The CW won’t commit to a superhero-free future, renews Superman & Lois
But Gotham Knights has been canceled, so there are still fewer superhero shows than before
Aux News Lois
The CW killed its in-house superhero universe with the recent series finale of The Flash, but the network—or, rather, its new corporate owners at Nexstar—aren’t willing to commit to a completely superhero-free future just yet (one where Jesus and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund reign supreme). That being said, the future will still have fewer superheroes than there used to be.
This comes from The Hollywood Reporter, which says The CW has renewed All American: Homecoming (a show that is not about superheroes) and Superman & Lois, but it has decided not to renew freshman superhero show Gotham Knights—the one about Batman’s son, but not any of the canonical Batman sons or Robins from the comics, and also it had nothing to do with the video game of the same name. (It’s a wonder that this thing couldn’t find an audience.) Gotham Knights still has a couple of episodes to air before coming to an end, but then it will be formally entered into the archives of forgettable DC Comics TV shows alongside NBC’s Powerless and The WB’s Birds Of Prey.
THR notes that Gotham Knights got fewer viewers than Superman & Lois but was “also considerably less expensive to make,” so the fact that it got the axe and Superman & Lois didn’t is somewhat surprising, given everything we’ve seen from Nexstar CW up until this point. Then again, both Superman & Lois and All American: Homecoming are reportedly getting their budgets slashed for these new seasons, with the former dropping to 10 episodes (from 13) and the latter dropping to 13 (from 15). Maybe The CW is banking on existing fans sticking around for those shows even if Smallville suddenly looks even smaller and Homecoming can’t afford any actual sports equipment.
30 Comments
I didn’t have that one on my bingo card.
Superman & Lois had cheating, parenting, custody issues and kids suffering from depression. This season’s breast cancer storyline and the budding relationship between Lana and John Henry took it the rest of the way to being and adult superhero show, which is an audience Nexstar wanted to serve.As long as they don’t muck up the streaming, I’ll be there.
That sounds bleak. It doesn’t make me regret not being able to make it through the first episode when it was shown on the BBC.
Those issues were actually handled by functioning adults that talked to each other. At least most of the time.
But as introductions to Superman go, cooling a nuclear meltdown with a giant ice-cube was utterly perfect, and magnificently Silver Age.
They have managed some pretty interesting juxtapositions. Last season’s over-arching plot was an attempt to merge the Bizarro universe (or a Bizarro universe, anyway) with ours, and S&L’s ordinarily pretty realistic and grounded milieu incorporated some classic Bizarro weirdness, like a shot of people playing pool with cubes instead of balls. This managed to nod toward the Silver Age anything-goes ethos while still being and looking like a family drama you could talk your non-comics-reading parents into watching, which I thought was a pretty neat trick.
I still love that they recreated the classic “Superman lifts a car” cover with him in the original costume, and a Chrysler PT Cruiser, the most old-timey-looking of contemporary cars on the road today.
I am interested in seeing what they do for the finale arc, but thus far this season, I’d say the characters became much more 2-dimensional.
I mean I can guess what they do, since they have been teasing Lex Luthor returning for about a month now.
I haven’t been bothered too much by the characters, with one exception — I’ve been having problems getting over the recasting of Jonathan Kent. Jordan Elsass made the right choice in prioritizing his mental health over a job on television, but Michael Bishop still doesn’t feel quite right to me in the role. It kind of makes me glad we’ll get another (albeit shorter) season for him to refine his performance, or for me to get used to it anyway.
I meant 2-dimensional as a good thing. It’s better than 1, but not quite 3.Yeah, the new Jon is taking some getting used to and the new actor seems to have more chemistry with Sarah than she had with Jordan, so I expect someday there will be some drama on that front, but I’ve never really cared much one way or the other about Superman’s sons.
Not really, it adds emotional heft and more adult tone to the proceedings but you still get a lot of superior sci-fi plotlines and superhero action and the VFX are much better than the other Arrowverse shows. Definitely the best Superman TV show ever. Smallville was great but it had a lot of teen-angst fast-forward moments.
THR notes that Gotham Knights got fewer viewers than Superman & Lois but was “also considerably less expensive to make,” so the fact that it got the axe and Superman & Lois didn’t is somewhat surprising, given everything we’ve seen from Nexstar CW up until this pointI redirect your attention to the fact that Superman and Lois features Superman and Lois Lane, while Gotham Knights features Absolutely No One Anyone Gives A Shit About*. *Except Maybe Harvey Dent, But He’s Not Even Two-Face Yet
I was thinking that we would see Two-Face at the end of season one, but there’s no way the CW would pay for the make-up if it got picked up for another season. The best we can hope for is a glimpse of it during one of Harvey’s psychotic episodes.
I so don’t get the Harvey Dent thing. How can you have Two Face only after Batman is dead.
Phew!
As long as they throw in a line next season about Clark helping some rogue time travellers bust out of time jail I’m good.
I can’t believe The CW wasted time & resources on Gotham Knights when they could’ve just made a final season of Batwoman instead!
Or a final season of Legends of Tomorrow.
Especially that!
I, for one, am happy.
For the cast and crew.
Well, I’m happy. I hope the budget cuts don’t make Superman and Lois this feel like a different show, though.
Both Supergirl and Stargirl felt different when they moved over from CBS and DC Universe respectively to The CW and had considerably smaller budgets so I would expect the answer to be yes
I find Nexstar highly questionable for all the things it does and preaches, but The Flash and the other Berlanti DC shows were WELL past their prime and ready to be cancelled. Gotham Knights wasn’t very good. The only real change here is that the CW usually cancelled nothing and now that isn’t the case.
I thought The Flash went out on its own terms. After 9 years it was beginning to hemorrhage its original cast.
Including the main cast member Grant Gustin. He wanted out of there.
He and Candice Patton wanted out a while ago. And, to be honest, the story left the show well before that.
Slashing the budget of a show in which two of the leads have power sets that include flying, heat vision, and ice breath and another two have fricken robot suits does not bode well.
How is it surprising that the best superhero thing the CW has done since the first season of The Flash got renewed?
Because they’ve been axing everything and the show is expensive. Quality has nothing to do with anything.