Are Supergirl, Legends of Tomorrow in danger after schedule swap?

Yesterday, the news was first announced that Supergirl and Legends of Tomorrow are going to be undergoing a bit of a schedule swap. As you can read here, Supergirl is going to be leaving the air in February for a hiatus of over two months — Legends of Tomorrow will take over its Monday timeslot to finish airing the entirety of its second season, and then Supergirl is going to come back and air the remainder of its episodes from April until June.

Is this announcement a sign that The CW is waning interest on these two shows? We know it could be easy to assume that just because in the case of Legends of Tomorrow, the series is being aired opposite the Winter Olympics. Meanwhile, Supergirl is going to air into the summer for the first time. It’s fairly easy to assume the worst just by looking at these two things alone.

Yet, we don’t foresee this being a sign of dark times ahead for either show for a few different reasons.

1. The crossover factor – Both shows still generated big numbers for their edition of the recent Crisis on Earth-X crossover and we believe they will continue to do just that. No other CW show is really coming close to a 1.0 rating in the 18-49 demographic these days other than these superhero ones.

2. Critical reception – For the first time since the start of the show Supergirl is drawing a lot of praise for its villain in Reign — who actually is genuinely terrifying. Meanwhile, Legends of Tomorrow has quietly become the best-reviewed superhero show that the CW has, and it’s coming off of arguably its best and most-ridiculous episode ever — an hour where Vikings were worshipping a Beebo toy from an anachronistic Martin Stein.

3. Scheduling decisions – There are a couple of reasons why The CW may have opted to schedule things out in such a way. For one, there’s the idea that The CW may have wanted to only have four superhero shows on the air at the same time. Another theory floated by TVLine’s Matt Mitovich is also an interesting one — Supergirl may need a little more time in light of some recent behind-the-scenes headlines. This gives the more flexibility.

One way or another, don’t worry about these shows for now. They won’t last forever, but we’re going to get another year of great superhero action coming up.