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  1. #1
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    Default Ranking the Superman live action TV series

    How would you rank the Superman live-action TV shows, from best to worst? This can be any live-action series starring Clark Kent, so Superboy and Smallville count, but I will leave off the Supergirl show.

  2. #2
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    It's early days yet for Superman & Lois, so I'd have to rank the various Superman series by the high points and ignore their lows because some of them got really, really bad.

    I don't think any series has surpassed the overall quality of the best Smallville episodes, which really went on far, far too long and hamstrung itself with some dumb edicts and increasingly low budgets, but, when the show was on, it was great. The core cast of Tom Welling, Michael Rosenbaum, Annette O'Toole & John Schneider were spot on perfect in their roles and John Glover's Lionel Luthor was always fantastic, even when the scripts were abysmal.

    Superman & Lois is pretty damned close, honestly, but it's too early to tell if some of the choices they've made are going to pay off for it to be given the top spot. However, in terms of nailing the characters, that first season was pretty damned solid.

    While it's been awhile since I've actually watched them, the very best episodes of the Superboy TV series were much better than I think people may remember. Their Luthor was pretty solid and Gerard Christopher was a pretty damned good Superman & Clark that wasn't simply a rehash of Christopher Reeve.

    Lois & Clark was a perfectly serviceable 90s primetime soap opera, but it never really rose above that and it's based upon one of my least favorite interpretations of Superman so this one is kind of blah for me overall. Teri Hatcher was, by far, the best thing about this show and their corporate tycoon Lex was pretty fun while he lasted.

    I've tried to get into the George Reeves TV show, but it's just too hokey for me. If I had any nostalgia for the show, I might view it differently, but I don't, so it's glaring flaws are all I see. To be fair, this show was never aimed at adults. It's explicitly a children's show.

  3. #3
    Extraordinary Member superduperman's Avatar
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    Smallville: I'm most familiar with this one. It has all the right elements I want in a Superman show.

    S&L: I'm reluctant to bump this one up as high as it is due to the fact that it's only been one season and it's not fair to judge a show based solely on one season. Good or bad.

    Adventures of Superman: This is a great series for it's time and considering the budget, they did a good job. If you can overlook the bad special effects. This is how you do a more down to Earth Superman.

    Superboy: To be fair, I've only seen something like four episodes all the way through. They were on YouTube in complete episodes about ten years ago. Might still be but I haven't looked. The later episodes were suppose to be really good if you could overlook the budget issues. My understanding was that it was still fairly popular at the time it was cancelled. But Warners wanted to make way for L&C and didn't want two Superman shows competing with each other.

    L&C: This one is lowest on the list for a number of reasons but #1 is the fact that it always seemed to be making fun of the source material. I know that cynicism was the style of the 90s but it really kind of hurts this show as time passes. I think the only real attachment I have to it is the fact that it aired when I was in high school. It also suffers from the Moonlighting problem which is the whole point of the series is the build up to the marriage. Which, 25 years later, doesn't pack the same kind of punch. The show started going downhill about the time of the frog clones.
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  4. #4
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    THE ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN is my favourite. It was always good. I never felt that it ran out of gas.

    SUPERBOY was pretty good from what I remember. I'll have to find a way to rewatch the whole series someday, to form a better opinion.

    SMALLVILLE had lots of highs and lows. While Lois just got better and better, I hated many of the other characters and the loss of Jonathan and the Luthors hurt the series.

    LOIS AND CLARK started out pretty good but lost its way in the third and fourth seasons.

    Haven't seen the SUPERMAN AND LOIS FAMILY SHOW.

  5. #5
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    Lois and Clark
    I still have that #1. Yes, I'm sure people will disagree, but this is my list. Some of the stories don't hold
    up the best. I'll grant you that. But it was the one series that really over several episodes told the
    modern story of Lois and Clark together as reporters for the Daily Planet. It was the one that had Perry White
    and Jimmy Olsen. It was the one where Clark/Superman says "Clark is who I am, Superman is what I do." God,
    do I love that line. It shows the romance blossoming, how eventually it works. It got downhill after that, but I remember the
    good things, probably more than the others.

    2. Superman and Lois
    I thought it was a good first season. But we have had only one season. It might in the end be the best of the live action
    episodes. I've had it with the return of the evil Kryptonians. I've been told this will be avoided.

    3. Smallville
    I know lots of people loved it to death. But the stories were all over the place, it went on too long. I'm more into Superman,
    than Superboy. I think Lois' appearance was a breath of fresh air in the series.

