CW Announces Its Fall Lineup

On Wednesday night, CW's top-rated series, America's Next Top Model, showed double-digit growth last season and was the No. 1 show in its time slot with women 18-34. Next season, America's Next Top Model will stay in its 8-9 pm berth, followed by the new drama Gossip Girl from 9-10 pm. From The O.C. producers Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage, Gossip Girl is based on the best-selling young-adult book series of the same name. The show features an ensemble cast of new and veteran actors, including Blake Lively ( The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants) and Leighton Meester ( Surface), and chronicles the struggle for social supremacy among teens in a posh Manhattan prep school. The fun, sexy and dramatic hour is a perfect companion piece for Top Model's strong female audience, making Wednesday "Girls Night In" on The CW.
On Thursday - television's most competitive night - Smallville and Supernatural deliver a solid mix of male and female viewers. On Friday, the wildly popular Friday Night Smackdown! rules the night with two hours of exciting matches 52 weeks a year. Smackdown! was last season's No. 1 show in male viewers, giving the network a lock on young men on Friday night.
On Sunday, two new reality shows will kick off the 7-8 pm hour. At 7 pm, CW Now will premiere as the ultimate source for everything hip, hot and happening in youth culture. From the producers of the entertainment-magazine show Extra, CW Now utilizes eye-catching visuals in a fast-paced mix of celebrity gossip and current fashion and lifestyle trends. Advertisers can participate by integrating their brands into the fabric of the show, expanding on the network's success last season with content wraps. At 7:30 pm, The CW is turning couch potatoes into mouse potatoes with Online Nation, a series that takes the best of the Web's user-generated videos and puts them on TV. At 8 pm, the new family drama Life Is Wild brings the beauty and drama of Africa to television. The show will be filmed entirely in South Africa, with a diverse cast of American, British and South African actors, and will feature film-quality production values. Life Is Wild follows a dysfunctional blended family from New York that moves to a rural South African town. Once there, they find that they must rely on each other more than they ever did back home. The 9 pm hour will continue last season's successful strategy of an encore presentation of America's Next Top Model.
The popular Monday night comedy lineup returns with three favorites and one new series. From 8-8:30 pm, the critically acclaimed Everybody Hates Chris will be back with a first-time guest appearance by the show's cocreator and executive producer, Chris Rock. Everybody Hates Chris provides the perfect leadin for the ground-breaking new fish-out-of-water comedy Aliens in America, about a 16-year-old Wisconsin boy, Justin Tolchuk ( Dan Byrd, The Hills Have Eyes), whose mother decides to improve his social status at school by importing an exchange student to be his friend. When the student turns out to be a Pakistani Muslim teenager named Raja (Adhir Kalyan, Fair City), issues of diversity, tolerance and coming of age in America take center stage in this sweet and insightful comedy. From 9-10 pm, Girlfriends and The Game, the two highest-rated scripted television shows among Africa-American adults and women 18-34, return.
On Tuesday at 8 pm, the hit reality series Beauty and the Geek, from executive producers Ashton Kutcher and Jason Goldberg, will return with a new crop of beauties and geeks in this funny and poignant social experiment competition. The devilish new drama Reaper will follow at 9 pm With executive producers Michele Fazekas, Tara Butters, Mark Gordon, Deborah Spera, Tom Spezialy and executive producer/director Kevin Smith, this humor-filled adventure focuses on a slacker named Sam ( Bret Harrison, The Loop, Grounded for Life) who discovers his parents accidentally sold his soul to the devil before he was born, forcing him into a new life as Satan's bounty hunter. Ray Wise ( 24, The Closer) plays Satan, and Tyler Labine ( Boston Legal, Invasion) plays Sam's best friend Bert "Sock" Wysocki.
Mid-season
In order to give producers time to make a significant creative change, the hit drama One Tree Hill will be held until mid-season. When it returns, the story will have advanced four years and the characters will have already graduated from college. Online digital diaries will premiere in the fall, detailing what happened during the intervening years, and will lead into the mid-season series return.
Mid-season reality series include a second season of the popular Pussycat Dolls, which averaged 8 million viewers a week in its premiere season, along with two new reality concepts. On Farmer Wants a Wife, a real-life farmer will search for a spouse from the big city, while on Crowned: The Mother of All Pageants, mother/daughter teams work together to win a beauty pageant. The three reality shows will enable the network to schedule original reality series in key time periods over the entire season.
Following is The CW's 2007-2008 prime-time schedule.
