The CW's fall lineup

[wnyxmcneal]

Does anyone watch this network?

THE CW's 2009-2010 PRIMETIME SCHEDULE

MONDAY

8:00-9:00 PM GOSSIP GIRL

9:00-10:00 PM ONE TREE HILL

TUESDAY

8:00-9:00 PM 90210

9:00-10:00 PM MELROSE PLACE (New Series)

WEDNESDAY

8:00-9:00 PM AMERICA'S NEXT TOP MODEL

9:00-10:00 PM THE BEAUTIFUL LIFE (New Series)

THURSDAY

8:00-9:00 PM THE VAMPIRE DIARIES (New Series)

9:00-10:00 PM SUPERNATURAL

FRIDAY

8:00-9:00 PM SMALLVILLE (New night)

New series descriptions:

9:00-10:00 P.M. "MELROSE PLACE" (New Series)

In an elegant Spanish-style apartment building in the trendy Melrose neighborhood of Los Angeles, a diverse group of 20-somethings have formed a close-knit surrogate family. Sydney Andrews (Laura Leighton, the original "Melrose Place") is the landlady, still beautiful at 40, and a central figure in the lives of all her tenants, especially handsome and rebellious David Breck (Shaun Sipos, "Shark"). Sydney started an affair with David despite her turbulent history with his estranged father, Dr. Michael Mancini (Thomas Calabro, the original "Melrose Place"). Both father and son learned through experience that Sydney was not above using blackmail to control people. Another tenant, high-powered publicist Ella Simms (Katie Cassidy, "Supernatural"), once considered Sydney her mentor, but their friendship was destroyed by betrayal, and Sydney threatened to evict Ella and ruin her career. Sydney also played a pivotal role in the career of Auggie Kirkpatrick (Colin Egglesfield, "All My Children"). After they met at an AA meeting, she became Auggie's sponsor and encouraged his dream to become a chef. Now a successful sous chef at the trendy restaurant Coal, Auggie has been avoiding Sydney since she began drinking again. The other tenants include Lauren Yung (Stephanie Jacobsen, "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles"), a medical student in desperate need of money to pay her student loans, and Jonah Miller (Michael Rady, "Swingtown"), an aspiring filmmaker who has just proposed to his live-in girlfriend Riley Richmond (Jessica Lucas, "Cloverfield"), a first-grade teacher. The newest tenant, 18-year-old Violet Foster (Ashlee Simpson-Wentz, "7th Heaven"), has just arrived in LA with her own secret connection to Sydney. When a bloody body is found floating in the courtyard pool, David is the leading suspect. However, as the police are soon to discover, almost everyone living at Melrose Place had a reason to want the deceased out of the way. An updated version of the popular 1990s series, MELROSE PLACE is from CBS Television Studios with executive producers Todd Slavkin & Darren Swimmer ("Smallville"). Oscar-winner Davis Guggenheim ("An Inconvenient Truth") is the director and executive producer of the pilot.

9:00-10:00 P.M. "THE BEAUTIFUL LIFE" (New Series)

The life of a high-fashion model appears glamorous and sexy, but as every new model quickly learns, behind the beautiful faade is a world of insecurity and cutthroat competition. Two teenage models who are about to discover this world for themselves are Raina Collins (Sara Paxton, "Last House on the Left"), a stunning beauty with a secret past, and Chris Andrews (Benjamin Hollingsworth, "The Line"), a strikingly handsome Iowa farm boy. When Raina makes an unforgettable impression at a show introducing the new line from designer Zac Posen (appearing in a cameo role), she steals the spotlight from her friend Sonja (Mischa Barton, "The O.C."). Sonja has been out of the country for mysterious reasons and is now desperate to reclaim her standing as the reigning supermodel. While Raina and Sonja live at the top of the fashion food chain, Chris is starting at the bottom, having just been discovered by agent Simon Lockridge (newcomer Dusan Dukic) of the Covet Modeling Agency, which is owned by former supermodel Claudia Foster (Elle Macpherson, "Friends"). At his first photo shoot, Chris' inexperience almost derails his career until Raina comes to his rescue, showing him how to relax and work the camera. That afternoon, Raina brings Chris to the "models' residence" where she lives along with other young hopefuls, including Marissa Delfina (Ashley Madekwe, "Secret Diary of a Call Girl"), Egan (Jordan Woolley, "As The World Turns"), Issac (Corbin Bleu, "High School Musical 2") and the current alpha-male-model known as Kai (Nico Tortorella, "Twelve"). At an exclusive industry party that night, Chris is again impressed by Raina's generosity when she steps aside to make sure Sonja lands a job that will resurrect her career. However, after an ugly scene with Simon, Chris is left to question whether he can survive in this world of dangerous excess and fleeting fame. THE BEAUTIFUL LIFE is from Katalyst Films in association with CBS Television Studios and Warner Bros. Television with executive producers Ashton Kutcher & Jason Goldberg ("True Beauty," "Punk'd"), Karey Burke ("True Beauty"), Mike Kelley ("Swingtown," "Jericho") and Carol Barbee ("Swingtown," "Jericho"). Christian Duguay ("Coco Chanel") directed the pilot.

