No, because the producers of Smallville have struck upon another idea for a confusing, myth-raping TV show about a young superhero. Robin. Yes, Robin from Batman and Robin. But set before he met Batman. So basically a TV show about an annoyingly earnest little boy without any superpowers, then.

Still, that’s not going to stop the show from being made. It’s even got a name already – The Graysons. So, to correct our earlier mistake, this Robin programme will be a TV show about an annoyingly earnest little boy without any superpowers that sounds like it’s a bad 1970s sitcom. Can’t wait.

The Dark Knight has been such a barnstorming success that it’s already started a wave of frenzied speculation about who’ll appear in Batman 3. Some people want Johnny Depp as The Riddler, some people want Cher as Catwoman – but nobody, nobody at all, has even entertained the idea, even for a second, that Robin will be in Batman 3.

And it’s sort of easy to see why. As Batman’s overenthusiastic glass-half-full little helper, Robin is essentially Batman’s Scrappy Doo, except he does gymnastics, is considerably gayer and would be marginally more difficult to drown in a binbag. Robin is rubbish. Robin is so rubbish that the last lot of Batman movies went toxic the second that Robin was even mentioned.

However, Smallville is coming to an end soon – which is good, because it was starting to run the risk of being an allegory for puberty about a 40-year-old man who still lives with his parents – and CW needs something to replace it with. And people liked Smallville, right? And Batman. People like Batman. And Robin’s part of the Batman mythology, isn’t he? So why not make a Smallville-style TV show about the early years of Robin?

Why not? Because it sounds crap, that’s why not. But a little thing like common sense isn’t going to stop a gold-plated idea like this, as MSNBC reports:

The producers of CW’s “Smallville,” along with “Supernatural” exec producer McG, have a pilot in the works based on the Batman’s sidekick Robin, called “The Graysons,” Variety reports. “The Graysons” will reportedly chronicle the life of a young Dick “DJ” Grayson before he suited up to fight crime with the Dark Knight as Robin.

Do you see what they’ve done there? They’ve decided to call Robin DJ, because naming him after a cool job will easily make up for the fact that he’s a rubbish underdeveloped moon-faced infant gymnast who may as well be played by the little girl from the Narnia movies in a TV show set long before he developed a secret identity and became even halfway interesting.

But maybe The Graysons won’t be as bad as we’re making out. Maybe The Graysons will be just what television audiences need – a Littlest Hobo-style TV show about a family of nomadic gymnasts who travel from town to town, always managing to defeat local criminals by utilising their gymnastic skills.

It’s an excellent idea, and we can’t wait for episode one, where Robin goes after a gang of handbag-snatching hoodlums armed with only his eternally sunny mindset and a long satin ribbon attached to an industry regulation glassfibre rhythmic gymnastic stick.