The Adventures of Lois and Clark (1993), the narrative weakness of kryptonite, and the newspaper industry

How can you make an invincible character work dramatically? A walking dues-ex-machina like Superman is much less dynamic then, say, the X-Men who have various strengths and weaknesses.

Ahh, but kryptonite, there’s the rub. So if correctly employed in a script, Superman would either be completely on or completely off. Still kind of clunky, no?

That concern was on my mind when I decided to revisit Lois and Clark. The 1990s Superman reboot that focused on the budding romance between Superman and reporter Lois Lane was notable for one of my first celebrity crushes in Teri Hatcher and, I can’t remember much else, unfortunately.

What I found was a show in the very conscious mold of a screwball comedy. The genre solidified on stage and on screen during the Great Depression with a society reeling from the loss in wealth and class status. Status is key to the genre as both parts of the romantic coupling have a mix of higher and lower social statuses in relation to the other that must be bridged to make a more perfect union. For instance, in Bringing Up Baby, Katherine Hepburn’s character has the assets of having more inner confidence and being more fun than Cary Grant’s character while having the disadvantage of being a woman…