Johnson, oh the film by podcast, was telling me
that over our you know, this four year run, he
had never watched Superman and Lois Wow, but had a
couple of weeks off recently and just binge the whole show.

Speaker 2 (06:26):
Oh nice.

Speaker 1 (06:27):
And so I was talking to him last night and
he had watched seasons one through three and he's like, man,
I just don't know where to find season four. And
I'm like, dude, it's on the CW app Yeah, and
he texted me today and he's diving into that. So
he's like, now I can listen to the podcast full
of Kryptonite.

Speaker 2 (06:43):
Nice, well, Jeff, welcome. It's good to have you here,
good to have your ears here. Yep. Yeah, No, I
love this show, so I'm excited to get into this.
So let's go ahead and get started out. Let me
do a quick rundown of each of the seasons, just
to kind of help remind the listeners if they are
if they've been just immersed in season four, because there

(07:03):
was so much that's happened in season four and trying
to remember, okay, well what happened like all the way
back in season one. Because I had to as much
as I've watched each of these episodes multiple times, I
kind of had to go back and remind myself. So
I've tried to do a quick, quick recap of each
of the seasons but give you enough information to kind
of help you, you know, connect the dots here with
what had happened, so real quick. Season one. Early on

(07:24):
in the season, from the beginning, we get that, you know,
Clark Kent no longer has his job at the Daily Planet,
Lois it's not gonna have her job either. His mother,
Martha passes away. He moves his family back to Smallville
to kind of reconnect with roots and to support Jordan,
who is, you know, just struggling with his emotional state.
You know. Tensions are rising with Morgan Edge, who is

(07:46):
the new owner of the Daily Planet and a very
mysterious figure who's also showing up in Smallville. Clark reveals
his Superman identity to his sons after they discover his spaceship. Jordan,
then we find out has inherited the Kryptonian powers as well.
Captain Luthor appears initially as a villain we believe, but
ends up revealing that he has a history with an

(08:06):
evil superman from his world, so we already get the
sense that there are multiple earths here. Lois is investigating
Morgan Edge and ends up joining the Smallville Gazette with
Chrissy Beppo. The conflict with Captain Luthor escalates, and he
is seeking some Kryptonite to defeat Superman. Edge's plans also
involve ex kryptonite and manipulating the Smallville residence. Jordan is

(08:30):
struggling with his powers, which are kind of unpredictable and
tries to participate in the football team, even though there
may be some risks involved. Then we find out that
Captain Luther is actually John Henry Irons, and if you're
a fan of the nineties Superman comics, you know exactly
who that is. That is the Man of Steel. The
season finale, Edge is revealed as tal Row, Superman's Kryptonian

(08:51):
half brother, and he is there to resurrect Krypton using
a device called the Eradicator. He's going to replace people
human people with Kryptonian people and implant them with Kryptonian consciousnesses.
Superman ends up having to use a solar flare and
restores everyone, but leaving him exhausted and nearly powerless. Talrou

(09:15):
does end up escaping with the Eradicator. Jumped to season two,
Talro is trying to get Superman to join him, manipulating
his memories and threatening the family. He implants General Zod's
consciousness into Superman, but Clark resists. John Henry nearly kills Superman,
believing him to be corrupted, but Lois convinces him not to.
Superman is able to expel the Zod consciousness and Talou

(09:36):
escapes again. Lois is investigating Talro's actions while dealing with
the trauma of a past miscarriage. Natalie Irons unexpectedly arrives
and we that's going to cause some extra tension as well,
because now she has a third child, and the miscarriage
that she had years ago was a daughter that was
going to be named Natalie, So that causes a lot

(09:57):
of stuff to rise to the surface for her. We
have the DoD run by General Gramps is kind of
upping their presence as well. Taalroue returns, kidnapping Jordan and
implanting him with Zada Rose consciousness his father's consciousness, mean
and nasty dude. Late in the season, several months passed by,

(10:17):
Lois is disagreeing with Chrissy over some choices at the Gazette.
Superman is having some painful visions and there is a
kind of a mysterious Bizarro like figure that shows up.
We think at the beginning that it's doomsday, but it's not.
Alie Alston, a cult leader connected to Lucy Lane, becomes

(10:39):
a threat. The Bizarro Superman reveals Ali's plan to destroy
everything that Clark loves. To blend the two earths together,
The Bizarro Earth and our Earth. There's a kind of
a pendant involved that there are both two pendants, one
from each of the worlds, and if they're able to
mash the two together, then she gains godlike power and

(11:00):
is able to finish her plans. They end up Superman
and John Henry end up fighting her, and that leads
to just some additional stuff going on with the Kent
family as well and the Cushings, and Jonathan does some
experimenting with ex kryptonite as kind of a drug to
give him some powers, so there's a whole thread of that.

(11:22):
We go into season three, Superman is trapped in the
inverse world. Jonathan's x k use kind of leads to
some conflict with Jordan. Lois receives a stage three breast
cancer diagnosis, Superman is arrested for treason, and tal Rowe
is also captured there as well. Lois and Clark reject

(11:43):
using Kryptonite tech to cure her cancer, so they're going
to do this because there may not be a way
to use Kryptonian tech to cure her. Lana wins the
mayoral election. Let's see the inverse world Bizarro world. Jonathan
shows up and so they have some issues there with
people passing back and forth between the two worlds. Lana
finds out about Clark's secret. Natalie is seeing Matteo, who

(12:08):
is the child of Bruno Manheim, who is connected with
Inner Gang. He is trying to seek a cure for
his wife, Pia, who we don't know for a little bit,
but she actually has powers and she is also in
the same cancer ward as Lois. We find out that
they had framed Lex Luthor for a past crime, and
that Lois had used that information to put him away

(12:30):
for the last seventeen years, which becomes a big storyline
at the end of season three and on into season
four as well. Lex is released from prison and starts
manipulating events for his own gain. At the end of
season three, Lex Luthor Unleisha is a monstrous version of
Bizarro on Smallville. He has basically taken Bizarro and killed
him multiple times in horrible ways, over and over again

(12:51):
to create the monster that we know again if you're
a nineties comic book fan, we know as Doomsday. Clark
seems to defeat but Doomsday by throwing him into the moon,
but the creature revives and comes after him and the
story ends with a cliffhanger as the two of them
clash in a finally in a final deadly battle. And again,
if you're a nineties Superman fan, you're looking at this

(13:13):
and thinking this is death of Superman stuff. We know
these writers and showrunners have loved this era of Superman,
so he's likely gonna, you know, die, probably gonna get
the crap beat out of him, and he's probably gonna die.
That looks like where this story's gone. Okay. Season four
quick Season four recap. Season four begins with Lex, newly

(13:33):
freed from prison, seeking his revenge, using Doomsday to kill Superman.
Superman is killed, and while Smallville the world mourns, the Kents,
especially mourn struggling with Clark's With the loss of Clark,
Jordan tries to confront Luther, who reveals that he knows
Clark's secret. We get a point where Jonathan gains powers

(13:55):
and John, Henry, and Nadley are trying to join the
Department of Defense is Squad k Sam Lane sacrifices himself
to try to resurrect Superman. Clark returns with some diminished
powers and faces some new vulnerabilities in his life. Superman
starts to adjust to his weakened abilities while trying to

(14:16):
train both of the boys, and at this point Jonathan
Jordan kind of takes a little bit of a back
seat because he's unsure. He blames himself for some things
that happened. Jonathan is much more of a natural when
it comes to these powers and using these powers physically,
and so he kind of takes the lead there between
the two brothers. Sarah Cushing leaves for a study, the

(14:40):
broad pro study a broad program. You know, Luther is
just doing everything he can to try to destroy Superman
again because I thought he killed him the first time,
and eventually the family does decide that the best thing
to do is probably to just reveal Clark's identity, because
otherwise they're just going to start losing the trust of
the people and Luther's manipulations are going to win out.

(15:03):
Kind of fast forward through this season because if you've
been watching, you you've seen this season, so this is
probably fresh in your mind. But basically, Luthor releases an
even stronger Doomsday, forcing Superman to face the greatest challenge
he has ever faced. And then when we get to
the final episode, it is dramatic. It is a knockdown,
drag out fight between both Superman the Doomsday Lex Luthor.

(15:28):
Maybe a little bit of Brainiac thrown in there, but
not in the way you think. And then all I
will say for the finale is the finale. Then you
do get plenty of time in that final episode to
wrap up the story, to give kind of a very
moving and poignant end to this story. And one of

(15:49):
the things I will say, one of my only little
pieces of commentary here, because well do plenty of commentary
here in a second, is I don't know that I've
seen too many Superman stories that wrap up the Superman
story like actually put a finish and an end point
on it. This one did it, and I think did
it very very well. So that's that's about all I
will say as it relates to the final episode of

(16:11):
season four. So that is the recap. Try to do
it as quick as I can. But those are the
four seasons just chock full of stuff. So before we
get into talking about specific characters, side characters, things like that,
just initial thoughts from you guys like these these four
seasons of this show, tell me what you're thinking.

