This post contains details from the series finale ofSuperman & Lois.
The whole show, from the beginning, the big theme is family.
So we wanted to start out this the season atDeath of Superman.
Superman and LoisColin Bentley/The CW
BRENT FLETCHER:What is a life worth?
What is it worth pursuing?
Superman is such an iconic hero, but at the end of the day, hes a man.
What implored you to put that moment in the finale?
I think the inclination, more often than not, is to do something that you havent been doing.
For Superman, Bruno was right in a lot of ways.
[Supermans] father-in-law donated his heart.
So you have this heart transplant story, really, and then the second chance at life.
We talked a lot about, like, what would Superman do?
We never really got to get to that point in this season.
It felt like we had this massive opportunity, and thats the way that we should end it.
FLETCHER:you’ve got the option to do something good and still not be totally right.
Its hard, especially when youre hearing that from your opposition.
Sometimes you just shut them off.
We thought that was an interesting thing with Superman.
I think hes pretty cerebral about it and wants to do good and is open to change.
I think thats something good for all of us as people.
So we felt that was a real opportunity.
We were doingDeath of Superman.
Thats what we were going to sell to the audience.
What are the auspices of a life well-lived?
Its hope, joy, family and good all these things that he is.
Were all mortal, and maybe theres a beauty to our mortality that even Superman faces.
So we thought it was kind of a neat thing.
It was something that we were excited about, and so we followed that muse.
HELBING:In the history of Superman, he is in a lot of ways immortal, right?
Hes gonna live forever.
Hes gonna outlive Lois.
Hes gonna outlive his boys.
But in this version, with what happened to him, he wasnt going to do that anymore.
Weve never seen that.
I think its really moving in a way thats unexpected.
Those are the best kind of endings.
HELBING:Its Superman and Lois Lane and Lex Luthor.
Theyre these iconic characters, and so that inherently has some pressure.
You dont want to be the version of the property that messed it up.
There is a lot packed into one broadcast hour of TV.
FLETCHER:I mean, on a super technical level, you need time to finish the season story.
Weve got six acts.
We wanted to finish that [season arc] by the end of four.
Where do they go?
What did it mean for them?
What did their lives mean?
That was pretty ambitious.
And to your earlier question, that was part of the scare.
How do you do it with the resources that we have?
So there were a lot of meetings about schedule, and we had to add an extra day.
Our schedules truncated quite a bit this season.
So we had to work a lot of Saturdays and figure out the budget of it all.
It constantly feels like a miracle that these things happen.
DEADLINE: Was there anything you wish youd gotten to fit into the finale that you couldnt?
FLETCHER:I would have liked to have had more characters come back.
I think Todd agrees.
If we had more time and money, we would have loved Tal-Rho.
Supermans brother was a great character for us.
We love him, and we would have liked the opportunity to have acknowledged that.
We would have liked to have had Sam Lane, maybe see him in Lois final vision.
But we just didnt have the time and resources to get people back for that.
HELBING:It would have been nice to get Jenna [Dewan] back.
That was a struggle we had the whole season.
DEADLINE: What about in the season as a whole?
HELBING:We tend to end the season while we set up a new villain.
It would have been fun to explore Brainiac a little bit more and go further with that character.
So then it was just a matter of addressing that in a way that we were satisfied with.
I think were both happy with with how it turned out.
