Part of the reason that the date felt "staged" to me was that they were already in a relationship before they went back and had this first date. That semi-first date / stake-out in "The Phoenix" and the fact that Lois chose to stay with Jimmy in the "Return of the Prankster" showed that their relationship had moved past friendship and past the "first date" stage. True, they didn't get their first real kiss until this episode, until after this "date" but they both knew there was something between them. It was one of the reasons why Diana kissing Superman (or Superman allowing Diana to kiss him) in "Top Copy" was so horrible. I felt like he had already moved into the "relationship" stage with Lois (and why poor Mayson probably thought she and Clark had already moved into that stage enough to ask him away for the weekend), and in a way, he deserved what he got from kissing Diana. Reap what ye sow, big guy.
In my LnC stories, Lois and Clark always develop their relationship out of friendship, instead of from "dating" per se, this is mostly because I've never been on a date (you're so lucky to have that experience to draw from, Sue). I married my college sweetheart and every relationship I've ever had developed from hanging out. Every dance I attended in high school, I invited the guy or we were already in a relationship. The one guy who actually DID call me to invite me out I wasn't interested in being more than friends with, and I was so painfully shy I didn't know how to act with him after telling him 'no'. Hence my comment of never having been in Lois's shoes.
If Lex hadn't been resurrected, and Lois and Clark had had *this* date back in "The Phoenix" how would it have been different than it was having it delayed until this point? (I'm just going to ignore the concert date, because I believe that was poorly planned on Clark's part, especially since a concert would not have any of Lois's criteria, which she listed, for a first date, and therefore, would have been an unmitigated disaster.)
