1) 90210 – this is a WANNA BE show. The casting is HORRIBLE. The “head jock” of the school looks like the average computer geek could snap him in 1/2, the whole “we moved here from KS and my dad is the new principal” is just old. Most people started watching it because it brought people from the old cast back. Ya know, Steve LOOKED like a Jock… Brandon LOOKED like a brain, the casting was RIGHT for that one. This one all the males are too skinny and look more like crackheads than teachers/students. It’s sad. I’ve watched the first few episodes, and personally really don’t care about any of the cast. I really think the only reason I watched is because what’s-her-name the lead girl came from Degrassi, which as a teen drama, was well done.

2) Veronica Mars – I couldn’t get into this at all — It was played to be like a Chloe from Smallville in the beginning, but I couldn’t stand the leading lady.

3) Gossip Girl – this has promise, in my opinion. The casting is believable. Kinda reminds me of “Cruel Intentions” from a few of their characters, but I believe, if given a chance, this is going to be a big hit on the network.

4) One Tree Hill – I didn’t watch the first few seasons of this, because, well, I thought the premise was stupid. two boys with the same father in the same town…Like big deal. however now I watch it and I really like it, seems to have good writing and good character development, another hit, in my opinion.

The only other shows on the CW worth the time to look at them are Smallville (scheduled to end at the end of this season, unless someone else picks it up) and Supernatural. Other than those shows the rest of them are pretty much crap… There’s what 4 judge shows on there now (I love JJ but she’s on all the time) there’s All of Us, and My wife and kids, but outside of that there’s really nothing but crap on there. And when their digital transmitters keep going down, program guide isn’t setup and all that, makes it look like the movie UHF if anyone remember that one!

here is a link to privileged, interested in what you think

http://www.cwtv.com/cw-video/privileged/full/?play=513-4282

On the other hand, the sex and money comment… Directly aimed at GG and 90210. Again, I’ve seen the original 90210, so I know it’s basically going to be about sex, and GG… Sex and popularity. I just think it’s so sad that these days there’s no show of morality. No one wants to bring wholesome to the table, just raunchy. Even if it may be entertaining (I certainly don’t watch it, so I wouldn’t know) Do you think parents want their kids watching a show that tells them it’s okay to be having sex in high school? It’s just sad, in my opinion.

I think come January they will move 90210 if only to get it out of the way of American Idol. If they moved it to Wednesday at 9pm it would still be up against the Idol result show, so I’d imagine it moving to 9pm Tuesday and a new cheap female skewing reality taking the 8pm Tuesday slot with Privileged joining Ms. Mars in the CW graveyard.

For better or (more likely) worse, she has put all her eggs into the teen-girl basket… a limited and highly fickle demo. Discarding Friday night Wrestling, which was pulling in around 4.0 (success by CW standards), simply because it was mostly men watching didn’t seem like a logical decision in my humble opinion. Friday was their “token male night”, not Thurs. Their Thursday combo of Smallville and Supernatural continues to perform well despite having the toughest night on TV and being practically ignored in promotion.

And I find it rather ironic that they are expecting the appeal of the original 90210 to contribute to drawing in a larger audience for the new version, considering that the original audience of 90210 is now mostly outside of their coveted demo.

Seriously, exactly how many cookie-cutter shows about spoiled, rich, slutty teens can one network have? In the case of CW, apparently not enough.

As for guest posting every couple of weeks or month — thanks for offering. It’s not something Bill or I have really ever talked about it. We will discuss it, but if we decide against it, I promise it isn’t because of the write/right issue — I do that sort of thing alll the time.

Now to Rob’s suggestions. I think you are very on the ball with a lot of what you say – but here I think you are wrong on a lot of fronts. You cannot just move shows willy nilly – at first I think why are they putting GG (the young show) as the lead-in and OTH as the lead out (Wouldn’t it make sense to put them round the other way). And at first it seemed like this was a bad idea (but the numbers have clearly shown this season that this is not the case). I highly doubt there would be much of a net gain overall (if any) and while making GG slightly stronger might sound good – this would only be of benefit if CW didn’t intend to retain OTH for at least a season or two (which they would be crazy not to). I think you, yourself Rob, commented on the Fringe/House situation – FOX would rather have two very strong shows than I mega-hit and a complete flop (Standoff etc). Here CW would rather have two strong performers than a slightly stronger GG and a quite possibly much weaker OTH (which is only a little better in the ratings at this pint than 90210 and probably a bit more expensive given its age).

While I think there may be some sense in moving 90210 behind ANTM (or at least Privileged (given the weakening position of 90210) this again leaves them with the dilemna of suring up one night at the expense of another. Right now Tuesday is underperforming – say they moved Privileged to Wednesday (I guess that it would uptick – but would it do better than 90210 encores? Maybe.) The only way this whole switcher-roo would work is if Privileged gained being behind ANTM (and rated above the encores) and 90210 upticked slightly by not encoring. But what about Stylista – where will this air?? This show is coming on in a few weeks time! And this is really one of their big hopes (more so than Privileged – if this show succeeds they have a low cost reality show success!). I think ultimately they could switch Privileged for a few weeks to give it the benefit of the lead in but in the end it would move back to Tuesday and continue to seriously underperform. While I am certain CW will let it air out its 13 I think you will likely see Reaper appear in some slot (and not take over from Smallville as originally planned – I mean CW must realise that the CW repeats nearly perform at the level [in fact possibly better in total viewers and the 18-49 demo] than Privileged originals. And I think the trend for Privileged is quite clearly a downwards one (with nothing likely to change in the slot competition wise I think it is simply done and CW is doing the only thing it can – which is burn off the episodes, shrug their shoulders and hope that Styllista succeeds, Friday and Sunday’s don’t bomb horribly and Thursday holds up).

Ayla

I don’t see how axing it was such a bad decision.

Sam, I agree with you. While I agree with CW that it’s currently a very lucrative sector to go after, at some point it seems hard to scale just within a target demo without having broader appeal. But this is the path CW has chosen so ultimately it will need to show growth in target demos. I suppose they figured there was less competition for the sector they are targeting, it’s a lucrative sector and targeting to broader demos wasn’t working very well for them either.