Speaker 4 (16:34):
Well, to me, the attractive thing at the beginning, and
it turned out being this way throughout was that it
had such a such a family appeal in that you've
got Okay, yes it's Superman and Lowis, and normally the
focuses on those two, but all of a sudden, we've

(16:55):
got these twins and they're going through normal teen stuff.
I mean, if you watch Jordan throughout the years and
you see the anxiety issues and stuff that he dealt with,
and the way that once he got powers and he
didn't know what to do with them, and then he
lost his mentor in Grandpa and that kind of tanked
him for a while. And then you've got Jonathan, who

(17:16):
it makes more sense for him to have the powers
and then but he doesn't. And to me, at the
beginning I had a problem with that. I was like, well,
it makes more sense for Jonathan to have it. But
now I trust the writers on that because we did
get the payoff at the end. But then we did
get to see some I felt like better character development
and the fact that he yearned for those powers and

(17:37):
then he didn't. He didn't have them for so long.
So the family appeal, the stuff where they're where Dad
is having to sit them down and talk through issues
where they are afraid to cross mom, which was always
hilarious when Lois would put her foot down. Just the
whole superfamily but in a small town was so stinking

(17:59):
relatable all four years.

Speaker 1 (18:03):
Yeah, I really enjoyed the kind of the what if
scenario of it. So, you know, we've seen the Christopher
Reeve Superman where he's in Metropolis, he's fighting bad guys,
he's working for the Daily Planet. But as a father,
I enjoyed the fatherly aspect of it. You know, what
if Superman and his family moved back to Smallville and
they kind of try to settle down, have a quiet life,

(18:27):
work for a small town newspaper. You know, Clark was
even a football coach for a little bit, and if
the boys wanted to play football. All that family stuff
and the carnivals and the girlfriends and the diner, all
that stuff was super fun, I thought. And then trouble
did find them in Smallville, Kansas. But you had the

(18:48):
dynamic of Heartland America that I really enjoyed.

Speaker 2 (18:54):
Yeah. Yeah, I feel like they maybe from a business standpoint,
I've kind of wondered the years because I don't feel
like kids are getting into comic books as much as
they used to be. And I think a lot of
these properties, you know, Star Trek, Star Wars, they're trying
to figure out a way to get the next generation
of fans into this, and I think DC, I think

(19:16):
is doing a pretty good job with that because I
don't know if you've if you guys have watched any
of My Adventures with Suman cartoon that came out maybe
a year ago, a couple of years ago. Now that
one's great, Like that one's awesome. I could see if
I was a kid watching cartoons today, I enjoyed it
as an adult, So I can see that one being
one that kids would really gravitate to. So we got

(19:38):
the cartoon stuff locked down, But how do we get
the people who have been you know, like us who
may have been reading the comics in the eighties and
the nineties, and well, we're all roughly the same age
that Superman would be. Now, you know, when I was
a kid reading Superman watching the cartoons, Superman was always
an adult. Well now I'm the same age as Superman

(19:59):
would be in this show. And I'm like, okay, well
this this, now, this Superman fits really well with me,
like I didn't as a kid. I didn't need Superman
to be a kid because it was Superhero. He was cool.
He can like move the moon if he wants to.
Like that, stuff's cool. But now I really appreciate having,
like you said, Tristan, like a very relatable, very much
a you know, could I if I were to go

(20:21):
sit down at this diner, would Clark Kent sit down
and have a conversation with me? Could we be buddies?
Could I be cush? Could I be his friend? And
I think that that I wish I'd come up with
some kind of a different nickname. But you know, that's
one of the things I really enjoy about this story
is watching this and I think the way that Tyler
Hecklin portrayed Clark Kent Superman in this same thing, it's

(20:46):
get you get a Superman that is almost like Christopher Reeve.
And I don't want to knock anything about his portrayal
of Superman, but he's almost too good. I love a
Superman like I would almost see Christopher Reeve Superman as
being he's he's nice, he's the big blue boy scout,
but I don't know that he's as relatable as the
Tyler Hecklan Superman we got in this show. I could

(21:08):
sit down and have a meal with this Clark Kent
Superman at the diner in Smallville and we could talk
for a really long time. As much as I love
Christopher Reeve Superman and Clark Kent, I don't think I
see that happening with that version of it. So that's
one of the things I really appreciate about this iteration
of Superman and Clark Kent.

Speaker 3 (21:27):
Yeah, totally.

Speaker 4 (21:28):
And they built it that way from the first episode.
In that and I know I'm about to say the name,
but Martha, I love that they had this legacy in Smallville,
that everybody knew who she was, and she was the

(21:48):
one that everybody came to. It's like, Okay, that actually
makes a whole lot of sense in who Clark Kent becomes.

Speaker 2 (21:54):
Yeah, yeah, you understand why he grew up the way
he did and why he is the man that he is.

Speaker 1 (22:02):
Is it Is it blasphemy to say that Chris Reeve
may have been the greatest Superman, but Tyler Heckland maybe
the greatest.

Speaker 2 (22:12):
Clark Kent. No, I wouldn't call that blasphemy.

Speaker 1 (22:17):
I think I really enjoyed his his take on that character.

Speaker 2 (22:20):
So because I think I think Christopher Reeve's Superman and
Clark Kent were they were they were as as good
as they were ever possibly going to be. And that's
not to say they aren't still good, but for a
major motion picture that was trying to adapt a comic book,
and comic book have adaptations at that point, where I mean,
you had the sixties Batman. It was campy, it was silly.

(22:42):
Their whole tagline was you could believe, you believe, you'll
believe a man could fly, basically, And so I think
what they were just trying to do with that was,
let's let's have this taken seriously as a movie, Like
could we make a Superman movie that could possibly, I
don't know, win an Oscar or be taken seriously as
a film, not just as some kind of kid's comic

(23:03):
book thing. And for that the character of Clark Kent
and the character of Superman, and that I think we're
exactly what they needed to be for a you know,
two hour motion picture and then the subsequent sequels. But yeah,
I think in terms of the Clark Kent, because I
know we did an episode on You Know, Shirley Can't
Be Serious podcast several years ago on you Know Superman

(23:26):
one two and Man of Steel, and I think at
the end of that I ended up saying that I
felt like the Man of Steel, like Henry Cavill, Clark
Kent was one of my favorites just because of the
things that he was struggling with. You don't see you
see a little bit of Christopher Reeve Clark Kent struggling
with some things. But I really appreciated how they took

(23:48):
a different direction with the Henry Cavill Superman and Clark
Kent thing that I don't know that I had ever
really seen in that character before. But I think the
benefit of having a TV series where we got hours
upon hours upon hours to spend with this Clark Kent,
I think, let it let them flesh it out even more.
And just I think just Tyler Hecklans an actor, just

(24:11):
is a super relatable guy. Honestly, I haven't watched too
many other things that he's been in, but his my
thought is his Clark Kent will stand for quite a
long time as possibly the best, if not one of
the best Clark Kent we've ever seen because even I
love Smallville, and I talked about how I'm gonna I'd

(24:32):
like to do Smallville next on this podcast, and we
got ten seasons of that Clark Kent. But even and
as much as I really enjoyed Tom Welling's characterization of
Clark Kent and the way he got to go from
high school to adulthood in that character, but it's a
very different character. Like it's it's a Clark Kent growing
up and dealing with the struggles of growing up and
going through high school, and it's relatable to high schoolers

(24:55):
and maybe college kids at that point, but it's just
not It didn't have the same I don't know, didn't
have the same weight or gravitas as a father Clark
Kent dealing with the things that he's dealing with, you know,
having kids of his own.

Speaker 1 (25:11):
I had a moment with my daughter the other day.
I was knocked on her door and my ava was sixteen.
I walked in and she's watching a TV show and
there's Tyler Heckler, I mean, and I'm like, whoa, what
do you what are you watching that? And she was
watching Teenwolf?

Speaker 2 (25:27):
Oh yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (25:29):
But she was amazed that I knew who he was
and that I liked him as an Ana and he
looks at the exact same he's got the five o'clock shadow,
and you know he's mister Teenwolf.

Speaker 2 (25:39):
So you walked in, You're like, that guy's a great Superman. Dad,
You're such a nerd.

Speaker 3 (25:47):
What's funny about you saying that? Jason is?

Speaker 4 (25:49):
I remember before Superman and Lewis started and I had
called to tell you about them possibly.

Speaker 3 (25:58):
Doing the show. Do you remember this? And because I
had seen Tyler hecklinn On in the Arrow.

Speaker 4 (26:04):
Verse as Superman, and so I sent you the picture
and you go and you go, well, maybe, but the
Superman needs a shave.

Speaker 1 (26:17):
I kind of liked the five o'clock shadow for him,
and he added the entire series. So it grew on you,
it did, so to speak.

Speaker 2 (26:27):
So and that's been kind of a fun thing too,
is to see because I remember when they introduced his
Superman in those Aero Verse It was at the Crisis episodes,
I think when they first introduced it, and so that
was kind of our first opportunity to see a version
of Superman. And in that story, I think we also
got we got kind of a kingdom come Brandon Ralph

(26:49):
Superman as well, and then we also got Tom Welling
showed up for a portion of that when Lex Luthor
was wash you know, universe hopping to try to kill
all the Superman and so that was kind of fun.
But I think at the time we thought, oh, yeah,
this is cool. This guy's gonna play Superman for a
couple of episodes. And then I do remember when they said, oh, nope,
we're getting a full show, full show. It's gonna be

(27:09):
called Superman and Lois. And at that point I was like, well,
I you know, I don't know much about this guy.
He seemed good in the Aeroverse shows, so all right,
we'll give him a chance. And then I think what
floored me was there's a difference between and we said
this several times when the show first started, there's a
difference between an Aeroverse show kind of the dialogue, how

(27:33):
it's filmed, how it looks, the tone of everything. There's
a difference between that and what we got in seasons
one through four of this show. And I think we
if anybody wanted to play a drinking game to the
word cinematic. During our first season of doing the podcast,
I think you probably would be on the floor before
you got through a full episode, because that was how
we kept describing it was like this is this is

(27:55):
not It doesn't look like an Aeroverse show. It doesn't
sound like an Aeroverse show. This sounds like a one
movie that we're going to get every week. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (28:02):
Yeah, And on that point, you know, at the beginning,
people were very skeptical and upset that it looked like
this was not a part of the Erverse, and the
directors and showrunners for a while were playing back and
forth like maybe it was, maybe it wasn't. Are we
going to get those crossovers? And I will say, as
an Aerovers fan, I mean.

