Final season of CW series a stellar highlight reel of what makes show so great

It’s an innocent enough question on its face. But here, early on in the fourth (and final) season of The CW’s “Superman & Lois,” it’s delivered with a nonchalant malevolence promising nothing but heartache and loss. That unease permeates the first three episodes provided for review, which makes a gallows-humor sort of sense: After all, the series is loosely adapted from the highly regarded (and bluntly named) “Death of Superman” comic book arc, and we’re almost at the final page. But even as Clark Kent, Lois Lane, their children and the town of Smallville face their greatest threat yet, the series’ final season provides a reason to keep hope alive — to keep watching — thanks to heartbreaking performances and a laserlike focus on what matters most.

To say Season 3 of “Superman & Lois” left off on a cliffhanger would be a severe understatement. The final sequence had Clark/Superman (Tyler Hoechlin) and this series’ version of Doomsday (a longstanding Man of Steel nemesis) racing toward each other above the moon as Soundgarden’s “Blow Up the Outside World” screams in the background, and then … cut to black, season over.

But the path to see the conclusion of that slugfest would be complicated by real-life struggles for the show, including a change of network ownership for The CW, a pivot away from the superhero genre the channel’s long been known for, and the actors and writers strikes. So instead of the seven seasons originally envisioned, we would get a fourth and final one, truncated to 10 episodes and shorn of many of its regular cast members.

Read the full review at seattletimes.com.

Four “Family of Steel” stars out of five.