FURTHER THOUGHTS FROM SHILO
Most Surprising (Possible) Renewal: The CW is in a weird spot where they’ve renewed most of their schedule and the remaining shows seem pretty clear cut. Valor and Life Sentence are likely on the way out, the former due to incompatibility with Supergirl and The CW choosing Dynasty over it with the latter recently moved to Fridays while stuck at a 0.1 demo rating. Life Sentence is especially buried due to being the bottom-rung WB show, whereas Valor had better ratings and comes from CBS. If either sees the light of day next season, though, especially with The CW ordering 10 pilots/presentations, I’d be flabbergasted.
Show That Likely Won’t Be Renewed But Should Be: Remaining in The CW’s slate are iZombie and The 100 and for my money, both will/should be renewed. iZombie needs one more season to hit 70 episodes, which every Pedowitz-era CW drama that’s made it to a second season (except The Carrie Diaries) has, while The 100 is putting up decent numbers and has a strong fan base. I do think The CW has to worry about ending a lot of shows at a time and with Crazy Ex-Girlfriend and Jane the Virgin likely done next year, maybe they end one of iZombie and The 100 in 2017-18 to avoid the pileup. But with The CW expanding and further embracing both limited seasons and summer programming, we’ll see both shows again.
Possible Scheduling Disaster: The CW almost always has one conundrum on their fall schedule. Sometimes they do wind up working (e.g. The Originals/Jane the Virgin), but for the most part, they’re a self-inflicted wound (e.g. The Flash/No Tomorrow, Hart of Dixie/Beauty and the Beast, The Vampire Diaries/Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, etc.) that could have been avoided. Given the sheer volume of shows that The CW is juggling, as well as how niche part of their development is (e.g. mortician drama Playing Dead, blind detective dramedy In the Dark, ghost detective drama Dead Inside, etc.), we might be in for another night that quickly falls apart.
Possible Biggest Surprise: I would be surprised if one of the DC shows were placed on Sundays. I know they’re some of the best lead-ins that The CW has right now, but they all skew very male and would suffer against football, FOX’s comedies, and cable. If something moves to Sundays, Supernatural or Riverdale are the choice, with a new show paired in the other slot.
Safest Bet: All five DC shows will air at once. If The CW had kept its schedule to 10 hours, I could see them living up to Mark Pedowitz’s promise to not oversaturate their airwaves with comic stories, but they need as many strong shows as they can in order to get a schedule with 12 hours off the ground. Even with both Black Lightning and Legends of Tomorrow being limited, and multiple DC shows having off ratings season in 2017-18, I think we see every comic show this fall.
Project I’m Rooting For: Spencer. I’m curious what a CW show that tackles (ha) football would look like and I’m all about the network having more POC lead characters. Plus TV is in dire need of new, non-supernatural teen dramas and I’ve liked creator April Blair since Jane by Design (RIP), so I want to see her with her own show again.