Speaker 3 (28:23):
I've watched I've watched.

Speaker 4 (28:25):
All of all of Arrow, which was a great Batman
show when they wouldn't let you do Batman. I've watched
Legends and and everything. I think I missed Batwoman or something. Anyway, Supergirl,
we liked those two, so at the beginning I kind
of wondered if we'd see some crossovers. But now I'm
so glad they didn't do any crossovers because when you

(28:47):
do the crossovers, you're now responsible for all of that
lore and because they didn't, they were able to stand
independently the entire series.

Speaker 3 (28:56):
So great decision there.

Speaker 2 (28:58):
Yeah, well, and I I like how I do feel
like as much as I enjoy those crossovers, and my
little nerdy heart just you know, skips a beat every
time somebody shows up as a live action version of
somebody I never thought I would see in live action.
I love that stuff, like, I absolutely love that stuff.
But at the same time, I'll be one of the
first people to admit that it does come across as

(29:18):
a little gimmicky. Whenever that happens. It's always like as
a kid when you had the massive comic book crossovers
like a zero Hour or a Crisis or something like that.
As a kid, I was like, man, I love these things,
and as adult, I'm like, wait a minute, I gotta
buy how many parts of what thing to be? I
can't afford that my kid needs diapers. I can't afford

(29:39):
part you know, twenty four of thirty seven that comes
out this week and in Booster Gold number fifty two
that I don't normally ever buy. And so that is
the crossover stuff that kind of gets to me sometimes.
So I am with you that I'm glad they didn't
do any of that because then even though we had
our own side characters in you know, the Cushing family

(30:02):
in Chrissy in general, Gramp's in you know, Lucy when
she was in that season, we had our own side
characters here, but we really got to focus in on
Superman and the Superman family, and that I feel like
if we had gotten gotten to the point where, oh yeah,
at least once or twice a season, we're going to
introduce a crossover with another character, I feel like that

(30:22):
really would have killed the momentum. And little little comment
here real quick. I think the way that they messed
up the scheduling of the episodes and we'd have like
two here and then wait a month, and then two here,
and then wait two months and then have two episodes here,
and I think that did enough to kill some of
the momentum of the show. But I'm glad they didn't

(30:42):
do the crossover so we could just get a show
that focuses in on the Superman family.

Speaker 1 (30:47):
Yeah, you know, it's crazy to I don't know. I
think it's crazy to think back that this show was
interrupted by COVID, you know, and we didn't know what
was going to happen, and so it's been a while.

Speaker 2 (31:00):
It's been a while, and if anything, if we ever
never you never hear anybody say this phrase, but if
you want to thank COVID for anything, I think Covid
is the reason we didn't get crossovers, because my understanding
is they were originally planning to do a Supergirl and
Batwoman crossover in season one, and because of the COVID restrictions,
they're like, eep, nope, we're scrapping all that. And so
originally I do think this was going to be more

(31:22):
of an aeroverse show, and because of all the COVID
delays and restrictions and everything else, they said, no, you
know what, it's too difficult to do those crossovers. This
is going to be maybe we won't tell anybody until
season two and a half or whatever, but this is
its own separate universe that helps us solve the logistical
problem of not being able to do these crossovers. So

(31:42):
I think that mercifully, I think that actually ended up
helping the show and keep it from getting stuck with
with crossovers that, you know, may have just been little
roadbumps in the story. Huh.

Speaker 1 (31:57):
I don't miss those days.

Speaker 2 (31:58):
No, not at all. So real quick, let's take a
couple of minutes and let's just talk about from season
one to season four. Let's start with actually, know what,
Let's start with the supporting characters, the Cushings, the Chrissy Beppo,
the you know, the what else, some of the other

(32:19):
Smallville folks. Yeah, Lucy in season was it? Season two?
The Lucy was it? Yeah? Any of those side characters,
let's talk about them for a minute. Like what I know,
there were different times whereas we were watching some of
the episodes, we're like, man, are we are we getting
a little bit too much of the Sarah drama? Are
we getting a little bit too much of the Cushing

(32:39):
family drama? But over the course of the four seasons,
how did that work out for you? As we got
to see how these characters grew and we got to
see kind of what was gone in their lives. And
then in season four it kind of dropped off, like
we got them a little bit, but they weren't series
regulars anymore, so we didn't see as much as we
did before. So let's just in general kind of some
of the supporting characters, what did you think, you know.

Speaker 4 (33:01):
Kind of a trope that you see in some of
these action shows is it seems like there's almost always
at least one and some sometimes a few supporting characters
who just make terrible decisions are absolutely annoying, and you're
mad at the main characters for being a part with them.
On twenty four, it was the daughter Kim on this,

(33:25):
on this for a long time it was Candice, because
you're like, oh my gosh, get rid of this girl.
But now on this side of things, I can see
what the point was. Okay, we've got teenagers, and teenage
boys are stupid for teenage girls, and so that was
a necessary evil at that point. But I remember when
we were watching through that, I was like, oh my gosh,

(33:46):
I hate this girl.

Speaker 1 (33:50):
You know the ones that drove me the most insane,
I think you know, Kyle, you know, especially in season one,
was always kind of misreading the room and stupid things
and making everybody mad. And and then I think in
season two Natalie kind of poked her nose around too
much and and bugged me. But I really so Natalie

(34:11):
drove me nuts, to be honest, But general Grams was
a great character and then John Henry Irons was a
great character, and of course, I know we all kind
of had a little bit of a crush on Laana.
We thought she was great.

Speaker 4 (34:25):
So I saw John Henry on a Law and Order
episode the other day, I was bad, he was a
bad guy.

Speaker 3 (34:33):
He was great.

Speaker 2 (34:33):
Yeah, oh nice. Yeah, I kind of feel the same way.
There were moments where some of the yeah, I think
and we talked about these when we when we were
originally doing those episodes, I think there were moments where
the whole drama between Jordan and Sarah felt like it
was getting to be a little much. But at the
same time, and I think we said at the time too,

(34:56):
that is not geared towards me, like I'm not the
demographic that that little, you know, subplot is geared towards.
This is when they're crafting the show. They're doing it
in such a way that and I was able to
I could sit down and watch this with my teenage
kids and my wife and myself. We could be sitting
there watching it, and in every episode there was something
for each one of us. There was a little bit

(35:17):
of the teen drama that my kids, you know, could
relate to. There was the mother father drama, the adult drama,
and then there's the action stuff, which everybody can relate to.
And so you know, for as much as some of
the teen stuff bothered me, or like you said, every
once in a while Kyle, I was like, come on, can
we just could I trade this drama with Kyle for maybe,

(35:37):
like I don't know, another fight or another like you know,
flinging a submarine around or something like that. So there
were moments where I wanted to trade some of that.
And I think that if I look at the four
seasons as a whole and I look at these characters,
then I think I can look at that and I
can say, you know what, overall in the four seasons,

(35:58):
I can see I can see the growth here, Like
I can see the stuff that kind of bothered me
about this person. I can see where they were going
with that. So I can excuse some of that. Now. Granted,
going back in time, I'd be like, well, you know,
I could have cut maybe like a minute or two
here from this conversation, or I could have had a
little less Crissy in this episode and a.

Speaker 3 (36:20):
Little less Nay, what was your name for Chrissy? The monkey? Oh?

Speaker 2 (36:25):
YEAHO the super Monkey. Yes, yeah, yeah, and then then
there were episodes where she she like she kept losing
her clothes. So I think during one season we would,
you know, we'd try to pick which character we thought
was either doing the craziest things or having the most fun.
We called it the naked Who was your naked? I

(36:46):
forget about that?

Speaker 3 (36:47):
Forgot about that.

Speaker 2 (36:48):
Yeah, it felt when it was just me on the podcast,
it felt a little awkward trying to pick a naked
Beppo each time.

Speaker 4 (36:54):
So well, for like a few episodes, it was Jeff
only Chrissy, like just every time.

Speaker 1 (37:01):
Right, Yeah, you know, Tristan, when we first started this podcast,
I you know, we had come to become friends with John,
and you know, de and I were doing our thing
and John was doing his thing. But we had this
friendship and we thought we'd get together and do a
kind of a dual podcast. And I didn't realize when
we were doing this that we were sitting in a

(37:24):
room with you know, somebody from Krypton. I mean, John
knew everything, Like he would pull up stuff I had
never heard of, and you know, he came up with
the eradicator. You know, he was like, I think this
is the Eradicator guys, and we're like, wow, So John
has uh really amazed me with his Superman knowledge.

