One of the highlights of the second season of Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman was “Tempus Fugitive” which saw Lane Davies as a time-traveling villain intent on killing Superman. Along the way, his character became the first to tell Lois Lane that “hello, duh… Clark Kent is Superman!” Of course, due to time travel shenanigans this was forgotten, though Lois figures it out a few episodes later anyway.
There is a piece of Lois & Clark trivia that we had not known before, though: Former Superman Christopher Reeve was the first actor offered the role of the sardonic Tempus! This would have filmed several months prior to his horse-riding accident. Larry Drake from L.A. Law was also considered at one point.
The revelation came out on the Comic Book Central podcast which Lane Davies guested on a while back and only just now caught our attention. Also revealed in the podcast: Lane Davies had auditioned for Lex Luthor, and — perhaps unsurprisingly — he and John de Lancie (Star Trek: The Next Generation’s “Q”) often would audition for the same roles! Where was our Q/Tempus crossover?
You can listen to the entire podcast here, in which Lane Davies reflects about his own career but more specifically, Lois & Clark and the several episodes he appeared in, working with two different H.G. Wells and Making America Great Again as “John Doe” decades before an orange criminal made it his catchphrase. He’s even asked what he would think Tempus would do if he made an appearance on Superman & Lois!