The CW has posted its 2010 fall lineup with just two new additions to its schedule, Hell Cats and Nikita. Four shows find themselves with a new night. (I hate having to adjust my DVR.) While the lineups are set, there are no dates as to when the shows will be premiering in the fall. If they stay true to their past schedules, though, we should expect to see new episodes around mid-September.
Monday night gives viewers a little East Coast/West Coast drama with the hit teen drama, 90210, on its new night (8:00 – 9:00) leading in for the other teen hit, Gossip Girl (9:00 – 10:00). Monday is the night for rich kids behaving badly with these two strong ratings generators.
90210 ended its current season with a bit of a bang, and left viewers with more than one cliff hanger. The two important story lines for the next season will involve Naomi’s dangerous encounter with a teacher and Annie’s confession to killing Jasper’s uncle. Naomi previously accused the same teacher of sexually assaulting her, only to recant it later. That’s going to come back to haunt her as the girl who cried wolf, unless the drunken Mr. Matthews suddenly remembers seeing something while being in the right place at the wrong time. Will he come to Naomi’s defense? Will he even remember anything? I still have my doubts about Annie being the one who killed Jasper’s uncle after leaving a party in a drunken stupor. Yes, she did run him over, but I always believed he was dead to begin with. Honestly, I have always thought the psychotic Jasper killed his own uncle.
90210 stars Lori Loughlin, Rob Estes, AnnaLynne McCord, Tristan Wilds, Matt Lanter, Michael Steger, Jessica Stroup, Jessica Lowndes, and Shenae Grimes.
Gossip Girl continues the backstabbing and biting among the rich and privileged in its same Monday night time slot. Season three ended with sex, break ups and deception, and I have a feeling that Season 4 will bring more of the same because what else do these Gossip kids have to do with their time? Blair, Serena, Chuck, Georgina. Even their names make me want me to slap them. But, the show is a huge hit with the younger girls for whatever reason, and a staple in the CW lineup. Where else can you find teenagers sipping on scotch in a bar? Season four is set to begin the way it ended, with Blair and Serena off having a good time in Paris. That is, until Chuck shows up unannounced with a new girlfriend. Oh yeah, Chuck survives the mugging and shooting, but is he ok?
Gossip Girl stars Blake Lively, Leighton Meester, Penn Badgley, Chace Crawford, Taylor Momsen, Ed Westwick, and Jessica Szohr.
Viewers can now find One Tree Hill on Tuesday night (8:00-9:00) for its eighth season, along with the second season of Life Unexpected, which takes over the failed Melrose Place’s Tuesday time slot (9:00-10:00). The good news for fans is that these two shows that were recently on the bubble, are returning in the fall. The bad news is, The CW has not yet determined if they are going to order a full 22 episodes of each. As of now, 13 episodes have been ordered for each show, which makes sense for One Tree Hill which was brought back by rabid fans. Life Unexpected, however, made a strong start for the network so why wouldn’t they order a full season?
One Tree Hill ended with a bang, literally, with Clay and Quinn being shot by their stalker, Katie. This almost wasn’t the season ending, though. Because the show was in such danger of not being renewed for an eight season, two endings were filmed, one to end the season and one to end the series. Will Clay and Quinn survive, or are their characters being written off the show? Don’t worry, according to Zap2it.com, star Robert Buckley has confirmation that he will be returning to the show for the eighth season, but will he be a vegetable? Tune in Tuesday nights on its new night.
One Tree Hill stars Robert Buckley, Shantel VanSanten, James Lafferty, Sophia Bush, Bethany Hoy Galeotti, Austin Nichols and Jackson Brundage.
Life Unexpected, a mid-season edition to the lineup, returns for its second season to continue its story about a 16 year old who was given up for adoption at birth but never adopted. She spent 16 years in foster care until she reunites with her parents. The season ended with Lux trying to get her birth parents, Baze and Cate, together again, but Cate ends up marrying Ryan. That means that Ryan joins the family when season two begins.
Life Unexpected stars Shiri Appleby, Krisoffer Polaha, Britt Robertson, Austin Basis and Kerr Smith.
Wednesday night returns with the 15th season of the successful series, America’s Next Top Model, in its usual 8:00 – 9:00 timeslot. Starring Tyra Banks, the America’s Next Top Model is a competition in which real people compete to prove that they can make it in the very stressful world of modeling. The nice thing about this show is that women of all shapes and sizes, and from a variety of backgrounds, compete for a professional modeling contract. It’s not just skinny chicks out there trying to win it all.
