CW only programs 10 hours per week , but with its many bubble shows and outright failures, it’s generating plenty of activity. Today it ordered 5 new dramas, and renewed bubble shows HART OF DIXIE and NIKITA. Dixie‘s return isn’t a tremendous surprise, since it often outperforms its companion show Gossip Girl (itself currently on the bubble) UPDATE: which has just itself been renewed, but the low-rated NIKITA is apparently surviving mostly on the strength of its international value. These 2 join the already-renewed VAMPIRE DIARIES, 90210 and SUPERNATURAL, leaving RINGER and THE SECRET CIRCLE still waiting, UPDATE: while RINGER and THE SECRET CIRCLE have been canceled.
The new shows are an assortment of fantasy. romance and genre dramas.
THE CARRIE DIARIES is a (less R-rated) prequel to Sex and the City, based on Candace Bushnell’s book. The young Sarah Jessica Parker is AnnaSophia Robb, here followed in the 1980s. It’s written by Amy Harris, who was herself a Sex and the City writer at HBO, and who more recently has worked on Gossip Girl, which makes it uncoincidental that Carrie is produced by Gossip’s team of Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage, through Warners.
Also from Schwartz, Savage and Warners is CULT, which stars Jessica Lucas (from 90210 and the rebooted Melrose Place) and Matt Davis (from Vampire Diaries–CW believes in recycling) as 2 investigators on the trail of a, well, cult, that’s been reenacting murder scenes from the TV show she works on. The writer is veteran Rockne O’Bannon (from V and Farscape among other fantasies).
ARROW is a superhero show based on the DC comic, written by Greg Berlanti through Warners. The cast includes Stephen Amell, who recently recurred on Private Practice, as the Green Arrow, with a supporting cast that features Katie Cassidy, Jamie Sheridan, Willa Holland and Paul Blackthorne.
BEAUTY AND THE BEAST is just what it sounds like, an updated version of the classic tale (and the Ron Perlman TV show), this time with Kristin Kreuk and Jay Ryan in the leads. It’s written by Jennifer Levin and Sherri Cooper (they also have a CBS pilot Applebaum whose fate is not yet known), through CW’s other in-house production company, CBS Television Studios,
FIRST CUT is a medical show, which seems to be becoming star Mamie Gummer’s specialty since she also starred in Shonda Rhimes’ short-lived Off the Map. This one sounds more like Grey’s Anatomy, with a young ensemble cast finding romance on their hospital staff, and it’s written by Jennie Snyder Urman, who’s been on Gilmore Girls and 90210.
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