Here’s the quick rundown of The CW’s pickup, cancellation, and renewal announcements from today:
New Series Pickups: Flash, iZombie, The Messengers. Those first two were expected, but this is the first I’ve heard of that latter one (you can read the series descriptions at this link)
Cancelled: The Tomorrow People and Star-Crossed. No surprises on either of those two.
Renewed: The 100. Not too much of a surprise. I predicted its cancellation in my last set of Power Rankings, but its numbers edged up after that.
Also Renewed: Beauty and the Beast . . . WTF!!!!!!
With The CW now having nine (!) shows on their 2014-2015 schedule with sci fi / fantasy elements (and they only program ten hours a week), we definitely should call them the broadcast net sci fi channel. But with that last renewal announcement we also have to call them the WTF channel!
Beauty and the Beast was their lowest rated series behind Nikita (which aired its final episodes this season) and it’s actually just about the lowest rated show across all of the broadcast networks. Heck, episodes of Dora the Explorer on PBS probably pull higher viewership than the typical ep of B&B. And what’s more, The CW has renewed that one for two seasons!?!? To put salt in the wounds, they also passed on the Supernatural spin-off which seemed like a sure thing until today.
Let’s see, renew your lowest rated show, for two seasons no less, and snub the spin-off from your best performing show (it’s tied with Vampire Diaries season to date and has been outperforming that one of late). Sure, spin-offs rarely measure up to their parent shows, but The CW did manage to buck that trend this season with The Originals. Sure, they did a similar move previously with Nikita and they are likely eying the international audience in this case. But still!
I guess I shouldn’t be complaining that much based on all the sci fi / fantasy shows we will be getting from The CW next season, and they have been doing much better with the genre than the other broadcast networks. But as someone who spends each week trying to nail down which shows will and will not get cancelled, moves like this just make me bang me head against the wall.
I will be going into more detail on all of this in the next few weeks after the 2014-15 schedule for all the nets has been set, so keep an eye out for that. In the mean time, there are still plenty more announcements coming up through the end of the upfronts next week, so keep a close watch on this site and the Cancelled Sci Fi Twitter Site for more breaking news.
