Superman on Television

Lois & Clark: Episode Reviews

Season 4 - Episode 16: "AKA Superman"

Reviewed by: Nathan MacKenzie

Originally Aired: March 16, 1997
Directed by Robert Ginty
Written by Jeff Vlaming

Guest Cast:
Kristanna Loken as Penny Barnes
Vito D'Ambrosio as Peters
Michael Paul Chan as Chester Paladin
Michole Briana White as Doris
Dwight Shultz as Garret Grady
Granville Ames as Steve McBride

Synopsis:

Who is Superman, I mean really, do you know? Well I know we all do but she doesn't. Well in this episode she is Penny Barnes and she has found a way to find out (well, she think she does anyway). Dwight Shultz is the villain (known more famously as Murdock from The A-Team) of this story playing the character called Garret Grady as he is trying to bribe a NASA astronaut and even Superman to put a pulse converter into an outlying satellite so he can hold the world ransom.

Review Rating - 2 (out of 5): There are four plots in this episode which all makes sense but could they have concentrated on just one or two, absolutely.

Plot No. 1: So Garret Grady is the head of a business organisation called Diticon Towers and he plans to get his pulse converter placed into an orbiting satellite called the Annihilator. He tries to bribe a NASA astronaut and even Superman to do his bidding.

Plot No. 2: Penny Barnes who is played by actress Kristanna Loken AKA the T-X from Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, is adamant she knows how to figure out Superman's true identity. She uses a computer program an inputs a psychological profile of the Man of Steel, takes that profile and factors in her theory of a secret identity (early to mid 20s, possible 30s, probably a professional connected to a mass communication) have this cross referenced with everything that is known about Superman and there you go, a 97% match. The lucky winner is Jimmy Olsen.

Plot No. 3: Now we all know Clark Kent is really Superman, spoilers for you if you didn't. So Superman is a very busy superhero as we all know, he saves the day, attends functions and charity events and even gets fan mail in which he responds to on a regular basis. But the interesting part about all of this, Lois doesn't know. This plot leads into plot No. 4.

Plot No. 4: It's Clark's birthday and Lois is trying everything to give him a surprise birthday party (not sure how that would even work with super hearing and x-ray vision and all). Lois has tried two times to surprise Clark but something always comes up, she even tries to trick him with a fake fan mail from the 'Ladies Overseas Aid' but Clark follows through with the letter and finds out the meeting (aka his surprise party) was for a different location.

This episode is pretty much a stand-alone episode and doesn't really have any continuity from through the season or even the series. We are introduced to a new villain, new characters but a similar story line to previous episodes in which the villain wants to destroy cities to hold the world ransom.

The episode itself had a lot going on which I mentioned earlier. I do however feel like all of the plot threads do make sense even though as I mentioned that couldn't of been broken down even further and quite possibly of been turned into two separate episodes. I can understand where the writers and the producers were going with the script, but I feel it could have been broken down even more. I did like the way how Lois found out that there was more to Superman than she thought. The one thing that got me puzzled was, they have been together for a while now and now are married, wouldn't you think that Lois (being a very successful Daily Planet Investigative Reporter) would know that he gets fan mail and has a second day planner, I mean Clark even says that he (as Superman of course) goes to the Post Office every few months to pick up the fan mail. Like I said though, I did like how we got to see that side of Superman though, even though he got mail from the sick and the lonely (If you don't understand that reference, you need to see the episode). One classic part of the episode that I really enjoyed was after Penny meet's Jimmy for the first time (as she thinks Jimmy is Superman remember) she says that she can't wait to see him in his blue suit again where Jimmy says 'I don't even own a blue suit'. I enjoyed this scene because the next time we see Jimmy is at the Daily Planet and he is, wearing a new blue suit, genius. The ending was a little rushed I feel, if you look closely at the satellite Superman holds up at the end you can see how poorly made the prop was, not much budget for this episode I'm afraid.

Now I think that Dwight Shultz as Garret Grady played the part well, but it wasn't his best acting that I have seen. Of course I remember him from The A-Team so it was hard to see him play a character in that tv show and then see him as the villain here. I think Kristanna Loken who played Penny Barnes played her role really well, she was only relatively new to her acting career but overall I think she did really well. It still is interesting watching this episode then remembering that she plays a Terminator in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines. The special effects were quite poor for this episode as I mentioned earlier, especially with their use of props and a lot of Superman's flying scenes now are now repeated footage that we see from recent episodes but hey, you have to save money somewhere.

Next week, Faster Than a Speeding Vixen.

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