I would like to thank my Dad, who acted as a sounding-board for this project and really helped me a lot. (Thanks, Dad!)
This fic is essentially a sequel to/expansion of
KRY TV , although reading that one first is probably not necessary.
Hope you Enjoy! =)
ETA: All feedback is welcome. Really. If it sucks badly, please tell me!
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"I can't believe we travelled thousands of miles just to watch television."
"Actually, Lois," Clark said while stretching out on their suite's sofa, "we travelled *millions* of miles."
"Fine," Lois conceded, "We travelled millions of miles to watch television."
"And a movie," Clark reminded her. Lois shot him a look, and he responded with a broad grin. "Well, Lois; you're the one who wanted to go somewhere foreign and exotic for our vacation."
At this, Lois gave in and laughed. When the news had broken that the planet of New Krypton had successfully purchased and adapted a few of Earth's television programs to booster to their fledgling entertainment industry, she and Clark had somehow ended up "agreeing" to spend their upcoming vacation writing an article on the New Kryptonians' progress. Zara and Ching, of course, had happily invited the couple to the planetoid and arranged for their travel.
The planet of New Krypton was like a rough diamond; in some places gleaming and dazzling, and in others rocky and harsh. Lois and Clark were guests of honor at a banquet that, while not obscenely indulgent by the standards of Earth's rich and royal, still surpassed the average household's best holiday dinner. Afterwards, they were shown to a sleek, sparse, high-tech suite--with a TV in it, of course.
There they slept, waking up the next morning prepared to "veg out."
Lois flopped down on the couch, forcing Clark to move his feet so she could have room. He sat up and wrapped an arm around her as she reached for the remote and turned the TV on.
"What gives?" she asked when nothing appeared on the screen. After a few minutes, color appeared, accompanied by a high-pitched whine. Lois and Clark winced at the sound.
"I think it's a test pattern," said Clark.
The whine eventually died, leaving a silent screen of color. Clark reached over and grabbed his notebook and a pencil, and jotted this down.
Finally, after several more minutes, a perky young woman appeared on the television screen. She spoke in her native Kryptonian, but for the sake of Lois and Clark's assignment, the rulers of New Krypton had arranged for all of the week's broadcasts to include English subtitles.
"<A bright and glorious morning to our beloved rulers and the great people of New Krypton! Now it begins, the broadcasting of television entertainment for today until evening.>"
Lois and Clark glanced at each other, then shrugged and jotted down notes.
"<Today's block of television program entertainment shows will be:
1. Old Krypton Traitor Mysteries Solved by Val-Duc and His Amazing Genetic Animal Creation
2. The Tragic Tale of the Brave Yet Hopeless Shipwrecked Scientist and His Companions
3. The Fantastic Adventures of the Changing Green Warrior and His Love
4. Star Trek>"
Kryptonian writing, undoubtedly the names of the shows just listed, appeared on the screen. The woman listed them over again, and then the audience was once more graced with her smiling face.
"<And remember, these shows will repeat throughout the day until evening. Good morning, New Krypton, and work hard.>"
At this last statement, Lois and Clark stared at the smiling woman, and then at each other. Before either could say a word, though, the first program of the day began.
........\/........
* * * [1] * * *
Old Krypton Traitor Mysteries Solved by Val-Duc and His Amazing Genetic Animal Creation
Lois rolled her eyes at the title, then double-taked as the image of a very familiar animated great dane appeared on the screen. "Clark? Isn't that---?"
"Scooby Doo," he finished for her, his eyebrows raised in mild surprise. "I'd heard they'd picked this up..."
"So if this is Scooby Doo, what's all that 'Krypton Traitor Genetic' baloney?" she asked.
Clark shrugged. "Well, they said that they'd changed a few things to make it more accessable to a Kryptonian audience..."
Lois and Clark watched with intense curiosity as the show's usual opening sequence played out, albeit with different theme music. The theme song had been replaced with peppy, electronic-sounding music played on strange instruments.