Speaker 2 (37:44):
So it's it's because I have like an entire room
of comic books sitting off to the side over here.
It's it used to be my kids rooms. My kids
who are named Oh gosh, what are my son and
daughter's names? I think I have two anyway, there's right, yes, yes, yeah,

(38:06):
my kids who are named Clark and Lana. That that
comes from years of like not having a social life
but having a lot of comic books. Well, I was
impressed and religiously watching like every Superman thing that ever
came out. But it made it easy because this and
I think that's one of the things I really enjoyed

(38:26):
about this show was so much of the Easter eggs
that were being pulled into this show were from that
era that I grew up reading. So I started reading
comics a bit in the eighties. But but in earnest,
I you know, it was when my dad brought back
as we were living over in England and access to
comic books was not as plentiful as it was in
the US, and so I remember my dad going back

(38:49):
for a business trip and to visit family, and when
he came back, he brought me a couple of issues.
One issue of Superman and it was right when Superman
was coming back. He had the black suit with the soul.
The Batman issue that he bought me was when Batman
has had his back broken, and then there was this
new guy who had this batsuit that had razor claws

(39:12):
and all kinds of stuff. And so those were my
first two comics that kind of started my collection, and
I remember looking at those, going, wait a minute, Superman's
got long hair in a black and silver suit. That's
not super Friends Superman, like, that's not the one I remember.
And then looking at Batman, I'm like, wait a minute,
that's not the Batman. This is kind of cool. And

(39:32):
so that just kind of just immediately grabbed my attention
and just kind of kicked off the whole thing. And
I think that's why it helped to be able to
catch so many of the Easter eggs in this show,
because you could tell I don't know who it was.
I don't know if this is showrunners, the writers, the
who it was, but somebody clearly either grew up on
the eighties and nineties Superman stuff, or somebody went to

(39:55):
a local comic book store and just cleaned out the
entire shelf of the you know, John Burns stuff, the Death,
Funeral and Return of Superman and just set it in
the writer's room and said, guys, read this and then
start writing this show. So I think that also made
it easier for me to pick some of that stuff
out because this is where I got started, this is
where I was. I was most hooked on Superman during

(40:18):
this time period, and that's what this show seemed to
kind of revolve around.

Speaker 4 (40:22):
So we started around the same time then, because it
was the reign of the Superman series that hooked me.
And I think I've told you my comic book collections
were gathered at the grocery store and so what random
comic books they would have, And so I assume that
DC did a major push during the reign of the

(40:43):
Superman and Nightfall series because I had all of those,
and so every reign of the Superman when they first
introduced Superboy Steel, the Eradicator in Cyborg, all of those
came out came with a fold out poster in the books,
so my walls were, you know, aligned with those rain

(41:04):
in the Superman series posters and stuff, so so I
feel you on that. Yeah, And that's why in this
season when we were wondering if we were going to
get Doomsday and then we ended up getting the Bizarre World,
it was because that fist, that krang krang krang.

Speaker 3 (41:21):
It's like, ooh, Doomsday's coming.

Speaker 1 (41:23):
Yeah, that was fun.

Speaker 2 (41:24):
That was fun. So let's uh, let's let's pivot to
that for a second. And the villains. So, the villains
we got in this show, starting in season one and
going all the way through to season four, we got
some amazing villains in this show. And one thing the
showrunners or the writers really really enjoyed about this was
setting some possible expectations for us and then completely tearing

(41:47):
the carpet out from underneath us when we thought we
knew who the villain was. And especially I think people
like me, who I'm sitting there going, I'm I'm picking
up what you're putting down. I got the breadcrumbs here.
I know who this is. And that's what was really
fun about it, because sometimes I'll get into these shows
and they'll they'll name drop something, and like in Smallville,

(42:07):
somebody will say the name Milton Fine, and I'm like, ooh,
I know who Milton Fine is. I know who this
is going to be. But what I enjoy about this
show is they drop a name like Morgan Edge and
I'm sitting there, I'm going I know who Morgan Edge is,
all right, I got an idea of where this story
is going. And then they completely do a one eighty
on you and like, no, he's a Kryptonian named tal

(42:27):
Row and he's super good half brother. What wait, that's
not Morgan Edge. But okay, let's proceed sir, Let's let's
find out more.

Speaker 4 (42:38):
So.

Speaker 2 (42:38):
I think that was one of the things this show
did really well. And I think again, I'll say it
until I'm blue in the face. I think that these
the people making this show knew the story so well
that and you don't get this with a lot of
shows that they sat down and they probably said, all right,
we got to do this show in a way that
brings in new people and makes it accessible, but we

(42:59):
also got to put something exciting in there for the
people that know more than we do about this show,
like the people who have encyclopedic knowledge of these characters.
Let's do some stuff that surprises them, because oftentimes, if
you're a nerd, you don't get surprised by much because
you're on all the forums, you know, all the information.
You're the comic book guy sitting at his computer, you know,
saying worst adaptation ever kind of a deal. So that's

(43:23):
one of the things I really appreciated about this show
is they surprised me every.

Speaker 1 (43:27):
Time they did that. Additionally, for the John Reids out there,
I think, so.

Speaker 4 (43:33):
We got a live action Bizarre World that wasn't stupid, right,
I mean, it just and that I was you were
asking that one point in our notes favorite episodes, and
so I'm maybe jumping the gun here, but that may be,
as I was thinking about it, my favorite episode because
when they first introduced Bizarre World to us and we

(43:55):
got to go there for like a whole episode, because
the whole feel and the music, oh my gosh, the
music was so good. Yeah, and it was just like,
I can't imagine them having done a better job with this.

Speaker 3 (44:08):
It was so great.

Speaker 2 (44:10):
I still at Halloween time will play that song by
Ween that they played in that episode.

Speaker 3 (44:15):
Yeah in the house. Yeah, Oh that's so good. Yeah yeah, yeah.
And just I mean, that's the kind of thing too.

Speaker 4 (44:22):
Like one thing I've always liked about Bizarro and Bizarro
World in reading comic books, which again, most of the
time when Bizarro shows up, it's stupid, but you enjoy
it because you like Superman. But it's kind of like
those things you did when you're a kid, where you're like, Okay,
what's different from this picture?

Speaker 3 (44:39):
In this picture?

Speaker 4 (44:40):
You know, And that's that was another little bit of
that in that episode. Okay, we've got the Kent Farm here,
what's different? What's different in Bizarro World?

Speaker 2 (44:49):
Yeah, well, in some of those little surprises, like you
know Alie Alston, who you know, at first I had
a problem because I thought they were just picking on
podcas casters, but she's you know, she's the evil podcaster
and and you know it kind of that season, we
thought we were getting Doomsday, you know, like you said,

(45:10):
the hooded suit type thing and the fist pounding through
the ground there, so we thought we're getting Doomsday, and
they switch us up on that and we're getting Bizarro.
And I think we were texting, you know, maybe a
week or two ago, and you made the comment you
had read somewhere that this may be the most complete
or best character arc for a Bizarro we've ever gotten
in any type of Superman story, any kind of medium.

(45:33):
And I don't think I disagree with that. I think
I think you're spot on with.

Speaker 3 (45:36):
That, especially with the end of the series.

Speaker 4 (45:40):
Yes, just when they had the part at the Sun
and we had the flashbacks to those episodes where he
is remembering Lois and everybody on Bizarre World, it was
just so good.

Speaker 3 (45:54):
It was so good. It made that a really really
impacting scene.

Speaker 2 (45:57):
Yeah, and we get not even that, Like in that
same season, we've got you know, we get possibly Doomsday,
then Bizarro. Then we've got this Ali Alston character who
then turns out to be almost like a parasite character
because she can drain the powers of somebody. And so
we're kind of we're almost getting You've almost got like

(46:20):
four villains showing up in these seasons, and some sometimes
it's just in name only, you know, sometimes we get
the full on, you know, character version of it. But
it's it's like, I don't know, it's it's kind of
like when I used to feel like some of the
Batman movies were getting overloaded with villains and and you know,
losing the focus because you've got you know, we had

(46:41):
two villains here, and now we've got three villains here,
and now let's just throw in a vegetable bane too.
I'm sorry I didn't. I didn't. I didn't mean to
mention that. I apologize, But this show I think did
it very very well and and just so balanced, I
think in the way they were able to do it.

Speaker 3 (46:58):
So.

Speaker 2 (46:58):
Yeah, So we got Talrow, who was a great character
and his whole arc too. By the time we're done
with him, like he's he's super mellow, Like he's not
wanting to take over the world anymore. He's often bizarre world,
doing his own thing and hanging out in the bar
and you know, buying drinks for everybody and and all
kinds of stuff, which is a complete one eighty from
where he was when we first met him and he

(47:19):
wanted to kill everybody and make it Krypton.

Speaker 1 (47:22):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (47:22):
I think tall rowe got on some Xanax at some
point and and just really really some super Xanax maybe
and chilled out.

Speaker 3 (47:32):
Here's what I want to know.

Speaker 2 (47:33):
Which which actually I'll jump in real quick, which actually
works out well for him because it's both the same
forward and backward.

Speaker 3 (47:40):
Man. Well done, John Well done.

Speaker 2 (47:45):
Is that a Palin drome Xanax is the same no
matter what universe it's in.

Speaker 3 (47:49):
Wow, So just like Taco cat there.

Speaker 4 (47:52):
Okay, sorry, anyway, I lost where we were.

Speaker 2 (47:57):
What we were saying, Teal Rowan Zannix.

Speaker 3 (48:01):
Oh yeah yeah yeah.

