CW needed to rip up its schedule and start over, and it mostly has.
Let’s take a look night-by-night.
MONDAY: The network is reuniting two of its cornerstone soaps for the Fall, with 90210 as the lead-in for the final 11-episode season of GOSSIP GIRL. Since CW isn’t planning to begin its Fall season until October, that will take Mondays through the end of the year, and then in January 2013, 90210 remains in place to launch what the network hopes will be its new generation of signature soap, the Sex and the City prequel THE CARRIE DIARIES. This makes sense, because the 90210 and Gossip Girl audience (what’s left of it) should be the crowd for Carrie.
TUESDAY: An evening of medical soaps, with the moderately successful HART OF DIXIE changing nights to launch the new EMILY OWENS MD. Again, Hart won’t carry along a huge viewership as lead-in, but the shows are logical together.
WEDNESDAY: CW must have confidence in ARROW, their new superhero action series, since they’re having it open the night. It’s compatible with SUPERNATURAL, one of the network’s stronger shows, which is moving from Friday to be its companion.
THURSDAY: The network’s rebooted BEAUTY AND THE BEAST gets the closest CW has to a plum spot, after its one hit THE VAMPIRE DIARIES. Both are romantic supernatural fantasies, so again there’s a genre connection.
FRIDAY: The network’s night of misfit toys: AMERICA’S NEXT TOP MODEL is being moved because its sinking ratings no longer justified a Wednesday berth, and NIKITA is probably still on the air because its international sales value balanced out low US numbers.
Apart from the debut of Carrie Diaries, CW will launch the thriller CULT on an unspecified midseason date.
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