Why did the CW cancel Smallville?

By the sixth season of “Smallville,” the show had outgrown its original network, WB. The CW was created from a merger between The WB and UPN, so the latter half of “Smallville” was broadcast. Then, after the seventh season, Rosenbaum, Kreuk, and series creators Alfred Gough and Miles Millar left the series. (The last three seasons saw the promotion of previous writing teams Todd Slavkin and Darren Swimmer and then Kelly Souders and Brian Petersen to showrunners.)

In the 2021 oral history of ‘Smallville’ in Hollywood ReporterThe four said they felt it was time to move on. Gough narrated:

“We (Millar and I) did seven seasons of the show. They (the network) wanted it to continue indefinitely. We knew it would go further than Season 8. We told the stories we wanted to tell. The show would continue. We trained all the people who were There and those who ran it said, “Well, we think the best thing for us and the show is to step aside and let someone else do it.”

Rosenbaum said: “I didn’t leave the show. I had a six-year contract and I ended up doing seven. So I felt like I had done enough and the character (Lex) had done enough.” Kreuk also added that she started “Smallville” when she was 18 years old, and when she left, she was 26 years old. “In the future, I didn’t want to live in a love triangle forever. I hate playing love triangles, and I just wanted to explore other aspects of my life,” Crook said.

For their part, Gove and Millar admitted Maybe they dragged out the Clark/Lana storyline for too longwhich in itself may be a symptom of the symptom lasting longer than they expected. In an episode of Rosenbaum’s podcast “Inside You.” Featuring Gough and Millar, all three confirmed that by Season 7 of “Smallville,” they were exhausted. Then, at the beginning of Season 10 of “Smallville,” The entire original cast Besides, Tom Welling himself had left. (Allison Mack, who played Clark’s girlfriend/Lois’ cousin Chloe Sullivan, remained in a reduced recurring role during the final season.)

Despite the departures of Gough and Millar, “Finale” ended the show the way they had planned as well. In a 2011 interview with Collider A few months before “Smallville” ended, Millar said, “The final moment in the show would be when (Clark) puts on the (Superman) suit and flies off into his future and his destiny. This was always in our heads. This would be the final ending to the show.”

True, “Finale” ends with Clark ripping off his shirt, Christopher Reeve-style, to reveal a Superman suit underneath and then flying off to help those in need.