Speaker 1 (48:03):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (48:04):
My question up to the end is what happened to
the boys trucks from Uncle Tal those monster trucks that
he gave them that were amazing, because I feel like
I saw Lex Luthor driving one in the last season.
He had this big, black, amazing truck. But what happened
to the trucks?

Speaker 2 (48:22):
I'm I'm going to say Clark had them donated because
he loves the harvest festival so much. He had them
donated to the city of Smallville to be municipal vehicles
for the harvest Festival.

Speaker 4 (48:33):
Yeah, and that's that's an arc that we haven't mentioned.
The festivals and this show, Holy Cow, running festivals is
a big deal. I grew up in a small town
and we had festivals. We had the Peanut Festival because
we were a peanut producing town.

Speaker 3 (48:53):
And and anyways though, and.

Speaker 4 (48:56):
Then we had you know, the jaw at fourth festivals
and all that kind of stuff and they all kind
of peter out at some point because it takes a
lot of work. But in Smallville, I mean they've got
festivals going on. I mean, how many festivals did we
get in this show?

Speaker 2 (49:10):
Oh gosh, at least a while?

Speaker 3 (49:12):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, So.

Speaker 2 (49:14):
I have to ask, are you is it expensive to
do the peanut festival? Are you shelling out a lot
of money for that?

Speaker 1 (49:23):
They're nuts for trying.

Speaker 3 (49:25):
Yeah, we were more lugume for trying, But.

Speaker 2 (49:31):
Yeah no, that's you know at Teal Rowe I think
was a great character in this and you know Ali
and the second one in Bizarro and then Lex Luthor.
I want to talk about him for a second, because well,
and Bruno Manheim. I think if I were to look
at the different characters and seasons now, I did still
enjoy season three, but I think season three was probably

(49:51):
the weakest, at least when it comes to villains.

Speaker 1 (49:54):
Definitely.

Speaker 2 (49:55):
I didn't feel like Bruno Manheim, the Inner Gang stuff,
it could have been stronger. I mean, I really sounds
weird to say it this way. I think the best
part of season three was Lois going through her cancer treatments, right,
And I only mean that because of the tension. It
added to the story because the opportunities it gave for
them to come together as a family. You know, the

(50:18):
themes that ran through this entire show of you know,
hope and family and perseverance and you know, legacy, Like
what kind of legacy if Lois doesn't make it through
her treatments, what kind of legacy is she leaving behind?
But I mean, those are the themes of the entire
series that we got, and I do feel like Season

(50:39):
three really dug into a lot of those and gave
us really really strong evidence of that through Lois's storyline.
I did feel like the season three Clark Superman, Bruno Manheim,
that kind of stuff was a little weaker in season three,
So I really think season three was Lois's season in particular.

(51:00):
So I don't necessarily want to skip over Bruno, but
I do want to kind of go to Lex Luthor
because this was a very different Lex Luthor than we've
gotten in a lot of other adaptations versions. You know,
another show that I like, which definitely don't watch it
around your kids, was The Titans, show that I think
also went four seasons. I believe there was a lot

(51:21):
that I really liked about that show, and we got
a Lex Luthor in that one for like a hot second,
and then something happened to him and he wasn't coming
back for another episode. So and I watched that just
not too long ago. So just recently, you know, we've
had the Aero Verse Lex Luthor, which was John Cryer.
We've had the Titans Lex Luthor who didn't stick around

(51:43):
for very long. We've had the Superman and Lowess lex Luthor's.
We've had several Lex Luthors in the last several years.
But this one's this one's a little different. This one
is sometimes you've you've got the businessman tycoon Lex Luthor.
Sometimes you've got the straight up mad science his Lex Luthor.
Sometimes you've got the criminal Lex Luthor. But a lot

(52:04):
of times he's more the kind of the white collar
criminal Lex Luthor. This one he kind of looked like
he beat you with his bare hands to death.

Speaker 1 (52:15):
It's kind of like a trucker Lex Luthor.

Speaker 4 (52:17):
Yeah, yeah, who was also really smart though, because like, yeah,
and that was one thing that that I thought was
neat was that like when he goes to fight Superman
and it's like, oh, all of the city lights have
turned to red because it's red kryptonite, you know. So
he he had good I felt like he always had

(52:38):
a good backup plan, right, Yeah, I'll tell you though.
My favorite part and what I thought was the neatest,
even though it was dark, the neatest thing I thought
they did with him, and that was that the whole time,
he said, ah, you kept me from my family, You
kept me from my daughter.

Speaker 3 (52:53):
That's the reason I'm doing all this stuff. I hate Lois.

Speaker 4 (52:57):
And then when he gets in the diet with his
dog and she's like, let's just end this.

Speaker 3 (53:03):
We can have a relationship. Leave Lois alone and we'll.

Speaker 4 (53:06):
Have a relationship like you've always wanted, and he's like, no,
I don't think I will is revenge was more important
to him than his daughter. So I thought that was
a really cool arc because it just blew wide open
this idea that.

Speaker 3 (53:23):
He was just doing it for his family.

Speaker 4 (53:25):
No, late, this guy is an angry, vindictive super villain.
And I like it when our villains aren't redemptive sometimes
because we so often get the redempted.

Speaker 3 (53:37):
You villain that well, he had a bad.

Speaker 4 (53:39):
Childhood type thing. It's like, no, this guy is a
bad dude. Kind of like Joker in the Dark Night.
It's like, give me a villain who is really a
villain and let my good guy beat him up.

Speaker 1 (53:55):
Yeah, some guys just want to watch the world burn.

Speaker 2 (53:58):
Right, right. Well, the interesting thing about this Lex Luthor
is so many times, in fact, I'd say every time
Lex Luthor is Superman's villain. And it's because sometimes it's
because Superman. Maybe they were friends as kids and Superman
did something to him when they were kids that you know,
caused him to go bald or ruined his life in

(54:20):
some way or whatever. Or you've got the Lex Luthor
who is just the the you know, ultra pro humanity
Lex Luthor, and get this alien off my planet. He's
just here to, you know, cause problems for humanity. Humanity
should be allowed to shine. He's keeping us back. Kind
of Lex Luthor this one. And I'm trying to remember

(54:41):
another time where Lex Luthor was not Superman's villain but
Lois Lanton's villain. And I really felt like, especially in
this season, that's where they broke it off. It was
Doomsday is Superman's villain, his nemesis, and Lex Luthor is
Lois's nemesis in this because you get to you get

(55:01):
to some of those later episodes, and it's almost like
he could care less about Superman, like he needs to
get rid of Superman so he can destroy Lois. It's
not the other way around, which typically in the comics
and other cartoons and TV shows and movies and whatever,
he hates Superman. In this, he hates Lois. Superman just
happens to be in his way. And I thought that

(55:22):
was a really interesting spin on it.

Speaker 1 (55:25):
Yeah, it was a little unsettling to see the blonde,
bushy haired Lex Luthor from you know, from a flashback scene.
I was like, this guy is not scary at all,
but you shave his head and it's all of a
sudden whoa you know.

Speaker 2 (55:41):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (55:43):
I did like when we got to see some of
those splashbacks of him in jail and he almost instantly
takes things over because that's who he is.

Speaker 2 (55:52):
Yeah. Yeah, And I was glad that they made Otis
scary because Otis was a scary dude in this, like
he's you know, there's you actually feel like, yes, I
understand why Lex Luthor uses this Otis. I mean, go
to go to Gene Hackman, Lex Luthor, and you're kind
of wondering. It's like, Okay, this whole greatest criminal mastermind

(56:14):
of our age thing, but that's that's the the goon
that you end up using. Like even Joker had Bob
the Goon, and that's like ten times better than Oda.
What is otis going to do for you? This? This
otis really really fit this lex Luthor, Like I can
absolutely understand, you know, they serve time together. That's how

(56:34):
he knows him, That's how he's using him. That made
sense to me. So even some of these other like
side villains that they ended up using from time to time,
I'm like, yeah, this this actually really fits with the
look and feel that they're going with for this main villain. Sadly,
no miss Testbucker, So no, unfortunately she she probably would

(56:57):
have stood out like a sore thumb in Smallville.

Speaker 1 (56:58):
So that's true.

Speaker 2 (57:00):
Yeah, all right, So let me ask you this before
we move on to you know, some of our last
couple of things we were going to talk about and
wrap up here. Did you have a favorite villain of
the series. If you had to pick one from this series,
who was your favorite villain the whole time?

Speaker 4 (57:19):
Mine's definitely Bizarro, especially with the way that they let
him in things. I just thought that was great.

Speaker 3 (57:28):
I thought that, uh, getting to see.

Speaker 4 (57:31):
His how he became who he was on Bizarro World
was really really neat the fact that it took the
boys coming together with Dad to help stop him, and
then even John Henry, which was really cool. Him getting
to step in there at that crucial moment was really good.
So yeah, for me, it's definitely Bizarro.

Speaker 1 (57:57):
I'm kind of a sucker for the Morgan Edge storyline.
The you know, the first season was my favorite, and
so I enjoyed that him as a villain, you know,
kind of the the money bags. And then of course
it's tal Rowe, you know, So.

Speaker 2 (58:19):
Yeah, as an original villain, so not necessarily based on
something from the comics. I think tal Row definitely was
probably the best of the original villains. I do love
bizarre owings, and so that might be might edge that
went out just a little bit. But I am going
to say probably the biggest villain of the whole thing,

(58:40):
Coach Gaines really committed some crimes. So get him on
the dance floor or get him as the DJ at
your wedding, and I feel like some crimes are committed there,
so he may be the true villain of the entire show,
gater bait.

