Superman & Lois Is Ending With Season 4 – Here's Why It Was Canceled
"Superman & Lois" is set to take flight just one more time on The CW, as executive producers and co-showrunners Brent Fletcher and Todd Helbing have revealed that the show's upcoming fourth season will officially be its last. The series' end may be disappointing for fans of the Tyler Hoechlin and Elizabeth Tulloch-led series, but it's been anticipated for a while: The CW's scripted slate has been slowly but surely decimated beginning before the network's controlling interest was sold to Nexstar in fall 2022, and "Superman & Lois" was one of the last remaining pre-acquisition shows that hadn't gotten the ax yet.
In a press release announcing the show's end, Helbing and Fletcher thanked the cast and crew of the series while also teasing a major arc that will carry the show through to its conclusion in 2024. "While we're sad to say goodbye to 'Superman & Lois' at the end of Season Four, we're grateful for the time we've had with our amazing cast, crew, VFX teams, editors, musical geniuses, and writers," the co-showrunners wrote. They continued, "Since the day this show was first discussed, it was about family. And that's what was created – on and off screen."
After thanking Berlanti Productions, DC, WB, The CW, and all the fans at home, Helbing and Fletcher revealed that season 4 will feature a face-off against infamous supervillain Lex Luthor.
The CW has been cleaning house when it comes to scripted programming
The CW was once the home of many Berlanti-produced superhero sagas, with several of them collectively known as the "Arrowverse." But over a period of just a few weeks in spring 2022, a whopping nine different scripted CW shows (not all of them superhero stories) got the boot, and by the time "The Flash" ended this past May, no Arrowverse shows remained. The programming line-up seems to have been hacked to bits for a simple yet disappointing reason: to make room for incoming new ownership, including execs who are apparently not that into the scripted lineup the network already had.
Last year, Nexstar executive VP and CFO Lee Ann Gliha told investors (via Variety) that the company had plans to unveil their own slate of shows for the 2023-24 season, but noted that any "carryover" from previous WBD and CBS-greenlit shows would be "minimal at that point." In short, the company wanted to start its takeover with as clean a slate as possible. According to The Hollywood Reporter, The CW needed to do something to keep its financials in order, as it's apparently only ever made money on streaming and foreign sales. Since the takeover, the network has already pivoted to more sports and unscripted content.
Shows like Superman & Lois are 'not working on linear'
When asked about "Superman & Lois" back in May, The CW's new entertainment President Brad Schwartz told THR, "As we look forward and try to make this network bigger and profitable, frankly, as much as we all love those [superhero] shows and they had their time, they're not working on linear." It's the type of calculating statement that seems to be the new normal as Hollywood attempts to make it through some lean years, but it's certainly not what fans of the show hoped to hear.
Worse yet, the final season of "Superman & Lois" will allegedly be impacted by budget cuts affecting its episode count and other aspects of the series. Series writer Adam Mallinger announced via Twitter that he wouldn't be back for the final season, writing, "After the cuts to cast and episode order, it's no surprise...My showrunners were in a difficult spot and I want to be clear they've handled it the best they could."
Hopefully, despite these many obstacles and the depressing state of network TV, "Superman & Lois" will get to bow out on its own terms as much as possible when it returns for a 10-episode final season in 2024.