Daily Planet, dawn. Clark is making copies when he sees Lois coming into the office. They stare at each other through a window. Sad guitar music plays. They stare some more. Lois fixes herself a cup of coffee. More staring. Clark finally sighs and approaches her: "You missed all the excitement last night." Lois wonders why she didn't read about Clark's "exploits" in the paper that morning. Clark hands her his article, with "Lois Lane and Clark Kent" in the byline. He asks her for help, saying he missed his deadline. She seems flattered, but I would be annoyed at being patronized. She agrees to help him. Clark: "Guess I'm not ready to fly solo just yet." Ugh. Lois takes the article over to her desk and marks it with her red pen. He watches for aes as she makes edits. She gives him back the article and he apologizes for letting her down. She points out that Lois Lane doesn't usually allow herself to be stood up. Clark: "Well then it's a good thing it was just like a date." More smiling and staring back and forth. Then they do that annoying "cute" thing where everyone speaks in hypotheticals that aren't really. Clark teases that he wonders how someone would get a second date after messing up like that. Lois says that "someone" should try again on a slower news day, but Clark doesn't think there are many of those. Lois agrees. "I'm sure people would make sure they got it right next time," Clark says. Smiling. Staring. "My thoughts exactly," Lois says. They smile and stare at each other for eons while the camera pans around to show them standing silhouetted against the Daily Planet logo. They'll probably still be standing there, staring at each other when next week's episode opens.

Grade: C-. The Tess scenes and some of the Toyman stuff kept it from being a D, but just barely.

Tippi Blevins is just glad no one in the episode uttered the words, "Can you read my mind?" You can send her questions and comments or just about anything else at b_tippi@yahoo.com. But please... no used donuts.