Speaker 4 (58:52):
Yeah, actually, you're missing the real super villain of the
show all time, and that is Sophie.

Speaker 2 (59:01):
That's that's true. That's true because she does she does
grow into her finals, you know, more form, that's like
nine feet tall by the time we do get to
the end of the show.

Speaker 4 (59:08):
So, yeah, how amazing would it have been if we
found out by the end we were wrong, Doomsday wasn't
really Bizarro, it was Sophie.

Speaker 2 (59:17):
It was Sophie the whole time.

Speaker 1 (59:18):
Yeah, yeah, that'd be something.

Speaker 3 (59:21):
Yeah. Yeah. They didn't really try in the final season
to directify her situation.

Speaker 1 (59:27):
Didn't they.

Speaker 2 (59:31):
We We we used to joke that somebody we worked
with had had two kids, but would only ever talk
about the oldest of the two kids. And so whenever
we would also try to remember, we're like, what is
what is there other kid's name? And and if the
if I'll just use Sarah and Sophie as the examples,
if the oldest kid's name was Sarah, we just like, well, okay,

(59:53):
so they've got Sarah and not Sarah. We'll just we'll
just call him not Sarah because I don't remember. They
never talked about the second child. So that's kind of
how I felt Sophie was.

Speaker 3 (01:00:04):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:00:05):
See, we call it the Judy effect because during twenty
twenty the Lockdown, our family watched Family Matters together and
Judy was the Judy was the middle sister who was
a part of everything the first season or two, and
then all of a sudden she was gone, and she
wasn't in any of the family pictures anymore. They didn't

(01:00:27):
address it in the storyline at all.

Speaker 3 (01:00:29):
It was just she was gone.

Speaker 1 (01:00:31):
Judy effect.

Speaker 2 (01:00:33):
Yep, that's like the lesser known subset of the Mendela effect. Yeah,
did we have a Judy here? I don't know. I
don't remember Judy. I vividly remember Judy. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:00:46):
Yeah, there's a brother on Happy Days too. I think
that Richie had an older brother on Happy Days that
got phased out.

Speaker 4 (01:00:56):
We may be entering into a whole sindbad Shaq Kazam
problem here, so we should.

Speaker 3 (01:01:02):
Probably be that's true.

Speaker 2 (01:01:04):
That's true.

Speaker 3 (01:01:05):
The matrix is breaking through, right.

Speaker 2 (01:01:08):
The black Cats walked by a couple of times. Okay,
so here's this. This may be I'm gonna do some
little rapid fire ones here and see what we think
about these favorite episode.

Speaker 4 (01:01:20):
So I thought about this. I think it's the bizarre one.
But I have another one in the running, and that
is so I'm gonna pat this. Okay, I'm not really
gonna give you the answer. I'm gonna give you several Okay,
So I love you, love you Pat.

Speaker 3 (01:01:35):
Anyway, the other one.

Speaker 4 (01:01:38):
Was, and I believe it was one of the ones
directed by Amy Joe Johnson where if you remember when
Superman is fighting at the d O D and we
get this profile fight, do you remember that?

Speaker 3 (01:01:51):
That is amazing. I loved the direction in that.

Speaker 2 (01:01:54):
One, the homage to the movie Old Boy.

Speaker 4 (01:01:57):
Yeah, yeah, well yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:02:01):
That one was.

Speaker 4 (01:02:02):
That whole episode was just filmed in such a cool
I mean again cinematic.

Speaker 3 (01:02:07):
This is a TV show. I mean, you never see
stuff like that on a TV show.

Speaker 2 (01:02:11):
Yeah, no, that was awesome. Yeah, I remember that one.

Speaker 1 (01:02:18):
I'm kind of a stucker for the one where the
uh where Superman and Doomsday were fighting on the moon.

Speaker 2 (01:02:23):
That was.

Speaker 1 (01:02:24):
That was a lot of fun. I thought that was
really really cool.

Speaker 4 (01:02:28):
Yeah, uh oh yeah, yeah, go ahead.

Speaker 1 (01:02:35):
I was nervous we were wandering into Superman four territory
with the fight on the moon, but uh uh, it
was actually a really cool, really fun episode.

Speaker 2 (01:02:44):
So yeah, they're just this knockdown, drag out fight and
he's like, just you know, bizarro, stay here, I gotta
run get an elevator. Just hold on.

Speaker 1 (01:02:53):
We're gonna put him on the dark side of the
moon until sunrise.

Speaker 4 (01:02:58):
Okay, there was an episode where Superman did the super clap.

Speaker 1 (01:03:03):
That's right, that's true, and that was way early.

Speaker 4 (01:03:06):
The fact that that comic book thing came into came
into live action may make it my favorite.

Speaker 3 (01:03:13):
That was awesome.

Speaker 1 (01:03:14):
Yeah, no superkiss though I don't think right.

Speaker 3 (01:03:19):
And no tripping over Bear rugs.

Speaker 2 (01:03:23):
Well, well, I'm gonna say my probably my favorite episode
could have used a super kiss because that would have
solved his problem. I'm going to say my favorite episode
was from this season. It's about halfway through, more towards
the end of the season. It's season four, episode seven,
a regular Guy, and this is the one where the
news is kind of out, like he's randomly people are like, yeah,

(01:03:45):
we know what your dad sacrificed, so you know, thank you.
We'll just we'll keep everything quiet, and like everybody in
town is somehow aware that Clark Kent is Superman, and
the boys are like, holy crap, did we say something
or did we let something loose or what? Oh, Dad's
gonna be mad at us, Like we're not going to
be We're in the doghouse, and basically then has to spend,

(01:04:07):
you know, Clark has to spend kind of the rest
of that episode trying to convince people. He's like, I'm no,
I'm just a just a regular guy. I'm not I'm not.
I don't know what you guys think I am, but
I'm not that. And then just just some of the
moments in that and especially as you get to the
end when he finally decides, and and because of some
things that happen, he finally decides and he's like, you

(01:04:27):
know what, I just I gotta let this go. Like
I got a the If I'm for truth, justice in
the American way or however you're gonna word it, then
I got to be truthful and I haven't been truthful.
So we're just gonna We're gonna let the secret go.
And I absolutely loved that episode and I loved every

(01:04:47):
way that they handled that episode, But in the back
of my mind, I kept thinking Clark You've got the
super Kiss in your back pocket if you want. If
you want to keep this from getting out there, all
you got to do is open up like a tr
Charlie Brown kissing booth in your town and that's that's
all you need. Just like, do it, kiss everybody in town.
You'll be done. That'll fix it all.

Speaker 4 (01:05:10):
But yeah, if I didn't have an infant in my house,
I would be able to tell you, because I can't
remember right now. So a few years ago Superman in
Action Comics lost his identity and everybody on the planet
knew who he was. They did that for like a
year and then figured out to how to somehow everybody

(01:05:31):
forgot So I don't remember how they forgot that.

Speaker 3 (01:05:34):
That did happen.

Speaker 2 (01:05:35):
So I think it was Lex Luthor used the villain
Manchester Black, and he implanted something they like, amplified his powers.
He implanted something subconsciously in the minds of everyone around
the world except for like Batman, Lois Lane, you know,
certain people, but implanted in their minds the idea that

(01:05:57):
it would be ridiculous if Superman Camp were the same person.
And then the added threat was if anybody ever figures
it out, they a vein in their head will pop
and they will die. So so that was the added
threat was not only did we get your secret back
in the bottle, but it's it was a kind of
like superpowered reason for doing so. And Lex Luthor's added

(01:06:19):
thing was, hey, like, for example, Perry White doesn't know
you're Superman anymore, and if he ever, or Jimmy Olsen
or anybody, if they ever start to figure it out,
they will die because they'll just have an aneurysm and
they'll die. And so that was kind of, you know,
it was bittersweet for Clark because then it's like, okay, well,
this thing is back to the way it was before.
We've got some secrets. We can have a semi normal

(01:06:41):
life in some ways. But then the sad thing was
there's like, oh yeah, certain friends, it was nice that
they knew, and now they're not going to know, and
if they ever do know, they will die. So I
don't know if recently, if they've undone any of that,
but that was the reasoning behind. That's how they fixed
the whole everybody knowing.

Speaker 4 (01:06:57):
Y yeah, okay, okay, some of that seems familiar in
my mind. Like I said, having an infant in the house.
I've lost a lot of my brain cells. But okay,
I've got something and you may have this on on
your coming notes, so tell me if I'm jumping ahead.
But you guys, best live action Lois we've had.

Speaker 1 (01:07:18):
She's my favorite.

Speaker 2 (01:07:19):
Yeah, I'm gonna say yes, Yeah, I think so too. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:07:24):
I always have a soft spot for our Go Kidder. Yeah,
just because she was my first but but no, but yeah,
Bitsy rocked it.

Speaker 3 (01:07:37):
So yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:07:38):
See, I really liked Amy Adams and so at the beginning,
I was like, man, I don't know, because Amy Adams
was so good as they go get a reporter. But
the fact that we got to live with this Lois
Lane for four years and got to see her doing
the reporter stuff and going after the leads and and
then fighting for her family, I mean, it's heard me.

