Superman & Lois Season 1 Review: A Masterpiece That Deserves All The Applause

Overview

Superman and Lois, where the hell do I begin with an overview of this? To put it as bluntly and simply as possible, the first season was an absolute masterpiece. It isn’t a traditional Superman story that we’re used to. This is set years into Clark’s career as Superman, he has two teenage sons, Jon and Jordan, he’s married to Lois, and has done everything he normally sets out to do in Metropolis and moves back to Smallville. It already has the perfect ingredients to make the show as unique as possible.

The story focuses on them adjusting to life in a new but familiar town, letting out their best-kept secrets to the children, and dealing with the Morgan Edge threat at the same time. In movies, we tend to see more Superman and a little bit of Clark sprinkled in, but the show is more focused on the family aspects, instead of just pure Superman all of the time, and I couldn’t be happier for it.

It takes a spin on the character that we haven’t really seen before. It showcases that even Superman has all the same dramas and family issues as most of us do in real life. We also get to see them come together in times of need. Even Jordan, who was this run-down teenager who couldn’t care for the world, and instead just played video games all day, and grew into a hero with solid intentions. To be fair, the writers deserve props for that, because of the way the first episode played out, a lot of people expected Jordan to be one of the villains.

Every single scene that had action in was done perfectly. In one of the opening episodes where Lois is trapped and she calls for Superman using the gadget and he just shows up and absolutely beats the guy down, all the way to John Irons throwing his axe in order to save Lois. Most of the scenes were edge-of-the-seat moments, and there isn’t a lot of shows out there that can hype you in a way that pulls you forward.

One of the aspects of the story that I did like was surrounding John Henry Irons. He isn’t from this planet, which does show in some ways that Crisis didn’t completely break everything. However, his planet was completely destroyed by Superman and the risen Kryptonian’s, which resulted in Lois (John’s wife on that planet) also being killed, leaving behind a young daughter. We got to actually see Superman properly turn against Earth and its people, showcasing just how brutal he is, and how quick the world would end would he turn.

It does get you thinking throughout, and I’ve said it time and time again, Tyler Hoechlin is a perfect Superman. Sure, he doesn’t have the look or builds that Henry has when it comes to it, but the passion, the movement, body language, signs, everything he has portrays the perfect Superman.

In the end, this show was a masterpiece. I keep saying that time and time again but it’s true. This show really did blow me away in every avenue, and I cannot wait to see what the second season brings.

Characters

The show stars many different characters, and never focused solely on Superman, which is something I liked. We obviously had Lois, their two sons, Jon and Jordan. We got General Sam Lane, alongside John Henry Irons (Steel). We even got 3 side characters which were a family; Sarah, Kyle, and Lana, plus their little daughter that we don’t see often.

In regards to the main cast, I cannot identify a single fault I had. Each of these characters brought something different, and unique to the story of Superman and his family. One of the major plots I like is the fact that Clark and Lois had teenage twin boys, Jordan of who has never been in the comic books before which gave The CW a character that they could play with. I’d say my only annoyance with this is that in the comics, Jon gains the powers and becomes like his father. In the show, he never showed anything except his superior aim when playing football. However, Jordan smashed it nonetheless.

Let’s discuss the main villain of the show. Morgan Edge. What a guy. In the beginning, you know for a fact Edge isn’t there to be helpful to Smallville, and instead, he’s secretly mining Kryptonite with the mines of Smallville. He’s also turning regular citizens’ minds into the minds of the fallen Kryptonian’s. The one thing I like about Edge is the brutality of what he’s doing, he doesn’t care. He has one goal in mind and that’s to bring back every person he knew on the fallen planet, and to be honest – if you were in his shoes with that amount of power, you’d probably do the same. So I did kind of understand what he was doing, even if he was doing it the wrong way.

All in all, every character had a purpose in the story. Nobody was wasted in my opinion, and we didn’t feel the need for random backstories because we had instant connections to the characters. Had this have been a different CW show, it would have been 23 episodes, with 8 of them filler backstory episodes about why Sarah is the way she is, why Kyle became a firefighter, and it’s not always necessary. This is something the show did extremely well.

However, I do want to give the two main cast members a special shoutout. Tyler Hoechlin is my favorite Superman of all time, and Elizabeth Tulloch is Lois Lane for me now.

Standout Character

For me, perhaps one of the most surprising and powerful characters is Lois herself. Elizabeth Tulloch deserves an Oscar for her performances as Lois throughout the entire season. I will be honest, before this show aired, I was not a fan of the Lois character. So when the show was announced Lois would be starring I kind of rolled my eyes back and expected the show to perform poorly, I can safely say that I was completely wrong. Lois made this show much better for me, she wasn’t just this weak girlfriend/wife as you normally see in superhero shows and movies.

Favourite Episode

It has to be the finale. It was definitely one of the better finales of the year so far. The episode brought goosebumps, emotions, fantastic fights and even teased us for the next season. It had it all, even to the point there were multiple moments during the episode that had me out of my seat, and that doesn’t happen all that often.

Worst Episode

For the first time in my career of doing season reviews, I specifically cannot pick the worst episode. There wasn’t a single episode that I never enjoyed thoroughly, and nothing stood out as poor to me. Therefore I, unfortunately, cannot choose. If there is an episode that you can think of, you can let me know down in the comments below.

Episodes & Their Ratings

Episode 1: Pilot – 10/10
Episode 2: Heritage – 9.6/10
Episode 3: The Perks of Not Being a Wallflower – 9.9/10
Episode 4: Haywire – 10/10
Episode 5: The Best of Smallville – 7.8/10
Episode 6: Broken Trust – 10/10
Episode 7: Man of Steel – 10/10
Episode 8: Holding the Wrench – 9/10
Episode 9: Loyal Subjekts – 10/10
Episode 10: O’Mother, Where Art Thou? – 10/10
Episode: 11: A Brief Reminiscence In-Between Cataclysmic Events – 7.5/10
Episode: 12: Through the Valley of Death – 10/10
Episode: 13: Fail Safe – 9.8/10
Episode: 14: The Eradicator – 10/10
Episode: 15: Last Sons of Krypton – 10/10

Average rating – 9.6/10

Our Overall Rating 10/10

The average hit a 9.6 with our overall being a perfect 10. We rate our shows on a SACE basis. The story, action, characters, entertainment. We rate our shows on these 4 values because if an episode impresses us on all 4 fronts it deserves a 10. There were some episodes that didn’t have any action, or the characters got a little bit annoying which dipped the rating for a couple of episodes, but from an overall perspective, the show was perfect.

Does It Deserve Another Season?

This remains the fastest renewed CW show, around a week after the Pilot episode the show was renewed for a second season. Despite this being premature, it’s definitely paid off. The premiere was an animal of an opening, and the show remained consistent throughout so 100% it deserves another season. I just pray and hope they keep up with this because The CW has a nasty habit of running shows into the ground after the first season.

Here’s one of my favorite scenes;