When the episode itself began, it took Lois and Clark one whole second to spot another major change.
"The tires are gone!" Lois exclaimed, flinging out a hand and almost hitting Clark in the face with her pencil.
"Hey, watch it!" cried her husband.
Lois contritely lowered the pencil. "Sorry, Clark. But look..."
"I see it, Honey. I see it."
On the screen, a tireless Mystery Machine serenely floated down a road which an unseen narrator proclaimed to be a small, unknown city in Old Krypton. The writing on the side of the van had changed also, and even the painted flowers had been altered a bit to look like blazing red suns.
Inside the van, all seemed relatively normal but for the headband painted around Fred's forehead.
Then the characters started *talking*.
"<Clever master Val-Duc,>" Shaggy was saying, "<is this the place of our next mission for the protection of our great way of life from those terrible traitors, the Masked Man Organization?>"
"<Yes, loyal servant,>" came Fred's reply.
Meanwhile on the couch, Lois calmly wrote everything down, then raised her notebook and began banging her head against it repeatedly. Clark bit back a laugh and helped her to calm down.
"<We must investigate this factory,>" Fred continued, parking the van near what was unmistakably an amusement park.
"Some factory," noted Lois.
"They manufacture nauseous children," Clark teased.
"And broke parents," Lois added.
The four teenagers and their dog wandered around the 'factory', and true to form, it wasn't long before they encountered the monster---er, 'traitor'.
"<Let us divide ourselves and search for incriminating evidence. Loyal servant, you and your wife take my genetic creation, Experiment #309, and scout the area near the giant gear.>" The scene jumped to show a ferris wheel. "<Your mistress and I shall investigate these tunnels.>"
Lois snickered.
"Lo-is," Clark chided, his own mouth tugging at the corners.
"Well," chuckled Lois, "at least now I don't feel so bad about Shaggy having to be Fred's servant."
The gang split up, with Shaggy, Velma, and Scooby headed for the Ferris Wheel, and Fred and Daphne strolling towards the Tunnel of Love. Soon, Velma and Shaggy found themselves near a creepy-looking booth. After a conversation in which their voices didn't quite match up with the movements of their mouths, Velma asked her 'husband' to go inside the both. Shaggy, in typical Shaggy fashion, looked very afraid.
"<Shall I take orders from a mere woman? I think not!>"
Lois glared at the screen and began scribbling notes furiously.
Velma held up a Scooby-snack. "<I apologize and offer this tasty, Government-approved healthy food pellet as a gift.>"
"<The insult is still too great, Woman!>" Shaggy said boldly, his knees knocking in anger.
"<I apologize again for the disrespectful act of telling my husband what to do,>" said Velma. "<will you accept two of the delicious Government-issued food pellets?>"
"<Two will suffice.>" Shaggy and Scooby each recieved two treats, and ran off to investigate the booth.
Lois snorted while she wrote. "Just for that, Clark, you're getting dogfood for dinner."
"What did *I* do?" Clark asked helplessly.
Finally, they reached the end of the show. The gang assembled under the Tunnel of Love, having found a trap door under a 'statue of a primitive idol worshipped by one of the traitors'. They now stood in a cavern full of gold and rare treasures.
"<I'm ignorant!>" Velma exclaimed. "<This is surely an unusual sight, yet I do not know what I am looking at...>" The camera cut away from Velma to show the treasures around them again, and immediately her voice was replaced with Daphne's, explaining the villains' dastardly plot.
"<These evil, foolish traitors,>" Daphne explained from off-camera, "<are so hateful of the government and all that is good and pure, that they have crafted a deadly, radioactive mineral that resembles common gold! It is their plan to use this mineral to overthrow our rightful government, and install their own anarchic regime of baby-hating malice.>"
"Baby-hating?" Clark echoed.