Monday
8-8:30 pm Everybody Hates Chris
8:30-9 pm Aliens in America
9-9:30 pm Girlfriends
9:30-10 pm The Game
Tuesday
8-9 pm Beauty and the Geek
9-10 pm Reaper
Wednesday
8-9 pm America's Next Top Model
9-10 pm Gossip Girl
Thursday
8-9 pm Smallville
9-10 pm Supernatural
Friday
8-10 pm Friday Night SmackDown!
Sunday
7-7:30 pm CW Now
7:30-8 pm Online Nation
8-9 pm Life is Wild
9-10 pm America's Next Top Model
Aliens in America - Justin Tolchuk (Dan Byrd, The Hills Have Eyes) is a sensitive, lanky 16-year old just trying to make it through the social nightmare of high school in Medora, Wisconsin. Helping him are his well-meaning mom Franny ( Amy Pietz, Caroline in the City), aspiring-entrepreneur dad Gary ( Patrick Breen, Kevin Hill) and his popular sister Claire ( Lindsey Shaw, Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide), who is sweetly unaware of how good looking she is. When Franny agrees to host an international exchange student, she pictures an athletic, brilliant Nordic teen who will bestow instant coolness on her outsider son. However, the Tolchuks' exchange student turns out to be Raja Musharaff (Adhir Kalyan, Fair City), a 16-year-old Pakistani Muslim. Despite the cultural chasm between them, Justin and Raja develop an unlikely friendship that just might allow them to navigate the minefield that is contemporary high school.
Crowned: The Mother of All Pageants - Judges Carson Kressley ( Queer Eye for the Straight Guy), former Miss U.S.A. Shanna Moakler ( Dancing with the Stars, Meet the Barkers), and television personality Cynthia Garrett referee an eight-episode competition that dares to pit mother/daughter teams against each other in a no-holds-barred beauty pageant. This reality series explores one of the most emotional and volatile relationships as mothers and daughters from all walks of life compete together against other mother/daughter teams in order to win. The contestants will have to brand a "style" for their team via clothing and swimwear, express their points of view about world issues and rehearse the dance number. Not only do good looks, talent and a love of world peace need to run in the family, every team also requires patience and and a healthy sense of humor. In the end, one mother/daughter team will be "crowned" the winner and will receive a valuable prize package, including a $100,000 cash award, and, of course, a fabulous pair of tiaras.
CW Now - This fresh show blends news and entertainment to create the ultimate source for everything that's hip, hot and happening in the world of young adults. With a team of experts focused on the topics and trends that appeal specifically to The CW generation, this new series will feature informative and entertaining reports on the hottest fashions, the coolest music, the must-see movies and the must-have gadgets and technology. CW Now will be everywhere young adults are: from cyberspace profiling the best of the Web, to the most popular real-life hot spots. With young adults' insatiable appetite for fame, each episode will report on the latest news and gossip from inside the glitz and glamour of Hollywood.
Farmer Wants a Wife - The CW cultivates romance a là Green Acres with this new comedic reality series designed to help one lonesome farm boy find the city girl of his dreams. Based on the hit British format, the U.S. version will feature a charming, hard-working farmer who wonders if he could find happiness in the arms of a city gal. The show's producers will search the nation's cities to select a group of 10 women who are fed up with bad dates and are open to making a big change. The group will consist of women looking for an escape from the urban hustle and bustle. Farmer Wants a Wife will bring these city women to the country farmer. The ladies will have to impress him with their hearts and their newfound love of country life, or they'll be sent back to the city. Are these city girls ready for the realities of life and work on a farm: driving a tractor, taking care of large farm animals and attending bingo night? Through a series of challenges, group activities, shocking eliminations and cozy dates, 10 fast-lane women will see how they match up with a back-roads guy.
Gossip Girl - The privileged prep-school teens on Manhattan's Upper East Side first learn that Serena Van Der Woodsen (Blake Lively, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants) is back in town the way they learn all the important news in their lives: from the blog of the all-knowing albeit ultra-secretive Gossip Girl. No one knows Gossip Girl's identity, but everyone in this exclusive and vicious circle relies on her text messages for the latest scoop. Serena's closest friend, Blair (Leighton Meester, Surface), is just as surprised as everyone else to discover that Serena has suddenly ended her self-imposed boarding-school exile and returned to Manhattan. The tension between Blair and Serena isn't lost on Gossip Girl, who is determined to uncover any and all scandals, whether they involve Serena's brother Eric ( Connor Paolo, One Life to Live), Blair's boyfriend Nate ( Chace Crawford, The Covenant) or Nate's buddy Chuck (Ed Westwick, Children of Men). Maybe the dirt has to do with Dan ( Penn Badgley, John Tucker Must Die) and his sister Jenny ( Taylor Momsen, Spy Kids 2, How The Grinch Stole Christmas), whose middle-class background keeps them on the fringes of this exclusive clique. Even the parents - Serena's mother Lily ( Kelly Rutherford, Melrose Place), a former ballerina/rock-groupie, Nate's high-powered father Howie "The Captain" Archibald ( Sam Robards, The West Wing), Dan and Jenny's dad Rufus ( Matthew Settle, Brothers & Sisters), a former rocker turned art gallery owner - are aware that their sons and daughters are constantly checking their Sidekicks to read Gossip Girl's latest tidbits. In addition to all the shifting friendships, jealousies and turmoil in this wealthy and complex world, the central mystery remains: Who is Gossip Girl? Based on the popular series of young-adult novels by Cecily von Ziegesar.
