I never watched the CW before ...
Question: I never watched the CW before this year, but suddenly I'm finding myself watching shows that have been running for a while. Some of them I didn't know I was missing (
Everybody Hates Chris,
Beauty and the Geek and
Supernatural), while others have only just started (
Reaper,
Gossip Girl and
Aliens in America, definitely the funniest new show of the year). Am I a statistically insignificant anomaly, or do the ratings indicate that this will be the breakout year for the CW (or would have been if not for the strike)? On another note, I'm curious how the strike will affect certain cable shows. I don't know how much truth there is to this, but I've heard that some cable series typically have their entire season's worth of episodes produced far in advance of when the season starts. I'm particularly interested in learning the status of the final seasons of
The Shield,
The Wire and
Battlestar Galactica. Do we know when they'll be airing and how much of their final seasons are in the can? I also heard that the final
BSG season will play out in fits and starts over the next two years. Can you explain?
Answer: The CW is without question a network that deserves to be discovered by more people, especially this year, when it had the strongest across-the-board development of any new series on any network. But this has been a difficult season so far for the little network, with very little outside of preexisting hits (
America's Next Top Model,
Smallville) getting much attention. The CW was already planning to go heavy with reality programming in the new year, and the strike could actually position the network to break out with some of these high concepts. What this means for the new and struggling shows remains to be seen. As for the cable shows you mention,
The Wire and
The Shield should be able to air their final seasons intact, although
The Shield's creator
Shawn Ryan reportedly was unable to oversee production of the series
finale because he was honoring the strike.
Battlestar Galactica apparently will be able to air the 10 episodes scheduled for next spring, but as for the final batch of episodes to fill out the final season, that remains to be seen.