"<They do not have the mental capacity,>" Daphne continued, still off-screen, "<to understand the sheer privelege it is to be Kryptonian, a perfect people under perfect rule.>"
"Make that Dogfood for breakfast, lunch, *and* dinner," said Lois.
Clark sighed and rolled his eyes.
Then, of course, came the final chase scene, and the unmasking of the monster/traitor. It turned out that, alas, kindly Ful-Xon the factory worker was a member of the traitorous Masked Man Organization, just as Val-Duc and his wife suspected. As he was led away by local authorities, he uttered that classic line:
"We would have succeeded had we not failed!"
The kids and their dog exchanged a few words with the police, each lamenting that the traitors were so evil and stupid. Then Genetic Experiment #309 did a trick, everyone laughed, and the show ended.
..........\/........
* * * [2] * * *
The Tragic Tale of the Brave Yet Hopeless Shipwrecked Scientist and His Companions
Lois shut off the TV. She needed a break, and given that the broadcasting schedule was just four shows repeating until evening, she saw no reason why she and Clark couldn't go somewhere and kill time until the next show came around again. They left their guest suite in the palace of New Krypton and went into town to get some lunch.
As luck would have it, though, the resturaunt they walked into had a shiny new television-machine mounted on the wall. Many off-duty New Kryptonians were gathered about; some sitting, some standing. *All* were absorbed in the program. In fact, some of the women and a few men were already in tears.
"All right," said Lois. "I'll bite. Just what is this show?"
"Oh!" said a woman Lois and Clark recognized from the palace. "My lady, my lord," she nodded to each of them in turn. "We would be honored to have you join us. It....it is so...unbearable!" She sniffed and swiped at her eyes with her bare hand.
"What is it?" asked Clark. By now, their curiosity was aroused.
"Right," she said, still sniffling. "The program. It is about this man who is a scientist. A *brilliant* scientist," she added. "He hires a transport, and a storm casts the vessel onto a strange island."
Lois turned to Clark and shrugged. "Lost?" she ventured.
Before he could reply, the woman continued. "Oh, yes," she said, "*very* lost. The island is on no existing map, and the scientist and his companions have no way to return home. He uses his remarkable innovation and ingenuity to ease their lives on the island, but his attempts to help them escape are thwarted by the curse."
"Curse?" Lois and Clark asked, simultaneously.
"Yes," the woman continued. "The red-shirted one," she pointed to the screen and Lois and Clark *finally* looked at what everyone else was watching so avidly, "was apparently cursed by Rao to be supernaturally clumsy. Last week, he nearly destroyed them all!"
Finally, someone to the woman's left turned to shush her. "<Quiet, Dala. This could be the one where they finally get off the island! I don't want to miss it.>"
Lois excused herself and went outside, supposedly to get some air.
"I do not blame her for being so overcome with emotion," Dala whispered to Clark. She glanced back at the screen. "Oh, wow! Do you see what he built out of that grass and island-fruit?"
"I think I'd better go join my wife," Clark told Dala. "You enjoy yourself, Dala."
She sniffed. "Thank you, I shall." She turned back to the screen, just in time to join everyone else in a cry of mortified terror. "<Great Rao, no! That buffoon tripped over his invention and broke it!>"
"<Noooooooo!>"
"<The agony!>"
Clark fought to stay composed as he swiftly exited the resturaunt, leaving the others to their episode of Gilligan's Island.
........\/........
* * * [3] * * *
The Fantastic Adventures of the Changing Green Warrior and His Love
They returned to their suite, and soon the television flickered to life once more. Lois groaned as the box displayed a slightly altered version of the opening title sequence to Louissa and Mark: The New Adventures of the Hulk.
Clark raised an eyebrow at her. "I thought you liked that show."
"It's okay," Lois conceded with a sigh. "I don't know if liking it would make this better or worse."
Clark chuckled empathetically, and the two cuddled on the sofa to watch the program.
"Hey," Lois said after a while, "it's season two!"
