Per the original Deadline article, however, "The hope is for the septet to guest star/recur next season, reprising their roles, subject to interest on their part and availability."
I hope so. It would be a shame to lose them completely. If they structured it right, they could include them in several episodes each spaced out over the season -- with different ones in different episodes so there weren't too many guest stars in any single one -- and make it feel like they were still integral to the story. A number of the Arrowverse shows, and other Canadian productions I've seen, have done that with cast members who were nominally regulars, staggering their appearances so the number appearing in each episode was kept low. And
The Flash managed okay with Jesse L. Martin's reduced appearances over the past few seasons.
Looking on the bright side, hopefully this means an intense and focused ten-episode story of the Kent-Lane family vs. Lex Luthor, with few distractions from a showdown that -- if the writers rise to the occasion -- could be a high point of Superman TV history.
I don't think that's a good idea, though. That would fundamentally change the show from a family-focused drama to a more conventional Superman story. What's made season 3 work so much better than season 2 is that intensified focus on family, both the Kent-Lane family and the Mannheim family. It wouldn't do the show justice if its final season were retooled into something so different and so ordinary as yet another Superman-Luthor "showdown." Hopefully they'll find a more novel way to use Luthor that fits into the style and focus of this series and brings it to an organic culmination rather than abandoning it.
That would be the easiest thing to do. Cast lesser known (cheaper) actors in recurring roles as Perry, Jimmy, Cat, Troupe, Lombard, etc., and even though they're new to the show, they're still familiar to the fans of Superman lore.
Two of those characters have already been seen in flashbacks in S&L. Perry was played by Paul Jarrett in the pilot and "A Brief Reminiscence In-Between Cataclymsic Events," and Ron Troupe was played by Charles Jarman in the latter episode. In the series present, Perry has retired and the
Planet's editor-in-chief is Samuel Foswell (Dean Marshall). It's reasonable to expect that Ron, Jimmy, etc. have all moved on in their lives and careers since those flashbacks, especially given the shakeups and firings Tal-Rho instituted when he bought the
Planet as "Morgan Edge." And there's a good chance that Jimmy and Cat would be doppelgangers of their Earth-38/Prime counterparts, or at least would be similarly far along in their careers.