THURSDAY

8:00-9:00 P.M. "THE VAMPIRE DIARIES" (New Series)

Four months after the tragic car accident that killed their parents, 17-year-old Elena Gilbert (Nina Dobrev, "DeGrassi: The Next Generation") and her 15-year-old brother, Jeremy (Steven R. McQueen, "Everwood") are still trying to cope with their grief and move on with their lives. Elena has always been the star student; beautiful, popular and involved with school and friends, but now she finds herself struggling to hide her sadness from the world. As the school year begins, Elena and her friends are fascinated by a handsome and mysterious new student, Stefan Salvatore (Paul Wesley, "Army Wives"). Stefan and Elena are immediately drawn to one another, and Elena has no way of knowing that Stefan is a centuries-old vampire, struggling to live peacefully among humans, while his brother Damon (Ian Somerhalder, "Lost") is the embodiment of vampire violence and brutality. Now these two vampire brothers - one good, one evil - are at war for Elena's soul and for the souls of her friends, family and all the residents of the small town of Mystic Falls, Virginia. Based on the series of books by L. J. Smith, THE VAMPIRE DIARIES is from Alloy Entertainment and Bonanza Productions Inc in association with Warner Bros. Television and CBS Television Studios with executive producers Kevin Williamson ("Dawson's Creek," "I Know What You Did Last Summer"), Julie Plec ("Kyle XY," "Wasteland"), Leslie Morgenstein ("Gossip Girl," "Privileged") and Bob Levy ("Gossip Girl," "Privileged"). Marcos Siega ("Dexter") directed the pilot.

"PARENTAL DISCRETION ADVISED" (New Series)

After spending all of her 15 years bouncing from one foster family to another in Portland, Oregon, Lux (Britt Robertson, "Swingtown") has decided it's time to take control of her life and become an emancipated minor. Her journey through the legal maze leads Lux to her biological father, 30-something Nate "Baze" Bazile (Kristoffer Polaha, "Mad Men"), who owns a bar, lives like an aging frat-boy with two slacker roommates, and is astonished to learn that he has a teenage daughter. Lux is equally astonished when Baze reveals that her mother is Cate Cassidy (Shiri Appleby, "E.R."), a star on the local "Morning Madness" radio show, along with her on-air partner and real-life boyfriend, Ryan Thomas (Kerr Smith, "Eli Stone"). Lux has been listening to Cate's voice on the radio as long as she can remember, so she feels an instant connection with the mom she's never met. Baze takes Lux to meet Cate, who is shocked and saddened to learn that Lux has grown up in foster care, but thrilled to finally meet her beautiful daughter. When a judge decides that Lux isn't ready for emancipation and unexpectedly grants temporary joint custody to Baze and Cate, they agree to try to get past the awkwardness and make a belated attempt to give Lux the family she deserves. PARENTAL DISCRETION ADVISED is produced by Mojo Films in association with CBS Television Studios and Warner Bros. Television with executive producers Liz Tigelaar ("Brothers and Sisters," "What About Brian") and Gary Fleder ("October Road"). Gary Fleder directed the pilot.

 

[Jingus]

8:00-9:00 P.M. "THE VAMPIRE DIARIES" (New Series)

Four months after the tragic car accident that killed their parents, 17-year-old Elena Gilbert (Nina Dobrev, "DeGrassi: The Next Generation") and her 15-year-old brother, Jeremy (Steven R. McQueen, "Everwood") are still trying to cope with their grief and move on with their lives. Elena has always been the star student; beautiful, popular and involved with school and friends, but now she finds herself struggling to hide her sadness from the world. As the school year begins, Elena and her friends are fascinated by a handsome and mysterious new student, Stefan Salvatore (Paul Wesley, "Army Wives"). Stefan and Elena are immediately drawn to one another, and Elena has no way of knowing that Stefan is a centuries-old vampire, struggling to live peacefully among humans, while his brother Damon (Ian Somerhalder, "Lost") is the embodiment of vampire violence and brutality. Now these two vampire brothers - one good, one evil - are at war for Elena's soul and for the souls of her friends, family and all the residents of the small town of Mystic Falls, Virginia.

I know it's allegedly based on a different series of novels, but how is this not a direct, blatant, lawsuit-worthy ripoff of Twilight?

