Wait, When Does DC’s Legends of Tomorrow Return?

DC’s Legends of Tomorrow fans looking to get their dose of time traveling fun when the rest of the Arrowverse shows return next week are going to be a little let down. Unfortunately, the show that sees the crew of the Waverider zipping between different historical eras to right wrongs (and occasionally make a few more of them) won’t be returning for a few weeks. The reason for that is… complicated.

Instead of returning all together like most Arrowverse shows do annually, Legends of Tomorrow and Supergirl will have staggered returns, as they’ll be sharing a time slot. Supergirl will return first in a new time slot – 8 p.m. on Monday, Jan. 15, but only for four weeks. On Monday, Feb. 12 Legends of Tomorrow will take over that slot for nine weeks. Legends of Tomorrow is scheduled to wrap up its season on April 9. After that, Supergirl will return to the Monday time slot to round out its own season, which is slated to end in mid-June.

That’s a lot of time slot switching, huh? So, let’s recap and simplify:

Legends of Tomorrow’s third season will start at 8 p.m. on Feb. 12 and conclude on April 9.

Supergirl premieres at 8 p.m. on Jan. 15, airs for fours episodes, then gets put away until April 16. After that, the show continues without interruption until June 18.

Phew, okay. Now that we’ve got that all sorted out, it’s probably good to acknowledge that this time slot change up is incredibly confusing — enough so that some fans were petitioning to let the Girl of Steel have her own, permanent time slot that wouldn’t mess with Legends of Tomorrow’s vibe. Well, it turns out the culprit is none other than the brand-new CW superhero show premiering next week: Black Lightning.

Black Lightning will snag the Tuesday 9 p.m. time slot usually reserved for Legends of Tomorrow. That’s not a slight against the show, which stars Cress Williams as Jefferson Pierce, a principal whose tenure as the electrically-charged superhero Black Lightning was good and done until a crimewave sweeps through his city, but it certainly makes things a little more confusing. The first episode, “The Resurrection,” debuts on Jan. 16.

Supergirl and Legends of Tomorrow will bring their own harrowing adventures when the duo returns from their midseason hiatus. Supergirl will see Kara form a plan of attack against Reign, a Kryptonian world-killer who is secretly one of her best friends. Legends of Tomorrow will see Sara Lance reunited with the occult detective John Constantine, who came bearing some sudden, dire news in the show’s midseason finale.