Life is Wild - Katie Clarke ( Leah Pipes, Clubhouse) may never forgive her veterinarian father, Danny ( Brett Cullen, Ghost Rider, Friday Night Lights), for forcing their blended family to move from New York City to a broken-down lodge called The Blue Antelope in a game reserve deep inside South Africa. All the family members, including Katie's 11-year-old brother Chase ( K'sun Ray, Smith), Danny's second wife Jo ( Judith Hoag, Armageddon), her rebellious teenage son Jesse ( Andrew St. John, General Hospital) and 7-year-old daughter, Mia ( Mary Matilyn Mouser, Eloise), are sure that Danny has lost his mind. But Danny has his reasons, including his desire to keep his troubled family together while making a difference in the lives of the people and animals of South Africa. In addition, his late first wife Claire grew up at The Blue Antelope and it's still home to her reclusive father Art ( David Butler). After just a few days in South Africa, the family has already encountered an injured lioness, a lost cub and a gentle giraffe. They've also met a few locals, including a handsome young Brit, Oliver Banks (newcomer Calvin Goldspink) and his twin sister Emily (newcomer Tiffany Mulheron), whose father, Colin Banks ( Jeremy Sheffield), runs a safari business for wealthy tourists, and Tumelo (newcomer Atandwa Kani), a teen who dreams of becoming a veterinarian. While they are definitely outsiders, Katie and the rest of the family are begin to love the breathtaking vistas of the bush country and the vibrant culture enveloping them.
Online Nation - The amount of user-generated entertainment continues to explode across the Internet. Now The CW is giving them a nationally televised stage to flaunt their talents. Online Nation will scour the Web in search of the best, the hottest, the unique and sometimes, the flat-out bizarre. This fun, irreverent weekly series features everything and anything that has captured the attention of the online community, from the most popular sites to the addictive viral videos, to insights from digital tastemakers. Born of the Internet and tailored specifically for this generation, this series also features an innovative interactive element as viewers will be able to communicate with other fans live on the air. The CW is turning mouse potatoes into couch potatoes by putting all the greatest Internet clips in one ready-to-use package.
Reaper - For the first 20 years of his life, Sam (Bret Harrison, The Loop, Grounded for Life) wondered why his parents were so easy on him. Whether it was school, sports or career choices, Sam's mom ( Allison Hossack, Falcon Beach) and dad ( Andrew Airlie, The L Word) let him ease by with the least amount of effort, while simultaneously pressuring his younger brother Keith (Kyle Switzer, 15/Love) to excel. As a result, Sam skipped college, took a dead-end job and now wastes endless hours playing video games and wishing he had the guts to ask out his pretty coworker, Andi ( Nikki Reed, Thirteen, The O.C.). Everything in his slacker world changes the day Sam turns 21 and discovers the ungodly reason his parents let him slide: they sold his soul to the devil before he was born. Satan himself (Ray Wise, 24, The Closer) drops by to personally explain that Sam must now serve as his bounty hunter, tracking down evil souls that have escaped and returning them to Hell. At first, Sam refuses to accept his bizarre fate, but after getting a glimpse of Satan's temper, Sam realizes that breaking a deal with the devil has consequences that are very, very bad. Armed with a constantly changing series of vessels - starting with a Dirt Devil mini-vacuum - to collect the escapees, Sam finds the work dangerous and frightening, even with the help of his friends and fellow slackers, Bert "Sock" Wysocki (Tyler Labine, Boston Legal, Invasion) and Ben ( Rick Gonzalez, Coach Carter) and Sock's former-girlfriend-turned-paralegal, Josie ( Valarie Rae Miller, Dark Angel). Still, as weird and scary as his life becomes, Sam is surprised to find that he somehow feels good about his newfound "mission" - sending evildoers back where they belong. With his friends and his trusty vessel-of-the-week at his side, Sam is ready to face his destiny as the Reaper.