"I'm just trying to ask you out." "I'm not trying to negotiate a nuclear arms treaty." "The citizens of Metropolis have a right to ask." "Our sophomore year was really a breakout year for us." "Breathe." "The audience really wanted to see Lois and Clark together." "I couldn't believe I was getting paid to write Superman." "For us, the second season was a whole new beginning." "When I first did the show I thought that this is going to be a smash hit from the beginning." "Then we started to air it, and it wasn't a huge hit." "It did okay." "But season two was the one where we hooked everybody, I believe." "I think season one got everybody interested." "But season two hooked everybody in." "That was our" " Our sophomore year was really a breakout year for us as opposed to a sophomore slump." "I saw your light." "Is this a bad time?" "It was probably the most I ever looked forward to driving through a studio gate every morning, was the summer of 1 994." "Lois, come on." "You haven't said a word since 1 866." "You are the lowest form of life imaginable." "We were told, "Come up with great stories, have fun." "But open up the world somewhat to the idea that it's Lois, it's Clark, and it's Superman. "" "And those are to be thought of in equal parts. "" "The first season we were just starting to build an audience." "But the advantage of having a second season is you see in the first season what works and what doesn't script-wise and relationship-wise." "That's what you focus on." "Maybe this is fate giving us a second chance." "Nice." "You rehearse that one?" "Improvised on the spot." "I approached it like studying football film." "I watched the shows and I said, "That works for the character, this doesn't. "" "So I would try to modify things based on that." "It was a very natural role." "It was very fun." "I modeled my Superman character after Christopher Reeves' character and the way he played Superman." "So that was simple, that was Superman." "But the Clark character was just very well written and came naturally." "You are Superman." "No." "Lois, Superman is what I can do." "Clark is who I am." "My idea was that Superman is a man of action." "He comes in, whoosh, whoosh, saves the bus, goes away." "Let him go." "And then let Clark do all the rest of the stuff." "Plus it was more comfortable to act in a regular suit and tie and glasses as opposed to in the tights and the whole nine yards." "We started season two with new cast members." "And we lost Michael Landes." "We brought in a whole new Jimmy Olsen with a whole new attitude." "You guys are not gonna believe what just happened." "Just the guy we were looking for." "They were concentrating on different areas, and we got a very talented very good actor, who's a really good guy, Justin Whalin who stepped in and played Jimmy Olsen in season two, three and four." "Because I had just stopped doing a series for Warner Bros between hearing about it, auditioning the first time to getting the part was about three or four days." "So it happened very fast." "Coming in and doing it this way, you have a season already in the can that was fairly successful and the audience already has fallen in love with the characters on the show." "And I remember it took a while for the fans to kind of warm up to the idea of me doing the part." "Coming in and taking over a character that's been established on a show that's been established, it's a daunting thing to do for any actor." "But Justin came in with a pedigree." "Justin had won an Emmy before." "Your report on Schott." "Got fired last year along with his secretary." "About a month ago a warehouse was rented in her name." "If you ask any actor, exposition is probably the toughest thing to do." "Because it's" " You're trying to give information in a useful way that is somehow still interesting." "Teri and Dean are really driving the story and Lane is basically throwing orders around." "Jimmy comes in and gives the information that's necessary to continue the story." "It's easy to memorize stuff that's about emotional interchange." "But when you're trying to memorize this street, that guy's name... ." "I did a lot of exposition." "That was kind of my deal, I was the exposition king." "You have the same villain every week, at some point your Superman doesn't look too super." "We got rid of Lex, he was dead at the end of season one." "Well, I love John Shea, and he's a fantastic actor." "Lois." "When will you ever learn?" "I always get my way." "He was suave and debonair and a good rival." "Superman has a lot of different villains to conquer and deal with." "And we certainly came up with a number of different, fun villains." "It was great for us to have a different enemy in each episode." "When you're on a show and they bring in a big name, they call it "stunt casting. "" "I think it helped kind of having a fun guest star each week that was recognizable in other roles who came to our show and entered Metropolis and our little town." "We had