Supported bilayer lipid membranes (BLMs) and lipid monolayers have been known for quite sometime and are attracting sustained interest since they open new research vista and offer practical approaches in biosensor development and molecular device applications. Central to these areas of interest are electric processes and redox reactions where the movement of ions and electrons plays a pivotal role. In this paper an overview of the major findings in this field is presented. Further, we summarize the work on planar lipid bilayers and monolayers that have been done in the past few years in a number of laboratories. Supported planar BLMs and their closely related systems provide the foundation for a variety of lipid bilayer-based molecular sensors that are sensitive, versatile, as well as potentially inexpensive (i.e., disposable), and open to all sorts of experimentation.