Superman & Lois' next season will be its last

It’s the end of yet another era at The CW today—where, it sometimes feels, more eras are ending than ever even bothered to begin in the first place—as the network announced today that the upcoming fourth season of superhero series Superman & Lois will be its last.

And while this doesn’t technically signal the full and final death of the old, fabled Arrowverse—since S&L was never actually part of Greg Berlanti’s decade-plus experiment in serialized superhero TV, despite Tyler Hoechlin playing Clark Kent for both franchises—it does appear to mark the end of superheroes at The CW. The network has been steadily shedding its capes-and-comics-based shows ever since it was acquired by Nexstar, and Superman & Lois—in which Hoechlin and Elizabeth Tulloch played versions of the title duo, raising their sons in small-town Smallville—was the last to fall, having now finally slipped beneath the waves of unscripted programming, and also that Jesus show that re-premiered on the network earlier this year.

News of the show ending comes not long after Superman & Lois already got pummeled with some pretty serious hits: The show was already subjected to serious cost-cutting to get a fourth season order, with Warner Bros. Television moving several of its cast members from main cast to recurring to save cash. Then, in the midst of this summer’s strikes, the show saw similar reductions on its writing side, with its writers room shrunk from eight people down to five.

Despite all this, the series still got the “We don’t regret running this!” congratulatory notice from the network, with network exec Brad Schwartz writing that, “Over the last three seasons, Superman & Lois redefined both the superhero genre and family drama as Tyler, Elizabeth and the entire cast effortlessly portrayed these classic characters with new layers of depth and complexity that had never before been explored in the Superman universe.” Showrunners Todd Helbing and Brent Fletcher fired back the “Nobody’s mad over here, either!” counter-statement, too, writing that, “We’d like to thank our partners at Berlanti Productions, DC, WB and The CW for their endless support and enthusiasm during this journey,” before teasing fans with the final, 10-episode season’s big threat: The increasing prominence of Michael Cudlitz as the series’ version of classic baddie Lex Luthor.

Superman & Lois’ final season will air some time in 2024.