"A sad lonely girl moves to a small town, where she falls in love with a mysterious new student at the high school. He turns out to be a vampire but, y'know, not a bad vampire who kills people, like the vamps in every original folklore story ever. He's apparently A Vampire With A Soul or some damn thing. For some unexplained reason, he's well over a hundred years old yet still decides to go to high school, which would also indicate that he's not vulnerable to sunlight. But there's also an EEEEVIL vampire who does indeed kill people and drink their blood, and he fights with the good vampire. You see, he doesn't take kindly to Louis de Pointe du Lac D Blade Angel Spike Charlie Swan Bill Compton Stefan Salvatore treating humans nice and not slaughtering them for their hemogoblin all willy-nilly. Lots of angst and fistfights ensue, involving twentysomethings with perfect complexions."

I mean, come ON.

 

[HarleyQuinn]

In defense, "The Vampire Diaries trilogy was first published in 1991, and the fourth book in 1992 by Harper Paperbacks. In 1999, all four books were reprinted by HarperPrism."

Just because Twilight is all the rage doesn't mean that any vampire TV series/movie based off a book is suddenly ripping off Twilight and should be sued. If anything, the fact that Twilight got so famous is an insult to most of the YA books that were around 5-15 years before, that didn't get a sniff of hype.

I'll be watching the series for Ian Somerhalder but I don't have high hopes.

 

[atticus Chaos]

This is either make or break for Dawn Ostroff apparently. She's been arguing that CW isn't a success because she never got her own way (a network that appeals to women) so now, with no wrestling, no reaper, smallville sent to Friday nights because it was sci fi, and scrapping what was supposed to be the best pilot CW had ever seen (Body politic) because it didn't appeal to teenagers, she's now got the schedule she wants.

They are putting a lot of expectations onto the twilight rip off show. And if that doesn't catch on, it'll be a really bad sign for the network's future.

 

[Molotov The Bear]

8:00-9:00 P.M. "THE VAMPIRE DIARIES" (New Series)

Four months after the tragic car accident that killed their parents, 17-year-old Elena Gilbert (Nina Dobrev, "DeGrassi: The Next Generation") and her 15-year-old brother, Jeremy (Steven R. McQueen, "Everwood") are still trying to cope with their grief and move on with their lives. Elena has always been the star student; beautiful, popular and involved with school and friends, but now she finds herself struggling to hide her sadness from the world. As the school year begins, Elena and her friends are fascinated by a handsome and mysterious new student, Stefan Salvatore (Paul Wesley, "Army Wives"). Stefan and Elena are immediately drawn to one another, and Elena has no way of knowing that Stefan is a centuries-old vampire, struggling to live peacefully among humans, while his brother Damon (Ian Somerhalder, "Lost") is the embodiment of vampire violence and brutality. Now these two vampire brothers - one good, one evil - are at war for Elena's soul and for the souls of her friends, family and all the residents of the small town of Mystic Falls, Virginia. Based on the series of books by L. J. Smith, THE VAMPIRE DIARIES is from Alloy Entertainment and Bonanza Productions Inc in association with Warner Bros. Television and CBS Television Studios with executive producers Kevin Williamson ("Dawson's Creek," "I Know What You Did Last Summer"), Julie Plec ("Kyle XY," "Wasteland"), Leslie Morgenstein ("Gossip Girl," "Privileged") and Bob Levy ("Gossip Girl," "Privileged"). Marcos Siega ("Dexter") directed the pilot.

Wow. Seriously? They moved Smallville from it's perfect spot for THIS piece of shit?

 

[LuckyLopez]

Yeah, my first reaction was "Ahh, so they decided to make Twilight The Series but not with the franchise." But realistically as your Louis de Pointe du Lac/D/Blade/Angel/Bill Compton line points out vampire stories like this are basicaly just really derivative and Twillight is as much a "ripoff" as anything. Its just an unoriginal story that took a ton of cliches of an old genre and tossed them into a successful form. So yeah, people who were exposed to Twilight before this other stuff will think "Twilight Ripoff!" but realistically we can see that its just "derivative vampire story."

I'll give it a shot because I love Supernatural and I was already watching a cruddy show before it so why not keep going? But its going to have a short leash to prove its not a complete Twilight "ripoff" and offers SOMETHING unique to the derivative idea.

 

[Jingus]

Yeah, that's part of the point, "ancient vampire who looks like a teenager falls in love with a human teenager" is a rather ancient cliche by now. But Twilight is the one which has become the mega-success of this decade, and any attempt to do the same thing is obviously greenlit by executives who want to appeal directly to the same demographic by presenting the same product. This case isn't helped by the fact that Vampire Diaries's plot is damn near to Twiligt's in the ways I mentioned. Yeah, the VD books might have been written first, but would you seriously argue that this series would've ever been made if Twilight hadn't been such a big hit at the box office?

