Smallville (Starring Tom Welling) proved you can get over the hokey of comics and build a good foundation of almost reality-based heroes. No matter what planet they're from.
Arrow (Starring Stephen Amell) is going into its fourth season while The Flash (starring Grant Gustin) is charging into its second season.
And the CW has a new show coming online that spins off of these latter two shows called Legends of Tomorrow, starring cast from both shows, like Wentworth Miller, Dominic Purcell, Brandon Routh, Victor Garber and others.
Yet during the summer TCA (Television Critics Association) meet and greet, the president of The CW says he does not intend to turn the network into "the DC Comics network" and that they have no other intentions for any other spinoffs. Though in almost the same session he says they're bummed they passed on Supergirl, which landed at CBS.
To be fair, they passed on Supergirl because it was being developed at the same time The Flash was, and they did not know what they would be in for with The Flash. I suspect a lack of faith, and rightfully so, guided them towards passing on Supergirl. Even if it was developed by the same people who are producing the other DC shows in their lineup.
Right now DC/WB products make up 40% of their programming lineup. And I can see the concerns they have about looking like a DC/WB channel. It would be like naming a network the Syfy Channel because... oh, wait. They did. But with The CW, they could call themselves the Genre Channel. Or the Fantasy channel, considering a different good chunk of their programming is dedicated to vampires and monster hunters.
But this is the perfect network for it if you think about it. I am not sure how long Supernatural or The Vampire Dairies (TVD) would have lasted on any other network that has powerhouse ratings hits. As it stands, these shows have brought viewers in, giving the network a chance to expose them to their other content.
Admittedly, the network only produces about half the original content other nets do, 10 versus 20 hours a week of core content, but the shows that have been keeping them afloat are these DC/WB products, along with Supernatural and TVD. Though to be honest, I have a bad feeling about TVD, considering Nina Dobrev left the show.
Right now we have a huge (for DC fans) crossover event coming up with Constantine showing up in Arrow for at least one episode. Yes, that Constantine character, from the NBC cancelled show.
We've had Arrow and Flash crossover a few times, though right now there are no crossover plans with any CW-based show and Supergirl. At least not yet. I suspect they want to see if it will survive over there on the big network before committing to it. Or maybe it does just well enough but not well enough for CBS that it does move over to The CW.
But that's just hoping.
My take is this...
If you have something that works, go with it. Every now and then inject some new show of any other ilk to see how it goes with ratings and the established viewing base. If it hits, good. If not, then try something else. When they took a chance with Supernatural and The Vampire Diaries, well, it led to a successful TVD spinoff, though they've been having a tough go at it spinning anything off of Supernatural. But at least they're taking a swing at it.
Right? And fans appreciate that. And to show their appreciation and support of the network (So we keep getting this great content), we need to support the advertisers we see during the shows. Otherwise, the various shows funding dries up.
Any way, I'm not sure what they are planning at The CW, but I hope they just go with the flow and keep their viewership happy.
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