What better way to follow a show about models than with a show about cheerleaders! New drama, Hellcats, premiers in the 9:00 – 10:00 slot. Marti Perkins is a young pre-law student at a university in Memphis, Tennessee. Marti has everything going for her until she loses her scholarship and the only way to stay in school is to join the university’s cheerleading team, The Hellcats. Of course, joining the cheerleading squad is not what Mari wanted, but it’s what she has to do to stay in school. She’s immediately thrown into a whole new world. Notable names include Gail O’Grady from NYPD Blues fame and Ashley Tisdale from High School Musical. Tom Welling, of Smallville, is an executive producer of the show.
Hellcats stars Aly Michalka, Ashley Tisdale, Heather Hemmens, Robbie Hones, Matt Barr, Sharon Lead, and Gail O’Grady.
Top rated hit, The Vampire Diaries, returns in its Thursday night slot (8:00 – 9:00) as a lead in to the new drama, Nikita (9:00 – 10:00). The Vampire Diaries is about two vampire brothers who have returned to their hometown of Mystic Falls; Stefan has returned to get to know Elena Gilbert while Damon (played by Lost’s Ian Somerhalder) is out to release the beautiful vampire, Katherine Pierce, from the tomb where she is trapped.
Season one ended with chaos, death and destruction and the return of Katherine Pierce from her tomb. With Katherine on the loose for season two, she is sure to mix things up a bit between Stefan, Elena, and Damon. She will also bring danger and destruction to Mystic Falls.
The Vampire Diaries stars Ian Somerhalder, Paul Wesley, Nina Dobrev, and Steven R. McQueen.
Nikita is a brand new action show that stars Maggie Q as Nikita, a spy and assassin for the U.S. government. The storyline brings us a troubled teen who rescued from death row by a secret government agency that faked her death and gave her a second chance. Sound familiar? That’s because this story has been told before in such movies as Nikita and Point of No Return with Bridget Fonda, and as a tv series (La Femme Nikita) from 1997 – 2001. This story is done. It’s not original, but maybe the CW is banking on the fact that their viewers are not old enough to remember that this story has been done numerous times already. Or maybe they are hoping to get some Buffy fans with Xander Berkeley in the cast.
Nikita stars Maggie Q, Shane West, Lyndsy Fonseca and Xander Berkeley.
Friday pairs the original Thursday hit duo of Smallville (8:00 – 9:00) and Supernatural together again. This is a new night for Supernatural. After spending the past 5 seasons on Thursday nights at 9:00, the CW is moving it to Friday nights in the same timeslot.
Smallville enters its tenth and final season when it returns in the fall, which is a good thing because the show started to get ridiculous after season 5. Sometimes you just have to know when to retire a show. As always, the season ended with Clark sacrificing himself to some evil doer. Season nine ended with him giving himself up to General Zod. Season ten will bring the romance between Clark and Lois back to the story, and have Clark finally emerge as Superman.
Smallville stars Tom Welling, Erica Durance, Justin Hartley and Cassidy Freeman.
Supernatural is entering its sixth and, probably, final season on the CW. The Winchester Brothers have been fighting demons non-stop for the first four seasons and then the Devil himself this past season. Supernatural creator, Eric Kripke wrote the series to last for five seasons only, but the CW was dead set on renewing it for another season. As a rabid Supernatural fan, I sure hope this was not a mistake. Sera Gamble takes over the reins for the sixth season, so it gives me some hope. However, if it fails, at least loyal viewers can remember the finale for season five as being how the show should have ended.
When the series ended, Sam and Adam had fallen into the pits of Hell and Dean kept his promise to Sam that he would go find Lisa and live a normal life. However, we find Sam standing outside of Lisa’s house watching them with a rather blank look. Was it really Sam that returned to Earth, or is he still Lucifer? Lots of questions remain, and as season six opens someone is going to have to keep order. The Apocalypse is over, but the angels and demons will continue to roam the earth. Sam and Dean will reunite of course, but things will be different because we don’t know what happened to Sam in Hell, and we don’t know if he came back as Sam. What will Castiel’s role be now that the Apocalypse has ended?
Supernatural stars Jensen Ackles, Jared Padalecki and Misha Collins.
References:
www.cwtv.com
www.imdb.com
www.zap2it.com
