Countless ‘Smallville’ and ‘Supernatural’ fans waited with great anticipation for the premieres of their shows. So you can imagine the gnashing of teeth that occurred when their mid-season premieres were postponed for yet another week. Originally scheduled to debut January 28 in their regularly scheduled time slot, CW executives decided to bump them to February 4 instead.
It didn’t take long for jilted fans to run to Twitter and their blogs as an avenue to express their disappointment. Soon after the rumor mill started cranking and tons of misinformation erupted. One of the fastest growing rumors was the fact that cancellations were in the air due to lower-than-expected ratings. Another was that the Thursday night lineup was going to move to Friday. Thankfully these couldn’t be further from the truth.
What actually did happen was an intervention by CW executives. They decided to postpone ‘Supernatural’ and ‘Smallville’ because they weren’t sure if ‘Nikita’ and ‘The Vampire Diaries’ premieres could hold their own against the ratings giant, ‘American Idol’. So things were switched around a bit to give these two shows a fighting chance.
The logic was sound but unfortunately there’s a problem. The ratings dip that the CW execs assumed would happen never did occur. ‘The Vampire Diaries’ had their best performance in adults and women viewers since November 11, 2010. In addition, ‘The Vampire Diaries’ actually saw their viewers increase by 4 percent. What does this prove? Dedicated fans of ‘Nikita’ and ‘The Vampire Diaries’ watched the show despite ‘American Idol’.
And now the CW faces harsh backlash for their hasty decision. Enraged fans have been using hashtags such as #TheCWsucks and #SaltandBurnCW on Twitter to get their points across. Undoubtedly CW executives are wishing they could turn back time and change things back to the way they were before they made this decision.
There is some good news though. Fans of both ‘Supernatural’ and ‘Smallville’ will be happy to know that the spring hiatus will be lessened. Granted it doesn’t make it better, but it does help take the pain away a little bit.