Speaker 2 (01:08:00):
So yeah, she's She's definitely. I think when we did
the crossover between the thirty podcast and Shirley Podcast, I
think I had a hard time with and still Margo Kidder. Again,
she was my first lowest Lane too, so she will
always be Lost Lane. But I think I mentioned when
we did that recording, it's like, I just have a
hard time seeing the way she portrays Lois Lane that

(01:08:23):
if Superman is the down to earth, like really great
guy that he is, how could he be with this
person who seems kind of shallow, superficial and just she's
not a very nice person, Like she is the go
get her reporter, but it's not a very nice person.
And I don't know that i'd see if Clark is
the guy that he is, I don't know that I
see him being attracted to that or attracted to her.

(01:08:44):
And so this lowest Lane, I think is the balance
of all the lowest lanes we've ever gotten. Like she is,
she can be pretty feisty, and you know, even Superman
and the superpowered sons don't want to mess with her
when she's you know, when they know they've done something wrong.
You don't mess with Lowe because she may be the
most powerful one in the family, but she's also genuinely

(01:09:05):
she's tough, and she's nice, and she's caring, and she's
all of these different things. And I think being able
to get that over the course of four seasons of
a TV show where her character has the chance to
be fleshed out like that, I think for the time being.
I think she is our best Loess Lane overall, the
most well rounded, lowest Lane that we've gotten.

Speaker 1 (01:09:27):
I'm glad you brought that up, John, because every other
movie or TV series that I've seen, it always feels
like Superman is kind of slumming with Lois Lane, like
he's the rock star and she's just kind of lucky
to have captured him. Yeah, But in this series, Superman
really truly is a superhero and a super dad. But

(01:09:49):
she's a super mom, you know, I mean, she's and
it's a perfectly even relationship.

Speaker 2 (01:09:56):
I think. So if I was going to sum up
this show in one world, I would say balanced. It
is probably the most balanced portrayal that we've ever gotten
of any of these characters. And if you like this
kind of Superman, you're gonna get a little bit of that.
If you like this kind of Superman, you're gonna get
a little bit of that. If you like this kind
of Clark Kent, if you like this kind of Lois Lane,
if it's a little bit of everything to the point

(01:10:17):
where it just works so very well, and you can
understand why these characters, especially you know, Clark and Lois,
why these people are together because they compliment each other
so well. It's not that you know, he's there with
her because she needs to be saved all the time,
or whatever the case may be, but it's because you
genuinely realize, no, they're actually a perfect match for each other.

(01:10:39):
They compliment, They compliment each other's strengths and weaknesses, and yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:10:45):
Yeah, absolutely absolutely.

Speaker 2 (01:10:49):
All right. I know we're about running out of time,
but I wanted to just ask a couple of other
questions I want to make sure I get from you guys.
Let me ask this one super Suit. Do you have
a favorite? We went through a few iterations of the
supersuit in this series, and if you want to throw
in the Aeroverse ones, you can where he's got the
you know, the cape kind of attaches at the shoulders
comes down a little bit. We had that one from Aeroverse,

(01:11:11):
We had a black and silver version from the Aero Verse.
We got the Fleischer animated suit in this one once
or twice, and then we had a couple of different
versions of the Superman and Lowest Suit over the course
of the last couple of seasons. Do you have a
favorite out of all those?

Speaker 3 (01:11:28):
I do, and mine is definitely the fly shirt.

Speaker 2 (01:11:32):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:11:32):
And the reason for that is I had my introduction
to Superman was the cartoon and if you remember, it's
the iconic episode I don't know if it's the first one,
but where he's fighting the big power apparatus thing and
he's having to fight and punch the thing back and
the energy back, and oh my gosh, I love that one.

(01:11:54):
So when they recreated that in that suit, that was
it for me. I loved the main suit the whole time,
but seeing that one in live action was just fantastic.

Speaker 2 (01:12:03):
Was that the Fleischer the Mad Scientist one? Yes, I guess,
like he's like grabbed the cables and you've got the
electricity arcing and that, yeah, yes.

Speaker 4 (01:12:10):
Yeah, yeah, and the part where he's punched, he's punching
the electric electricity stream.

Speaker 3 (01:12:16):
Yes, Oh it's so cool.

Speaker 2 (01:12:17):
Yeah, I love that one. Yep, same answer for me.
It was the Fleischer suit. Like the other I thought
the other the suit that was used during the series
as his regular suit, Like, I thought that was great.
I thought it was a good blending of kind of
a little bit of like the Man of Steel suit,
but also a little bit of a little similar to
the Christopher reeve, you know, some some not that he

(01:12:37):
needed it, but some built in muscles on the suit,
you know, just to kind of, hey, it's Superman, So
Superman's got a six pack. Tyler doesn't have to. He
has one anyway, but he doesn't have to true if
he if he doesn't want to. And then the only
criticism I have for the suits is I this last
season I did not like how dark it was. I
really wanted it back to I mean, it got to

(01:12:59):
the point where it all almost seemed like it was
almost like a slate gray kind of color. Yeah, just
a dark gray color. And the Superman symbol wasn't very bright.
So that's my only criticism of the suit is season
four too dark? Like and if they were going to
do it where maybe we start the season dark and
as we get closer to the end, maybe the suit

(01:13:21):
brightens up a bit as you know, we're getting towards
the end of this, I would have been fine with that.
But that's that's really kind of my only criticism is
the suit was too dark this season.

Speaker 4 (01:13:30):
Yeah yeah, yeah, I would agree with that, but like
you said, the flesher one was just hands down for me.

Speaker 3 (01:13:38):
I would say too that the boys suits.

Speaker 4 (01:13:41):
I'm so glad that we got past the thing that
Jordan was wearing where he looked like he was cosplaying
Spider Man.

Speaker 2 (01:13:50):
He was nightmud.

Speaker 4 (01:13:51):
I I was so glad that in that final shot
they showed us them flying. I do really wish we
could have got a black leather jacket on one of them.

Speaker 2 (01:14:01):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I wanted at one point, when
he was still wearing those stupid looking goggles, like I
wanted General Gram's. I wanted, like some kind of a
ghost to come back and just be like, hey, kid,
they have sentimental value, but they're not that sentimental. Get
rid of them, right, Yeah, you look dumb. Don't wear
those anymore.

Speaker 3 (01:14:21):
Yeah, not intimidating at all.

Speaker 2 (01:14:24):
No, Jason, I was asking, do you have a favorite
super suit from the series. I think we both said
it was the Fleischer the like the old School with
the yellow around the s and the like from the
nineteen thirties cartoon version of it. Mine is I've always
loved that suit from watching those cartoons when I was little,
and I never in my whole life thought we'd ever
see a live action version of it. So when that

(01:14:45):
came on screen, I was you know, to quote doctor
el schas Snyder from Last Crusade, I was giddy as
a schoolboy.

Speaker 1 (01:14:55):
I really liked a couple of the flashback scenes. You
have the black with the red s, you know, Yeah,
I thought that was really cool. But I'm always going
to lean towards the Christopher Reeve you know, red, yeah,
red on you know, red on yellow. I guess so.

(01:15:17):
But the black, the red on black was cool too.

Speaker 2 (01:15:20):
So yeah, all right, final question, real, real quick, final question.
This originally was supposed to go at least seven, maybe
eight seasons. That was kind of the original plan for
the show, and I think that that got derailed because
of the James Gunn Superman movie that's coming out this
next year, and they have this weird idea that people

(01:15:43):
would get confused by having multiple Superman's out in the world.
So that was one of the main reasons I've heard
as to why they were kind of cutting things short.
Here speculation time. If there had been seasons five through eight,
what are either some stories or some villains you would
have liked to have seen.

Speaker 3 (01:16:02):
I'd love to see super Lois.

Speaker 4 (01:16:04):
Oh yeah, I think that Bitsy could could pull that
off really well. Yeah, can you imagine her like you know,
upper cutting Lex Luthor up up to like Mars.

Speaker 2 (01:16:17):
Yeah, they could do a because like All Star Superman
there was I think he gives Lois powers for a
portion of that story, and they're able to go off
and have some adventures together. And that would have been
fun for like, you know, half a season or so,
just to have Lois you know, get involved in that way,
even if it's just temporary. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:16:36):
The other thing that I would have loved to have
seen for comedic value, as you know how in Endgame
we got to see.

Speaker 3 (01:16:43):
Thor with the rear belly.

Speaker 4 (01:16:46):
Give me just even part of an episode where Tyler's
let himself go because something happened and and Lois has
to slap him around and get him on the StairMaster
or whatever.

Speaker 3 (01:16:59):
I could go for that.

Speaker 2 (01:17:00):
There you go.

Speaker 1 (01:17:03):
I've always wanted to see another rendition of Nuclear Man.

Speaker 2 (01:17:07):
There you go.

Speaker 3 (01:17:08):
I can guess that.

Speaker 1 (01:17:10):
I mean the fingernails, you know, the flowing.

Speaker 2 (01:17:13):
Main they're they're trying to. What they're trying to do
is they're trying to revitalize Smallville because it's struggled so
much for years. And so lex Lex Core is going
to bring a nuclear power plant to the next county over.

Speaker 3 (01:17:25):
There you go.

Speaker 2 (01:17:26):
And that's how we introduced nuclear Man to a show
that takes place in rural Kansas.

Speaker 4 (01:17:31):
And I already know John's answer, he wants a season
of War World.

Speaker 2 (01:17:36):
Yes, I would love it. You know. In fact, what
I what I'd really love to see is could we
do an entire season where Superman loses his powers or
even has his powers and walks across America. Let's do that,
because that would be entertaining.

