After a dozen years and more than 800 episodes, the network airs its last comic book-based show
The series finale of Superman & Lois aired Monday night on The CW. It marked not just the end of the show’s four-season run, but also an entire programming philosophy at the network.
Superman & Lois was the last series based on DC Comics characters to air at the network. It was also the last connection to The CW’s Arrowverse (even if it wasn’t technically part of the main continuity of that franchise), which defined the 2010s for the network and became one of the more successful multi-show franchises in TV history.
The ending of Superman & Lois, which — spoiler alert — flashes forward several decades to show the end of its title characters’ (Tyler Hoechlin and Elizabeth Tulloch) lives, precludes any continuation of the show elsewhere — as do new regimes at both The CW and DC parent Warner Bros. Discovery, which both have very different approaches than they did during the Arrowverse’s heyday in the mid- and late 2010s.
The CW, as THR has covered extensively, is mostly out of the homegrown scripted business: All American — which like nearly all of The CW’s DC shows comes from Greg Berlanti’s Warner Bros. TV-based company — is now the only scripted series left from the network’s pre-Nexstar days. Most of the network’s schedule is now given over to unscripted and sports programming, and what scripted shows The CW does air are co-productions on series based outside the United States, with budgets that are a fraction of even the relatively inexpensive ones of the past.
DC — officially, DC Studios — meanwhile, is taking its TV projects to WBD siblings HBO and Max, with bigger budgets, shorter seasons and very different tones than the CW franchise: The Penguin was essentially a mob story, and the upcoming Lanterns is said to have a True Detective-like vibe, while Peacemaker (which predates the DC Studios reorganization but is folded into the main timeline) is very much its own, TV-MA (and then some) thing.
With Marvel also siloing all its TV properties on Disney+, it’s not a stretch at all to say that there won’t be another sprawling comic-book franchise on network TV again. The CW’s DC era left a huge imprint on the network; here are some of the numbers behind the shows.
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