It's a Small World After All

**It's a Small World After All** is the twentieth episode of the third season.

This particular episode was written by Teri Hatcher herself.

## Plot

High school reeked - at least for one of Lois's old classmates, who hatches a diabolical plot for revenge.

## Plot Summary

Lois has to attend her high school reunion and Clark accompanies her as her fiance. There, she learns that two (and later a third one) of her former classmates' spouses have disappeared and she decides to investigate those disappearances to find out what happened.

While investigating, something strange starts happening to Clark; he is slowly shrinking. Clark goes to Dr. Klein as Superman, who runs some tests to find out what caused this.

The clues that Lois finds lead her to one of her former classmates, cosmetics designer Annette Westman. She discovers that Annette had gone to her high school, where she was poorly treated. Lois then realizes, too late, that she was one of those girls who was mean to her. Dr. Klein finds out that one of his compatriots had previously worked for Annette's cosmetics company as a chemist. When trying to research a new fragrance, he accidentally duplicated a secret shrinking potion. He reported this to Annette, who fired him when she refused his recommendation to terminate the project and report it to the authorities. Annette had been putting the shrinking potion into an expensive shampoo then sending it to the spouses of these popular kids just ahead of their forthcoming reunion. A man who is working with, named Hans, is then collecting the tiny people by impersonating a pest control exterminator. This failed on Superman, as Clark was still regular sized when he got out of the shower and saw Hans fleeing his apartment. Clark noticed the fake name of Hans' uniform "Snoil Pest Control", which Lois later deduces as "Lions", her old high school sports team, spelled backwards. Unknown to Clark, he was not immune to the shrinking potion, rather it took longer than Earth people to work on his Kryptonian DNA. Annette, meanwhile, is acting in her role as coordinator of the forthcoming reunion to comfort those whose spouses are missing, and Lois' schoolfriends remark how wrong they were to bully her. Annette is relishing the suffering she had caused them in secret, and keeping the shrunken captives in a dollhouse-like environment.

When Lois confronts her, Annette tries to kill Lois then shrink her as well. But with the help of Superman, Lois gets away and Annette accidentally pours the entire formula onto herself, causing her to shrink out of existence. Dr. Klein finds the antidote and everyone returns to their original size.

## Guest Cast

### Guest starring

* Elizabeth Anne Smith as Annette Westman
* Steve Young as Joe Malloy
* Don Brunner as Hans
* Rainer Grant as Julie Carlton
* Tim Bohn as Dick Carlton
* Jim Hanks as Les Barrish
* Leslie Sachs as Debbie Malloy
* Ellen Gerstein as the fortune teller

**Episodes:** We Have a Lot to Talk About • Ordinary People • Contact • When Irish Eyes Are Killing • Just Say Noah • Don't Tug on Superman's Cape • Ultra Woman • Chip Off the Old Clark • Super Mann • Virtually Destroyed • Home Is Where the Hurt Is • Never on Sunday • The Dad Who Came In from the Cold • Tempus, Anyone? • I Now Pronounce You... • Double Jeopardy • Seconds • Forget Me Not • Oedipus Wrecks • **It's a Small World After All** • Through a Glass, Darkly • Big Girls Don't Fly