Speaker 1 (01:17:49):
Who's thought that would be a good idea?

Speaker 2 (01:17:51):
I don't know, Let's call it something like grounded.

Speaker 4 (01:17:56):
Huh yeah, yeah, yeah, you know the way that they
left I mean they didn't leave it this way, they
wrapped everything up, but the way they were leading towards
us getting a brainiac, I would have loved to have
seen them go somewhere with that. I love the brainiac
who is completely unfeeling, who's just doing his collecting of

(01:18:17):
worlds and all that kind of stuff. And so I
can't exactly, you know, fathom how that would have worked
out in this Smallville centric show, but that would have
been really interesting to see what they could.

Speaker 2 (01:18:31):
Do with it.

Speaker 3 (01:18:32):
I would trust the showrunners because they the way they
gave this bizarre world.

Speaker 2 (01:18:37):
Yeah, I think less less so than other villains. I
had some storylines I think I would have liked to
have seen if we were let's say we get three
more seasons, Let's say we get a we get a
season five, six and seven, let's go that far. I
think what I would have liked to have seen is
I'd like to see them tackle the three aspects of Superman,

(01:18:59):
the truth, Justice. I use the phrasing they use in
the show, Truth, Justice, and a Better Tomorrow, and that's
kind of the phrasing the comics have been used in
the last few years too. And I would love to
have seen each of the seasons maybe deal with those
topics because what is what is What would have been
kind of interesting to me is and you saw that

(01:19:19):
a little bit in season four. Is as a I think,
as a society, as a civilization in the last several years,
whether that's whether that's been fostered by other people across
the world, or whether that's because of you know, their
own fault for you know, having having some corrupt practices.

(01:19:41):
But Lois Lane is a is a journalist, and journalists
don't exactly have a great name right now, And so
what I'd love to see is I'd love to see
a season where it plays on more of that kind
of stuff, like how does Lois reconcile the idea of
journalism has got a pretty bad name right now, So
how do you still stand up for what journalis in
its best form should be. Is like a watchdog, a

(01:20:04):
way to help protect and inform and all the reasons
I wanted to be, you know, a newspaper writer. How
would Lois tackle some of that stuff? While Superman is
then dealing with maybe a bizarro maybe there's something with
his mind powers manipulation. He could manipulate truth, he could
manipulate whatever. And so season five is Truth is the Truth?
Season Lois is dealing with that, Superman's dealing with that.

(01:20:26):
Maybe you bridge that with the glorious Godfrey character that
we got Tom Kavanaugh played Godfrey in one of the
later episodes of season four. That's a character who goes
all the way back to Dark Side and Apocalypse and
is a manipulative little character there dealing with propaganda and

(01:20:48):
all kinds of stuff. So that I think could have
been kind of fun. And then I don't know what
the other seasons cover but I thought those ideas of like,
you know, season five is truth and both Clark and
Lois are dealing with fighting for truth in different ways,
and then justice something with justice in the next season,
and then each one of them, you know, they come
together eventually and are fighting together for it. But Lois

(01:21:11):
has maybe more her kind of Earth based problems that
she's dealing with, you know, Clark can deal with more
of like the more global stuff, so it keeps it
grounded in Smallville. But then it also gives Clark the opportunity,
like in the other seasons, he can fly off and
deal with stuff in Metropolis, or he can fly off
and deal with stuff in the Arctic or you know,

(01:21:32):
on the Moon or somewhere like that. We could still
have some of that and make it so that it
keeps it a grounded show, but we can still maybe
introduce little elements of some kind of cosmic story that's
going on. I think I would have liked to have
seen that, Like if we had a few more seasons,
I think that'd be a good way to kind of,
I don't know, tie put some bookends on the seasons

(01:21:54):
and tie them together through a theme but I think
that could have been kind of a cool way to
do it. That in my mind, that's how I was
trying to figure out, how do you do a how
do you do a glorious god for your how do
you do a brainiac in this show and make it
make sense for a show that takes place in Smallville, Kansas?
And I think it has to be something kind of
like that if you're going to do it. So that's
what I would have loved seeing if we if we
got those seasons, awesome, you.

Speaker 4 (01:22:18):
Could do quite a bit with parasite coming to where
all these superheroes are now, because you know you've got
the both boys and.

Speaker 3 (01:22:26):
And all that.

Speaker 4 (01:22:27):
I mean, that could be a thing. But but yeah,
alas it is not to be.

Speaker 2 (01:22:31):
Right, Yeah, all right, anything else, This is our We're
are kind of our final wrap up for this one.
It's our our Maybe not the last time we talk
about Superman and Lois, because we love this show. We'll
talk about anytime anybody wants to. But any final thoughts,
final thoughts on Superman and Lois. The four seasons, not

(01:22:55):
the not the Vivaldi composition, but the four seasons we
got of Superman and lowess and kind of final thoughts
on this, like, what what are you left with now
that the show is over?

Speaker 4 (01:23:05):
For me, I got what I wanted, and that's because
for years I've been getting Superman. I mean super shows
that you think, oh, if only it could have. So
we had Gotham, but there was no Batman in Gotham.
You had Arrow, which was Batman, but they had him

(01:23:26):
be Arrow because they wouldn't let him be Batman. We
had Supergirl, and the beginning of Supergirl was all right,
we liked that a lot. We had Flash but then
it's like, okay, if we could take a Superman or
a Batman story and flesh it out over several episodes,
we could have something really really cool here, you know.
And so then, like we talked about earlier, we had

(01:23:48):
Crisis of Infinite Earths. But at the very end, the
Crisis is made up of a Legends character and Supergirl
and Batwoman is like, wait a minute, I've red Crisis.
People weren't at no anyway, and so they we finally
get a show that is Superman centric and it delivered.

(01:24:11):
It was It was fantastic, and the fact that they
decided that they were going to play into the whole
family dynamic just absolutely worked. This was not a normal
CW show, and and I loved the whole way through.

Speaker 1 (01:24:25):
So yep, I feel the same way.

Speaker 2 (01:24:31):
Yeah, yeah, from from the CW start a or W
B and then c W starting with Smallville, and you
know kind of the production value of that show and
what that show was bringing, especially with this you know,
no tights, no flights rule that they had for that one.
To start there and to end with Superman and Lois,
you kind of got to see the evolution of what

(01:24:52):
if what's the last quarter century of superhero TV shows
progressed to? And we've progressed from a you know, teenage
centric uh you know, it's all the teenage problems and
teenage tensions and everybody's young and beautiful in Smallville, and
it's it's kind of another c W show. It's it's

(01:25:13):
a Vampire Diaries, it's a Gilmore Girls, it's something like that.
They just happen to, you know, run super fast and
they can see through things, to progressing to a Superman
and Lois where it's it really seems like real problems
and people are dealing with their real problems in real
ways and and I'm I'm watching this show and as
we said before, it's it's the most relatable Superman. It's

(01:25:36):
a ridiculously relatable comic book show that has no right
to be as good as it was. And it was awesome.

Speaker 1 (01:25:44):
Yeah, it was awesome.

Speaker 2 (01:25:45):
So loved it all. Right, Well that's going to do it.
You guys are always welcome anytime if you want to
talk Smallville at any point if you can, if you
can find the DVDs or I don't know if it's
it's probably streaming on HBO Max or something like that.

Speaker 3 (01:26:01):
It is, but you guys.

Speaker 2 (01:26:02):
Are always welcome anytime you want to talk any kind
of Smallville stuff. I'll send you the schedule and let
you know kind of when I'm covering different episodes. So
always welcome. But yeah, it's it's been a lot of fun.
And Dean Jason, it was fun to get to do
this with you guys when we started it off, and
you know, enjoyed enjoyed time doing that and just had
a blast every single Yeah, so thank you and Tristan

(01:26:26):
every time we had you on as well. It was
just fun to get to kind of nerd out with
you over the all the Superman stuff that we love,
and I think we both grew up in the same
era with the same kind of stories that we loved,
and this show kind of just really fed into our geekdom.

Speaker 4 (01:26:41):
Absolutely, absolutely, I've always enjoyed it.

Speaker 3 (01:26:45):
It's always a good time with John and Jason.

Speaker 2 (01:26:49):
I'm gonna make sure I recorded that so I can
play that for some of my other friends. All Right, guys,
thank you so much for being here.

Speaker 1 (01:26:56):
Thanks, Thanks John.

Speaker 2 (01:26:58):
All Right, everybody, thank you so much much. We will
will take a little bit of a break, and then
in February come on back here and we're gonna be
talking about the first few episodes of Smallville, so you
get a chance to watch some of those if you're
gonna stay caught up with that. And then as it
gets closer and closer to the summertime and as we
get more information, I'll probably be doing a preview episode

(01:27:19):
and then a review episode of the new Superman movie
that is coming out in July of twenty twenty five,
so we're gonna have it.

Speaker 4 (01:27:25):
From what I understand, with that one, the tagline is
look up Yes, which I like.

Speaker 2 (01:27:32):
Yeah, I do like that one. And the poster I
think came out today and it looks awesome. Yep, yeah,
yep yeah. All right, well, everybody in February look up,
and then for all of next year we're gonna look
up because we get ready for the new Superman movie.
And we'll spend some time in Smallville. Can We're not
leaving Smallville anytime soon, so we'll spend some time in Smallville,
Kansas next year