    4. Adventures of Superman
    It is just too dated for my tastes.

    5. Superboy
    Never watched it.

  6. #6
    Spectacular Member Marko Lane's Avatar
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    I've not watched that many Superman tv shows, but here are my rankings;

    Smallville: "It was only a matter of time until Lois"- and they were right! Granted, I love the first three seasons, but the show really needed Lois and her bantering with Clark! Her mere presence lifted the show up imo. The mistake was to have showrunners care more about Lana and Lex, than Clark. And imo it was crystal clear after S7 when Lex and & Lana left- so did the showrunners.

    Superman & Lois: Fantastic first season! I really hope S2 will perhaps be better, but I'm really over Zod and also over evil Kryptonians. No more. More focus on the Kent Family, please.

    Lois & Clark: The first tv show with Superman I watched. Teri Hatcher still ranks as one of my all-time favorite Lois. Love Jimmy and Perry. The early stages of L&C coming together are fantastic to see, and I love them focusing on journalism.

    Smallville: "It was only a matter of time until Lois"- and they were right! Granted, I love the first three seasons, but the show really needed Lois and her bantering with Clark! Her mere presence lifted the show up imo. The mistake was to have showrunners care more about Lana and Lex, than Clark. And imo it was crystal clear after S7 when Lex and & Lana left- so did the showrunners.

  7. #7
    Legendary Member daBronzeBomma's Avatar
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    1. Superman And Lois
    2. Superboy
    3. Smallville
    4. Lois & Clark
    5. Adventures of Superman

  8. #8
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    I can't give a complete breakdown of what i think is best since I've not watched Adventures of Superman and only ever glanced one ep of Superboy when I was still a child so I barely have any memory of it.

    - L&C is currently at the top of the list because it gave me more of what I wanted from the characters shy of big budget throw-downs and comic centric villains/plots outside of Lex, who was hilarious btw, and a little bit of Bruno Mannheim and probably a few other I can't recall at the moment. The Daily Planet staff was fantastic, I'm still so disappointed Cat only lasted one season. It has my favourite Ma and Pa Kent to date.
    - S&L is just beginning but if it can maintain quality, it will be the most well rounded Superman helping I have ever had and will easily slide into the number one spot before long and I won't be mad about it
    - Smallville is such a mixed bag for me, when it started, I wanted to love it but I couldn't, I gave up on it but after recently finishing the series, what had become apparent the first time I watched it remained true to the end. I was not a fan of how they wrote Clark. It's hard to pin point the issues but I know I was more frustrated with him than any character on the show. I loved the supporting cast a lot more (particularly the Lionel, Lex, Lois and Ollie). Clark with Lois keeps me from disliking the show vehemently.
    Last edited by rpmaluki; 10-15-2021 at 01:11 PM.

  9. #9
    Spectacular Member Marko Lane's Avatar
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    Yes, I was sad not to see Cat come back for S2- and also a new Jimmy! He was alright, but I really liked Michael in the role. Love how much focus the Daily Planet have in the show.

  10. #10
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    I too, liked S1 Jimmy better as well.

  11. #11
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    People single out the first season of THE ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN for having a darker tone and for Phyllis Coates as Lois Lane--which is valid. But in my rewatch now, I just viewed the first episode of season two and that has one of the most serious stories from the entire series--"Five Minutes to Doom"--as the Planet staff race to prove the innocence of a man about to be executed by the state. The acting across the board is excellent and Noel Neill plays Lois a lot like the hard-nosed reporter that Coates played. So I think that kind of acting was in Neill's wheelhouse--it's just as the series went on the producers wanted the show to be a lot more light-hearted--thus Neill, Larson and Hamilton played their characters more broadly. George Reeves was always the same--even when Clark cracked jokes, there was something sinister in his delivery. He wasn't someone to mess with.

  12. #12
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    Lois and Clark is #1 for me. These are the characters who seem the most real to me. Season 1 is the best live action Superman has ever been and only surpassed by STAS in terms of on-screen adaptations of Superman. Season 4 is a massive downgrade in quality

    The 50s Adventures of Superman is second. I haven't seen much of it yet, but what I have seen surprised me because I was expecting something more like the Adam West Batman show. There are definitely dated aspects, but like Star Trek TOS I can look past those.

    Smallville has really good highs - the first few seasons of Lex, Erica Dunce as Lois, Lionel's character arc, but outside of those specific elements it's not great. The 'monster of the week' formula got old, as did the dragging out of Clark's arc of growing up and becoming Superman, and the Lana romance was always terrible.

    Haven't seen anything of Superboy or Superman and Lois yet. I hear good things about the latter, but I have largely stayed away from the CW superhero shows for the last 5 years or so because they've been uniformly terrible in my opinion.
    Last edited by sunofdarkchild; 10-16-2021 at 12:43 PM.

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