 

[fairtoflair7]

This network's a joke. How do they expect to compete when they put out garbage remakes like 90210 and Melrose Place

 

[atticus Chaos]

This network's a joke. How do they expect to compete when they put out garbage remakes like 90210 and Melrose Place

It's not even that difficult to create a viable fifth network. Keep the wrestling, have a few genre shows like smallville and reaper that will appeal to young guys, and have all the gossip girl's and melrose places for the women. And throw in the occasional good drama like body politic. It should be a combination of different shows and have mass appeal.

Problem is, Ostroff used to run lifetime and seems to want to turn CW into a bigger version of that. All she's interested in is female viewers, and getting them to watch. But she can't even do that.

 

[LuckyLopez]

Yeah, that's part of the point, "ancient vampire who looks like a teenager falls in love with a human teenager" is a rather ancient cliche by now. But Twilight is the one which has become the mega-success of this decade, and any attempt to do the same thing is obviously greenlit by executives who want to appeal directly to the same demographic by presenting the same product. This case isn't helped by the fact that Vampire Diaries's plot is damn near to Twiligt's in the ways I mentioned. Yeah, the VD books might have been written first, but would you seriously argue that this series would've ever been made if Twilight hadn't been such a big hit at the box office?

Not at all. Its clear you're right. CW is trying to capitalize on the success of Twilight and to a lesser extent True Blood. Obviously without Twilight there would be no Vampire Diaries. I just guess it feels odd calling something a ripoff when its clear that both are nothing more than uninspired derivative cliches. But clearly its a case of CW going out and looking for something that might as well have been a ripoff of Twilight.

 

[atticus Chaos]

Anyone think WWE will go back to CW? Mynetwork isn't going to last, and WGN isn't a good option for a few reasons.

If Ostroff (who hated wrestling) is ousted, which I can really see happening if CW continues to decline, it's very possible whoever replaces her could want wrestling back, since it was always a great performer for them. Although, I think Vince might insist on playing hardball, and I doubt they're going to offer him a huge amount to come back.

 

[wnyxmcneal]

Who even knows if the CW is going to last. It sounds like a network that's on borrowed time

 

[atticus Chaos]

Who even knows if the CW is going to last. It sounds like a network that's on borrowed time

Possibly. I'm not sure how the whole thing works, but if CBS decide to sell their shares it's over for them (or something like that)

From a guy who reviewed the pilot for parental discretion advised http://nickctv.wordpress.com/

Shiri may be in it, but it’s the worst pilot I’ve seen in likely a decade if not longer. It’s horrible, gouge out your eyes bad. It’s just awful. Everyone involved with writing it should be shot and chopped into pieces and have the pieces buried in separate places so people know what happens when you create such utter crap.

 

[BUTT]

Is Smallville ever going to go off the air? It's been like eight years.

I thought there was supposed to be a Gossip Girl spinoff with that girl from John Tucker Must Die.

 

[treble]

I have a friend who will probably watch something on this network every night, except for Wednesdays.

And I guess one of the actors in The Beautiful Life was born here (Benjamin Hollingsworth, the "strikingly handsome Iowa farm boy"). He's a year younger than me, but I don't recognize him. According to his IMDB page, he moved away when he was 12. I can't wait until our shitty newspaper puts this on the front page.

 

[Youth N Asia]

Didn't 90210 just eat cock in the ratings this season?

I'm dead tired of vampires right now. Somehow in vampire wold it's alright for a hundred year old dude to hammer a teenager as long as they call it love...and as long as he got vamped when he was young looking

 

[Smartly Pretty]

Gossip Girl kind of rules.

 

[jimmy no nose]

I like that they didn't even bother to put shows on the weekend. Saturday's understandable, but they don't have a Sunday lineup at all?

 

[wnyxmcneal]

Their Sunday lineup had been DOA for years, so last fall they farmed out to Media Rights Capital, which launched two reality shows, Easy Money and Valentine.

Those shows did about as well as you'd might expect, and the plug was pulled. CW replaced it with reruns of Jericho and movies from the 80s.

Sunday was killing the CW average, so they decided to pull the plug completely

 

[Big Green]

If it means anything (related to The CW's ratings), one of the candidates for Student Assembly here at Dartmouth promised during her campaign to work to bring The CW to our campus cable system because of the popularity of "Gossip Girl" on campus.

Of course, this could be proof that The CW's demographics skew more towards the upper class. I don't really see a show like "Gossip Girl" appealing to Joe and Jane Citizen.

 

[Dr. Zaius]

"MELROSE PLACE" (New Series)

L-O-fucking-L.