This time of year can be a worrisome one for TV fans as this is when networks make a decision on whether or not you’ll be seeing your favorite shows for another season. While CBS has unofficially announced that they are looking to renew ‘Supergirl’ and ‘Limitless,’ ‘Persons of Interest’ fans are still waiting for their show’s fate. If you are a fan of the CW, however, there is no need to be biting your nails in anticipation as the network has announced they will be renewing all 11 of their programs for another season.
According to CW President Mark Pedowitz:
“The CW has become home to some of the most critically-acclaimed shows on broadcast television, with a wide array of fantastic scripted series across the week, ranging from musical comedy, to superhero action, to gritty sci-fi dramas. As we continue to further our strategy of more year-round original programming, picking up these 11 series for the 2016-2017 season puts us in a great position of having proven, high-quality shows to launch in the fall as well as midseason and summer of 2017.”
It’s not surprising that ‘The Flash,’ ‘Arrow,’ and ‘Supernatural’ were renewed as they seem to be the genre darlings of the network. In fact, Pedowitz has been very vocal about his love for ‘Supernatural’ stating that it will continue as long as Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles want to continue to do it (and they must want to continue as they have signed on for a 12th and 13th season).
While ‘The Vampire Diaries’ seem to be getting long in the tooth with ratings continuing to fall, it has bumped up the CW’s Friday nights along with its spinoff ‘The Originals’ which airs right after them. Leads Ian Somerhalder and Paul Wesley, whose contracts had expired this year, have re-upped and will still be starring. (Of course, if the offer to play Nightwing ever comes along, fans may not see Somerhalder after his contract is up.)
‘The 100’ may not be getting any ratings love also, but the critics seem to like it. This show along with ‘iZombie’ was renewed for a limited run and not for a full 22 episode season.
Most surprising was the renewal for the second season of ‘Legends of Tomorrow.’ While the DC television universe is booming, ‘Legends of Tomorrow’ has been getting mixed reviews from the viewers with complaints of inconsistent writing and plot holes that Steven Moffat would be proud of. The producers themselves have commented how expensive the show was to make and how the series would be approached as an anthology series (like ‘American Horror Story’) if it went beyond the first season. That means we’ll see probably see new members come in next season.
While the renewals may look like there is no room for new shows, the CW has ordered 6 pilots to consider adding to their programming slate:
‘Riverdale’: Set in present day and based on the iconic Archie Comics characters, Riverdale is a surprising and subversive take on Archie, Betty, Veronica, and their friends, exploring the surrealism of small town life — the darkness and weirdness bubbling beneath Riverdale’s wholesome façade.
An untitled Mars colonization project: A team of explorers arrives on Mars to join the first human colony on the planet, only to discover that their predecessors have vanished. Led by a woman whose husband is among the missing, the colonists are forced to change their mission from exploration and settlement to investigation and survival, while navigating the hostile planet and their own personal demons.
‘Transylvania’: In 1880, a headstrong young woman in search of her missing father ventures from NYC to Transylvania where she teams up with a wrongfully disgraced Scotland Yard Detective, and together they witness the births of the most famous monsters and villains in history.
An untitled paranormal series: A young woman seeks help from a parapsychologist when she begins to experience paranormal phenomena.
‘No Tomorrow’: When a risk-averse, straight-arrow, female procurement manager at an Amazon-like distribution center falls in love with a freewheeling man who lives life to the fullest because he believes the apocalypse is imminent, to comedic and poignant results they embark on a quest together to fulfill their individual bucket lists.
‘Frequency’: In this reimagining of the New Line Cinema film, a female police detective in 2016 discovers she is able to speak via a ham radio with her estranged father (also a detective) who died in 1996. They forge a new relationship while working together on an unresolved murder case, but unintended consequences of the ‘butterfly effect’ wreak havoc in the present day.
Which of these pilots will get a CW slot among all the renewals has yet to be determined.
Are you happy to hear that your favorite CW show will see another season or do you think some shows should have been canceled to make room for others? Give us your thoughts in the comments below!
