The CW Boss Promises a Lighter Season of The Flash Is Coming

The CW has heard your complaints about how dark and angsty The Flash has gotten lately, and it's prepared to fix it.

Network president Mark Pedowitz revealed to reporters at the Television Critics Association summer press tour Wednesday that the upcoming fourth season of the superhero series is "going to try to find the lightness ... of the Barry Allen [Grant Gustin] of the first two seasons."

Fans will have to wait until the show returns in October to see if Pedowitz is telling the truth, but the lighter tone and comedy of the first two seasons of The Flash were what initially set it apart from the darkness of its parent series Arrow. And speaking of the veteran drama starring Stephen Amell, Pedowitz believes it once again found its mojo during the recent fifth season, noting that the drama more closely resembles the series it was during its first and second seasons.

Elsewhere, he is happy with how Supergirl has found its groove on the network since moving to The CW after one season on CBS. However, he would not spoil whether or not Mon-El (Chris Wood) will be back for Season 3.

Here's When This Fall's Arrowverse Four-Show Crossover Is Happening

Here's everything else we learned about your favorite CW series at TCA:

Never say never to more superhero shows: Given how successful the Arrowverse is for The CW, Pedowitz isn't ruling out expanding the network's current superhero lineup. "We have no plans to develop any DC shows this season. That said ... I woke up one day with Supergirl and I woke up one day with Black Lightning," he said.

Supernatural really will outlive us all: Pedowitz didn't even wait for the question about the future of Supernatural, which will kick off its 13th season -- which he joked was its bar mitzvah season -- on the network in the fall. He opened his question and answer session by noting that "as long as [Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki] want to do it and the ratings hold, Supernatural will stay on the air."

Black Lightning could become part of the Arrowverse: The network's newest superhero drama, Black Lightning, premieres at midseason. He reconfirmed that it is not currently part of the Arrowverse, but if the showrunners want to bring it into the fold in the future, he is open to it. "If they wish to bring it in, that's their call," he said.

The future of iZombie is wide open: iZombie is now firmly a midseason drama, which means it also frequently lives on the bubble. According to Pedowitz, there have not been any conversations about the zombie drama's fourth season being its last. "If and when we get there, we'll sit down with [co-creator] Rob Thomas and we'll figure it out," promised Pedowitz. "At this moment in time, I'm not planning on having that series end."

Vampires and werewolves and spin-offs, oh my! Although there are currently no plans for the network to continue the supernatural universe of The Vampire Diaries via another spin-off, Pedowitz confirmed there have been many discussions about it. "Julie [Plec] and I had many a discussion. Nothing has come out of it yet," he said, noting that Plec is currently focused on wrapping up the final season of The Originals. But if she's interested in doing more, The CW will certainly be open to discussing it.

The CW wants to bring women back: The CW used to lean heavily female, but the network made efforts to bring in more males. Now it wants to go back in the other direction, slightly. "When I got here we were 70 percent female to 30 percent male, we're now 50-50," Pedowitz said. "That's why Riverdale was so important to us when we lost The Vampire Diaries and Reign, why Dynasty is important to us, why Life Sentence and Valor become important to us [because] of the women's perspective. I think the better mix is 55-45, female to male. We're trying to bring more women back to us."

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