| Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman | |
| Season 3, Episode 10 | |
 | |
| Air date | December 10, 1995 |
| Written by | Dean Cain Sean Brennan |
| Directed by | Jim Charleston |
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While Lois and Clark confront the prospect of sexual intimacy, Lex Luthor's estranged son traps them in a virtual world where Clark has no superpowers.
Summary[]
Lois and Clark discuss honeymoon ideas, deciding to go to Hawaii. While going over the accommodations, Lois lets out that she feels a lot of pressure about their first sexual encounter. Meanwhile, with Perry White still in the midst of divorce proceedings with Alice, Jimmy tries to persuade him to get into the online dating scene. Perry demurs, repeatedly expressing a distrust of computers in general and virtual interactions in particular.
Perry assigns Lois and Clark to do a story on a new virtual reality program designed by Jaxon Xavier. Jaxon explains that unlike other virtual reality devices, which project sensory stimuli, his program directly interacts with the user's brain. He assures them that this is completely safe so long as users leave through the designated exit window, much like a roller coaster ride. He invites Lois and Clark to experience it for themselves. They agree and have Jaxon put them in a simulation of Hawaii. They are astounded, as the simulation is indistinguishable from reality. As they try kissing in virtual reality, Jaxon arrives to bring them out of the program.
Having lunch afterwards, Lois and Clark resume their discussion about sex. Clark reveals he is a virgin, having been saving himself for his future wife. Lois is stunned and regrets that she didn't hold off herself, saying all her previous relationships were disastrous. As Clark assures her not to worry about their wedding night, a car comes at them. Finding that he is unable to fly, Clark lures the car away from Lois and leaps up to grab a flag pole, narrowly escaping being run over. As he does this, "Superman" arrives to make sure Lois is okay. This tips off Lois and Clark that they are still inside virtual reality; Jaxon simulated them taking off the equipment and leaving the building. Because Jaxon does not know Clark is Superman, the program put his powers in a virtual Superman rather than the real Clark. Realizing their intimate discussion was on display for Jaxon, Lois vows to make him pay.
Jaxon wants Lois to lower her guard so that he can extract some information from her, and does not yet realize she knows the truth about where she is, so he herds Lois and Clark back to her virtual apartment. Suspecting that Jaxon is jealous of Clark, the two begin making out to bait him into making a move. Angered, Jaxon enters the program in his favored form of a musclebound commando. He tries to throw Clark through a wall, but as he does so Clark happens to touch Jaxon's watch, releasing him from the virtual reality program.
Back in reality, Jaxon warns Clark that removing Lois's virtual reality equipment will kill her unless she first uses the aforementioned exit window. He says her only hope is for Clark to return to the virtual world and defeat him. Realizing he has no chance since Jaxon controls that world, Clark instead returns to the Daily Planet as Superman and enlists Jimmy's help in researching Jaxon. Jaxon worked for Lex Luthor's company on a virtual reality brainwashing program. Rich and powerful people who used the program would have come under Luthor's control. Superman and Jimmy deduce that Jaxon has now perfected the virtual reality but needs information from Lois to access Luthor's brainwashing technology.
Jaxon enters virtual reality in the form of Clark and tells Lois they need the names Lex Luthor planned to give his children to escape. Lois tells him the names Alexis, Roxanne, and Lynx, but a fourth password is needed to access the brainwashing technology. When Lois insists Luthor had no other children's names and the computer tells him the password "Jaxon" is invalid, Jaxon becomes profoundly upset and lets slip his real identity: Luthor's illegitimate son, who Luthor said died in a car accident.
Superman and Jimmy assemble their own virtual reality equipment and hack into the program. Using Jimmy's knowledge of virtual reality, they simulate enough power to stagger Jaxon, allowing them to take Lois and flee into a section of unused computer memory. There they figure out that the exit window for the program must be Jaxon's watch, and rethink their approach to fighting him.
Jaxon accesses the brainwashing program by intuiting that the fourth child's name was Lois's choice: Clark. He returns to virtual reality to kill Superman, Lois, and Jimmy, but they taunt him with his father's lack of love for him, and even suggest that the reason he became interested in virtual reality in the first place was because he couldn't stand being himself. When Jaxon crumbles in despair, they grab his wristwatch from him and use it to leave virtual reality. Jaxon, in a tearful rage, crashes the system, trapping his mind inside his virtual world forever.
Cast[]
Main cast[]
- Dean Cain as Clark Kent/Superman
- Teri Hatcher as Lois Lane
- Lane Smith as Perry White
- Justin Whalin as Jimmy Olsen
- K Callan as Martha Kent
- Eddie Jones as Jonathan Kent
Guest starring[]
- Paula Poundstone as the Voice of the Computer
- Andrew Bryniarski as Kombat
- Andy Berman as Jaxon Xavier