Posted in: CW, TV | Tagged: arrowverse, superman & lois

Superman & Lois Co-Showrunner on Final Season Honoring Arrowverse

Superman & Lois co-showrunner Todd Helbing explains how they're choosing to honor the Arrowverse during the show's fourth and final season.

Published Mon, 07 Oct 2024 20:37:07 -0500

by Ray Flook

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With today marking the ten-year anniversary of the premiere of Grant Gustin-starring The Flash and the return of Elizabeth Tulloch and Tyler Hoechlin-starring Superman & Lois for its fourth and final season, fans can't help but have their Arrowverse on their minds. We know! We know! Superman & Lois isn't technically an Arrowverse series (though that could be debated on a whole bunch of other geek levels). During the second season finale, S02E20: "Waiting for Superman," Dylan Walsh's General Samuel Lane delivered a heartfelt speech that also made it clear that the show wasn't connected to the Arrowverse. During General Lane's speech, we get this line: "I've been working for the DOD for a long time. I've seen things you would not believe- glimpses of other worlds and the leagues of superheroes they have on them. And even though we only have your father on this planet, thank God that we do because he's the finest of any Earth."

But even with that in play, millions of fans will always view Superman & Lois as part of the Arrowverse – and that's something that wasn't lost on series co-showrunners Todd Helbing and Brent Fletcher as they approached the final season. "Inherently, there's so many pressures you feel with a TV show — just writing the script was pressure, and then producing it, and the second that the show began, it's about Superman and Lois Lane, so there's a responsibility that comes with that too," Helbing shared with Entertainment Weekly. "With the Arrowverse, I've had 10 years of working in these shows and these worlds, and you want to do it justice, but you have to separate yourself from those feelings, or you are not going to leave your house because it'll be overwhelming."

With that in mind, the co-showrunners found the best way to honor the Arrowverse was to go out on a strong note by staying faithful to what made so many fans of the series. "The best way that we could approach it was to just do the best version for our show," Helbing explained. "[As for] Easter eggs, there's the idealistic version — in a comic book, you'd have all these characters at your disposal, so you can have whatever you want. But when you're talking about schedules and money and budgets, it would be awesome to have [The Flash star] Grant [Gustin] in this, but it's just not feasible. There are questions like that that come up, and then there's the reality that hits you, and so ultimately, as we discussed in the room, we can just do what we can do, and I think the best way to honor what has been done for 10 years was to hopefully have the audience watch it and then feel satisfied."

Shortly after the second season finale, Helbing discussed the decision with TVLine and cleared up some other points:

The Decision to Keep "Superman & Lois" & the Arrowverse Apart Was Made Earlier Than Expected: "DC and I had a conversation during Season 1, and the decision [to separate the show from the Arrowverse] was made then, but I couldn't make it public until the end of this season. So when I got all these questions [in prior interviews], I knew what we were doing, but I could never talk about it. It got a little frustrating on my end, but I totally understand DC's position. So this put that to rest. I've said from the beginning that we want to put our own stamp on the Superman property. This wasn't meant to alienate us from the Arrowverse, but because a lot of the other shows are sadly no longer going to be on the air, it felt like the right thing to do."

So While Tyler Hoechlin's Superman is Aware of the Multiverse… "we have to think about this as a separate Superman, a doppelganger of the one who was in the Arrowverse."

So David Ramsey's John Diggle During the Season 2 Finale Isn't "'Arrow' Diggle? Nope… "This is also a new Diggle. David Ramsey had grown a beard and grew his hair out. He called me and said, 'I've been growing my hair, I look different. Do you want me to shave and get a haircut?' So not to add more confusion to it, but he's a different Diggle."

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