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Superman has been a cornerstone of pop culture for generations—appearing in countless feature films, animated shows, live-action series, and comic book crossovers. But in 2018, DC tried to expand the Man of Steel’s mythos in a bold new way—with Krypton, a prequel series focused on Superman’s grandfather and the political drama of his doomed home planet. Billed as DC’s answer to Game of Thrones, the show aimed to deliver epic storytelling, rich world-building, and a new corner of the DC Universe. Instead, Krypton struggled to find its audience and was canceled after just two seasons.
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This belongs to your grandson, Kal-El
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This is Krypton, the short-lived television show chronicling the adventures of Superman's grandfather
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on their homeworld. Originally airing for two seasons on the SyFy channel
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the show attempted to use the sprawling mythology of the Man of Tomorrow's backstory
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to generate a Game of Thrones-like political drama that would springboard the network
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to previously unseen heights of popularity. The only problem is, it didn't
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They will always... Crypt on F***ing Seg is the grandfather of Superman
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who's confronted by a time-traveling Adam Strange and given a mission. Where I'm from, your grandson becomes the greatest hero in the universe
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Presented with a red cape that's slowly disappearing into thin air, Strange informs Seg that someone is attempting to erase Superman from existence
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The fate of the future now rests on Seg's uneasy shoulders. Once this cape is gone, our time's up
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It's sure that everyone will have been wiped from existence. Initially, we follow Seg as he's embroiled in an arranged marriage to one of the ruling houses of Kandor
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Engaged in a romantic tryst with Leta Zod, a progenitor of future General Zod
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and how he struggles with the fact that his grandfather, Val-El, was unjustly murdered by the ruling powers of Krypton
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He believed that there was an alien life form out in the universe, and that it was coming to Krypton with the desire to consume everything
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Devouring these civilizations one by one. Writing on his personal blog, co-creator David S. Goyer said
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While working on Man of Steel, I had a surfeit of backstory material that never made it into the finished film
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After toying with the ideas for a few weeks, I pitched a concept for a Superman prequel series to WB television
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A kind of Romeo and Juliet in space with a little bit of Brave New World thrown in for good measure
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And what would result is a story that's slightly less than enticing
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For season one you can see the bones of what Goyer is talking about as far as a forbidden romance set against the backdrop of an oppressive government goes and there real potential This could be something cool The only problem is it just kinda isn The elements that aren directly related to the Superman mythology are just a
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generic science fiction show. Scary authoritarian government, people being oppressed, and deeply
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religious oligarchy all are placed front and center. There's a doomsday prophecy, a tragic
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backstory, and every once in a while something that's visually arresting like the costume for
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the voice of Rao or the fortress of... You have generic guy fights the system show, and then you also have, please remember this is a
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Superman show, the series, where every few episodes you have throwbacks to key Superman-esque
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archetypes, like the fact that Val-El wasn't believed by his compatriots and that he was
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shunned and ultimately thrown into the Phantom Zone, similar to how Jor-El wasn't believed by
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Kryptonians in his era. Similarly, Val-El also had a Fortress of Solitude and that there's a
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holographic representation of him in there for Seg to talk to. It's all just, we're doing the
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things you're familiar with without ever breaking new ground. So then we can change things. No
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you can't. The overly complicated season one finale should be great. You got Brainiac, you got Zod
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you got Val-El back to life, you got what should be an epic cliffhanger conclusion where it seems
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like all hope is lost and Seg-El has failed. And the Superman cape we've used for an anchor all
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season is now fully restored, only this time the House of Elkrest is replaced with the emblem for
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the House of Zod. On paper, it's great. In execution, they just don't really have the
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money to make it work, and most of the characters just feel flat and underdeveloped
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I'm not giving up. I'm not either. After that conclusion of season one, the ratings for Krypton weren't looking so good. When the show
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premiered on March 31st, 2018, it pulled in 1.32 million viewers domestically. For sci-fi
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that was a hit. They were happy with that. However, by the time episode 10 aired on May 23rd
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the show was down to an audience of around 500 people diminished by more than half Sci thought there was potential here though and they greenlit the series for a second season Brainiac wonders the universe for one thing knowledge We have something he can never get his hands on
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Knowledge of the future. They debuted in June 12, 2019, Cho failed to perform the way everyone would have wanted
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launching with only 480,000 viewers. Six months after the end of season one
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Drew Zod ruling with an iron fist. Ultimately, season two has more money than season one had
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The costumes feel better, and the show is now including other DC Comics characters like Lobo into the mix
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They even utilize Doomsday in some pretty... Again, writing for his personal blog, Goyer says
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I think there was some good ideas in Krypton, but it really suffered from its crushingly restrictive budget limitations
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Perhaps if we'd developed the show a few years later, when streaming was coming into its own
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we might have found a larger audience and been given a proper budget. Would more money have fixed many of Krypton's issues
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Yes, it would have helped significantly. However, there's still the problem that the show is neither fish nor fowl
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It's not epic enough or filled with enough political intrigue to fully be science fiction Game of Thrones
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And it's also not fully a Superman show, despite it having the protagonist, who has a sad backstory
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a fortress of solitude, and Superman crest plastered all over the place
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You think you are the Man of Steel? You are no Superman. You are no..
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...material to draw from that Goyer and the other writers adapting the material can mine
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Superman has a large and varied cast of villains and supporting characters
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but most of them are either human or aliens that have come to Earth. They basically had to make it all about the political intrigue on Krypton
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or actually connect the show with the broader DC universe. And ultimately they tried to do both and failed at each The only one person who ever stopped Doomsday in the universe doesn exist anymore The ending of the second season leaves things with tangible
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narrative threads leading towards an expansion of what the show could accomplish. The season two
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cliffhanger leaves Brainiac having adopted Jor-El as a baby and taking him to Earth
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where he will be used to control Earth's population. Once we reach our destination
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you will be a god amongst men. This is a pretty wild swing for a show
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that's theoretically an origin story for Superman's family line. Almost like they could feel the writing on the wall
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and knew what they were doing wasn't working, so they tried to do something unexpected
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Only, at that point, no one was watching, so there was no one to get talking
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Overall, Krypton isn't good enough to be memorable or terrible enough to be shocking
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It sits in that sepia-toned, bland level of the cultural sediment that things like Dark Angel
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Roswell, and Fringe are doomed to occupy. Shows that had real potential and a frustrating
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ineptitude simultaneously. Look no further than the aesthetic of the first season. It's just people
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in leather motorcycle jackets. That's not otherworldly or majestic enough to visually
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convey you are on an alien world. What are you wearing? Is that guilt? Is that guilt
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Everything about Krypton feels like the worst version of we're going to shoot in Vancouver
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The sets are small in scale, the exteriors are just either forests or digitally enhanced sound stages
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The characters, because the show is so intent on doing a serialized narrative
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never really get the time to breathe or explore the inner lives of their personalities
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Chief among these sins, though, is the way the show deals with Seg-El
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Today, most people probably don't even remember that Krypton was produced, let alone that it was originally conceived as a tie-in backstory to the Henry Cavill version of
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Superman. It's a relic from a bygone era on multiple fronts, which is almost unfathomable
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because it came out in 2018. That's not so long ago. Is that it
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Not even close