so many great actors that came in who were recognizable." "When Raquel Welch came in to play that role, there was no one better for that role than her." "I'd like to be alone with Superman." "So it was really fun for us to kind of create characters with these people in mind, and times it would be the other way around." "We'd create a character and we'd say, who can we fit in this mold?" "As the show got more popular, that, as it turned out, was a lot easier." "As time went by, you got bigger and bigger names." "People who used to not take your calls, or say they were unavailable were suddenly available." "And it was always great fun to see guys like Peter Boyle on the show, or Bruce Campbell." "I think those guys are good and they're fun." "I was a big fan of Superman growing up." "I think Dr. Gretchen Kelly really-- She was just a great opportunity to bring in this weird, sick humor." "Playing baddies are always fun." "I mean, that's sort of a golden rule." "You get to finally do all of the stuff that you never get to do." "The second season we tried to heighten the production value and give it a more specific look." "It had a really glossy look." "Kind of a comic-book look." "And work on things like the visual effects which came a long way between season one and season two." "Every year, the more you did certain effects you certainly develop better techniques, and that's a lot of fun." "We went from an outside house doing visual effects to guys that we had inside working with us and took a lot more risk with the visual effects and with special effects and tried to up that quite a bit because it just looks so great." "So we did a lot more in the way of visual effects and in the way of integrating that into the stories." "It was really fun to see how we'd improve year-to-year." "One of the fun dynamics in season two was the fact that Lois did not know that Clark was Superman." "And we played with that a lot." "He'd be having a conversation and then, "I forgot to do my laundry. " Run off." "Excuse me, I have to... ." "I have a dentist's appointment." "I'm gonna call Jimmy." "I'm gonna get a hot dog." "One of the things the writers liked to write for Clark is him having to explain a way, you know." ""Where did you go?" "What were you doing?"" "I'll be right back." "I forgot my mail downstairs." "I have to return this video." "It's really important." "I have to go." "Where?" "You guys stay here, it won't take long." "What won't take long?" "The thing that I have to do in the place that I'll be back from in just one second." "Does he do that a lot?" "Constantly." "Often Clark would be stuck in a situation where he couldn't go become Superman." "He'd have to do something on the sly and not get caught." "And Lois wouldn't see it." "I can't believe he ignored me like that." "Made it nice and humorous." "He'd use some super power, whether it's super breath or his laser vision or whatever it happened to be, to sort of solve the problem." "I'm good." "Yes, you are." "The biggest thing that came between year one and two was the number of letters we got from people that wanted to get the two together." "It was always something that we fought, but the audience really wanted to see Lois and Clark together." "They were trying to bring us together, they're gonna start to get together they're gonna get together, and then someone would come in between." "What would you say if I asked you out sometime?" "Are you asking me out?" "Either someone for her or someone for my character." "It makes it a lot of fun, playing a jealousy thing." "Hi." "We wanted to make it feel like they were getting closer and closer and then pull them apart fast." "Every episode was a dance with them." "And that's what made it so fun." "You had these two people who were so much in love and the audience is going, "Yeah, get them together." "They should be together. "" "But if you bring them together, all the heat's gone." "It was great, the tension between the two characters trying to get them together." "And letting them just finally date and fall in love." "They've been falling in love since the moment they met but they didn't even realize it." "When I really felt like Lois  Clark was really working was when the tension was excruciating." "When it was like, "Come on!" "You've got to be kidding me!" "Kiss him!" "He loves you! " Or, "Tell her the truth! "" "And then to not deliver on that, I think, accentuated the tension and that's what makes a good romantic story." "In the second season you really hone in on what you see is working." "The characters have a voice and there's so much to do the second season because it's already been tested and it's already kind of been proven." "I think Lois  Clark really, really, was clicking." "Writing season two was just, it was great." "It was so fun." "Smoking." "It was a wonderful season." "It was a season, again, where we hit our stride and found a real nice niche in television." "And people really started tuning in."