The CW has ordered a pilot for Secret Circle, a witch-based story based on novels from Vampire Diaries creator L.J. Smith. Vampire Diaries producers Kevin Williamson, Andrew Miller, Elizabeth Craft, and Sarah Fain will be involved.
Deadline.com broke the news tonight, and said this is the “sixth and final” pilot pickup for The CW this year.
Which means – you guessed it – no Raven pilot pick-up, at least not for Fall 2011. To editorialize a little, this is very disappointing, as it would have been a perfect promotional opportunity to launch a new DC Comics-based series after Smallville’s end. We’ll see what we can find out about the possible future for the project, and see if we can confirm if Raven is a complete non-starter.
The other pilots The CW has ordered, which could lead to series this fall, include the following:
Awakening – Two sisters come of age in the middle of a zombie uprising. Being The CW, hopefully they are pretty zombies.
Hart of Dixie – Everwood with a woman, or Northern Exposure in the South. A young woman from the city inherits a medial practice in an eclectic Southern town. Produced by Josh Schwartz. Rachel Bilson is said to be near landing the lead role.
Heavenly – Sounds like a SNL sketch. I can’t do this justice so I’ll just report what Deadline said: “It centers on a dedicated young female attorney and a former angel, Dashiel Coffee, only recently turned human, who tackle cases together at the attorney’s legal aid clinic – she saves clients’ butts while he saves their souls. As an angel, Dash never experienced feelings or emotions, and his “awakening” is a big part of the series.” I can’t make this up… hopefully the finished product isn’t so silly.
Copper and Stone – Two female homicide detectives who also talk fashion, music, and pop culture when they’re not fighting crime. Again, can’t make this stuff up.
Danni Lowinski – A young hairdresser goes to law school and opens a practice in a mall kiosk. Amanda Walsh will star.
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Like any of these? Yes? No? Leave your comments below. We’ll try to find out what’s going on with Raven, and be happy that at least Secret Circle could be mildly interesting.
10 Comments
They all sound terrible.
Okay I take it back, “Secret Circle” sounds like it has potential, but the rest sound terrible.
Honestly…this is a good thing. Just like Graysons or Aquaman not getting picked up, makes them keep trying until they land on something that is a worthy successor to Smallville. Let’s be honest, of all the ideas floating around of what could spinoff/replace Smallville, nobody was demanding a Raven show, or even thinking about it before it was announced.
Amen. No need or demand for Raven…at all. With Dawn O. leaving, I’m hoping a man can come in with some broader programming sensibilities. We’re seeing right now with Nikita: there is no viewership for a female-superhero headlining her own show. Raven would’ve been mediocre at best.
Other pilots with viewership potential for both young men and women are more viable.
this is a bummer…The Secret Circle is the only one of these that sounds good.
at least this’ll give the people behind “Raven” more time to work on the storyline and find the perfect cast for next year…IF… the CW decides to get back to it in 2012.
*sigh* That is dissappointing. I was looking forward to Raven!
These other options seem very…..trite. I would not watch them.
Where are the shows for the guys? Is “Supernatural” the only one left? I guess the CW is history for me.
Nikita?
I actually think under the new network president The CW will become broader with more “guy stuff.”
To bring attention to the people in charge of Cw news network . The show , Raven would have been a better choice in bringing attention to your channel . One , it was created by dc comics so you get past smallville watcher’s , then after supernatural ends you will get those viewers as well due to the fact it has alot to do with the supernatural and deamon realms . There will be more calls from Both smallville and supernatural viewers . It is a better Financial decision to run , Raven because it has the best of both worlds from your best two shows. We dont need another Chick show , we need something that grabs the viewers attention , what better than a show about the daughter of a top deamon who struggles to maintain the status of a hero :) sincedrely , the doc
Raven is a fictional superheroine who appears in comic books published by DC Comics. The character first appeared in a special insert in DC Comics Presents #26 (October 1980), and was created by writer Marv Wolfman and artist George PĂ©rez. Raven is an empath who can teleport and control her “soul-self,” which can fight physically, as well as act as Raven’s eyes and ears away from her body. Raven’s chronology is typically[citation needed] separated into three lives. Her first life, 18 years, was spent in the Temple Azarath and creating The New Teen Titans. Her second life began once she started wearing the garb of White Raven, and lasted under two years. Her third life is her current form. Unlike the transition between her first and second lives, with her third life came a new, younger body.