"Hunh?" Clark turned to her, confused.
Lois pointed at the screen. "This is season two, the episode where Mark gets killed by people who look like famous wild west villains." Clark gave her a strange look, but said nothing.
The story began with the editor and his son admiring an antique bicycle they had rented for the mayor's party. While they were in the garage, Billy the Kid strode up, decked out in black hat and cowboy spurs, and proceeded to demand his property.
"<I have come for the purpose of killing you.>"
The editor and his son stared in confusion at the cowboy.
"<Alien invaders!>"
"<We will kill you and rule Krypton,>" the cowboy repeated. "<You and the Green Warrior will not stop us!>" He and his partner in crime then tied up the editor and his son, took the bicycle for some reason, and left.
"I'm sensing a theme, here," Lois noted. As the story played out, she added, "I'm also sensing that this is more than just 'adaptation'. It looks to me like they didn't even glance at the original script!"
Sure enough, though the footage was left mostly intact, the story that unfolded through the dialogue was completely unrecognizable, with absolutely no recognizable reference points from the original material.
"Now there's an idea for a hobby," Clark commented. "Get a tape of an old show, play it without the sound, and write your own script just to see what happens."
Lois shook her head. "It wouldn't work. Most people already have a basic idea of what *should* be going on---heck, some people can even quote whole episodes!" She blushed. "Erm, so I heard. From Jimmy. Anyway, it would be hard to come up with something original without bits of the real plot seeping in."
"Maybe you could get a non-fan friend to help?" Clark offered. He turned to Lois. The two shrugged at each other.
..........\/........
* * * [4] * * *
Star Trek
They took another, much needed break before the final viewing. They killed time by taking a tour of the palace with Zara and Ching, and entertaining the new little heir to New Krypton's throne. Afterwards, they went sightseeing, and it was a good few hours before they returned to the suite once more.
When they turned on the television again, the tail end of the Louissa and Mark show was playing. It was the same episode they had watched earlier. Finally, after a few minutes, the show launched into its ending credits.
"Ready for the next one?" Clark asked his wife.
Lois sighed. "Okay, New Krypton! Bring on the insanity. We can take it!"
They braced themselves as the starship Enterprise filled the screen. The narration began in Kryptonian, and the translation appeared in the subtitles.
"<Space. The final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise....>"
When the show itself began, and the familiar images of Kirk and Spock began to wander across the screen, Lois and Clark stared in disbelief. "I don't believe it," Lois gasped.
"I know," Clark affirmed, squeezing her shoulder. "I can't believe it either!"
They watched transfixed, reading the subtitles with increasing incredulity.
"This is too unreal," Lois whispered. She turned to face her husband. "Clark, they...they're actually...."
"...playing it straight," he finished for her. "I know, Honey. I know."
"<I find your argument strewn with gaping defects in logic.>"
"<Maybe, but you can't evaluate a man by logic alone.>"
........\/........
* * * [ ] * * *
"Well," said Lois once the episode was done, "that was...interesting."
Clark nodded his assent.
The cheerful New Kryptonian woman appeared on the screen once more, to wish the little planet a good night and tell everyone that tomorrow was a Star Trek marathon.
Clark chuckled.
"Hey," said Lois, "I can live with that. Maybe this assignment won't be so bad, after all!"
Clark's grin vanished. "Er..." He met Lois' eyes with an almost regretful expression. "Tomorrow is when we have to screen that movie, remember?"
"Oh, yeah." Lois' face fell. "What is it again?"
"Well," Clark coughed, "I spoke to Ching about it. From what I can tell, it's going to be a New Kryptonian knock-off of Star Wars, with some plot changes since they couldn't get the rights to the original movie."
Lois groaned. "Well, I guess it can't be too much worse than the stuff we've already seen."
"There's more," Clark added, squirming slightly. "Lois, are you familiar with Bollywood?"
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|| ...Thank You..||
|| For Watching ||
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