Raven has the psionic ability of empathy, enabling her to feel the feelings of others. She can also use her empathy to steal emotions from others, rendering them emotionally “numb”. She can absorb the pain of injured people to ease their suffering, and induce rapid healing. There is some ambiguity as to what happens to the pains Raven takes in after she has healed another person. In some sources (New Titans #50) it is stated that Raven feels these pains for the rest of her life and merely accepts them. Opposing sources (Who’s Who Vol. 1) state that once Raven takes others’ pains into her body, they are then expunged. She has the ability to heal herself and others, as she did when defying Trigon’s curse against a young girl. Similarly, Raven seems to be able to absorb another person’s knowledge with a touch, such as the language spoken by that person.
Raven has the power and ability to force outside emotions into other people, consciously or otherwise. She has used this ability many times, first notably on Wally West, in order to save his life.[18] Later, after being freed from her father’s powers and starting her second life, she had a short-lived romance with Nightwing and unintentionally used her power to make him believe that he did love her, but it ended when Starfire, who became her close friend, convinced her that she wasn’t really in love with Dick Grayson as she thought.
Raven can manifest her “Soul-Self” through a form of astral projection. It normally takes the form of either her human shape or a giant raven. Through the use of her soul-self, Raven can project her consciousness into the mind, for therapeutic purposes (to aid in her own meditation, or to help calm an agitated ally), or for offensive attacks, rendering her enemies unconscious (yet otherwise unharmed) or being destructive in other variations. It also serves as a way to travel into other dimensions. In many instances, her soul-self has also functioned as a “shield,” although it seems to absorb attackers and projectiles rather than repel them. In The New Teen Titans vol. 1 #17 (1982), she used this ability a few times to absorb the objects that Frances Kane had uncontrollably drawn towards herself. These objects included all manner of household appliances, eventually progressing to larger objects such as road signs and steel bars. However, Raven admitted during the issue that she could not sustain her soul-self long under such conditions. Her soul-self also ‘regurgitated’ the objects after the danger. Using her soul-self, she can convert her physical body into her ‘soul-self’ and carry/teleport (or rather, use portals to move between dimensions) herself and others over vast distances. Raven also displays the incredible power and ability to manipulate and or generate shadows and darkness. This ability comes in different variations, from having destructive capabilities to causing pain, tension, and fear-based illusions to whomever or whatever is caught in its range. This power and ability was displayed when Raven traveled to Conner Kent’s farm (Teen Titans #26, 2003) in Metropolis and expels a large aura of darkness from her cloak to Kent in which he began to express severe pain.
In The New Teen Titans foundation storyline, Raven explained she was able to predict Trigon’s invasion of the Earth-2 dimension. She was unable to control or consciously activate it, but happens occasionally. It is unknown whether she still possesses this ability in her current body. Shortly after the character was introduced, she was shown to have the power and ability to project mental illusions into someone’s memory (see Ravager in The New Teen Titans #4). She has also used this on the villainess Phobia, but this power and ability is usually forgotten[citation needed].
During the Our Worlds at War storyline, Raven was instrumental in helping the heroes defeat their enemies by chanelling the combined spiritual strength and faith of the Amazons to restoring a severely wounded and weakened Darkseid to his full strength, a feat that amazed even Darkseid.[19]
In a number of instances, Raven has also displayed sorcerous abilities. In New Titans #65, the last issue of the Titan Plague arc, an infected Raven forces unconsciousness upon a then-neophyte Tim Drake with a touch of her finger, and was able to slam Nightwing aside and suspend him upside-down with imperious gestures. In The New Teen Titans Annual #4 (1988), a villain called Muse forced the Titans into individual murderous nightmares. In her dream, Raven retaliated by flying out of his reach and then releasing energies from “within the folds of her cape” that caused him to be consumed by fire. These abilities could be dismissed as being only part of her nightmare, except that none of the other Titans displayed abilities besides their normal powers in their nightmares.
In the Family Lost storyline of current Teen Titans continuity (Teen Titans vol. 3 #8-12), shortly after being resurrected by Brother Blood (Sebastian), a captive Raven tries to summon the Titans through ominous signs, such as possessing several psychics and Beast Boy with her soul-self, by turning a river into blood, animating the skeletal remains of her demon father Trigon, and drawing swarms of migratory birds to her location.
Like her brothers, Raven can induce and amplify one of the seven deadly sins (in her case, pride) in any living being, however doing so will cause her to suffer spells of nausea and vomiting for several days afterward.
Raven also appears to be an adept hand-to-hand combatant and expertly combines her fighting skills with her teleportation ability. This was revealed in Titans #18 (December 2009). The only other time she displayed any fighting prowess was while she was under the influence of Brother Blood, where she engaged then-Wonder Girl Donna Troy and boasted that, with Blood’s gifts, they were easily equals. Why Raven rarely uses her fighting skills or where she truly acquired them have yet to be explained