Completely Worthless

(It was a toss up between that, and "Curiously Worse". Came up heads.)

So. The CW's upfront was this morning. Which means we're in for another longwinded exP@nation of it all! Get ready to scroll!

Before upfronts begin, there is always music playing. Generally, the WB's music choices have been from hip cool bands that you would hear on WB type shows. And usually in the rock/alternative/emo genre.
This year was different. Maybe because it was a "new" network. But the music choices were much more... hip hop. Which... no.
But! Then, right before it began, they played a really cool "mash up" (get it? Because the CW is a mash up of UPN & WB?). Generally I dislike mash ups (most are not done very well and just cause my brain to have audio whiplash) but this one was an exception. They mashed Green Day's "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" with Oasis' "Wonderwall". It was pretty darn good. Until the end, when it kinda fell apart a little, and they snuck in some Aerosmith. Huh??
But, yeah. That was neat.

So while the music is playing, we see that the CW has changed their logo to a new 'retro' type of font. (I can't explain it. Go to the wikipedia entry on the CW and you'll see the new (green) logo compared to the original (blue) logo.
I didn't like it at first, but it's grown on me.

So, show starts. and as usual, they have clips from all the upcoming shows edited together to some chart-topping song(s) and it's pretty darn neat. Then some guy came out, spoke. "Blah, blah, blah, the CW is great. Blah blah blah." Then he introduced Leslie Moonves and some other guy.

They both spoke. "Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. CW is great, and we are responsible for it. Aren't we great? Blah."

Then they introduced Dawn Ostroff, who is currently president of entertainment at UPN, and will be for CW, came out. She was the woman I was waiting for, because that meant that we'd finally get to the lineup.
But nope. First we had to have the Black Eyed Peas perform.

They did a song called "Get Ready", which incorporated (or, um stole, maybe is the better word?) bits of the classic Motown song by the same name. I couldn't understand all the rapping part lyrics, but I know that "CW" was thrown in there a lot.

Anyway. The point is that "Get Ready" (by the Black Eyed Peas) is going to be the CW's "launch song". So, you know, get ready to get sick of that.

Finally, all the unnecessary crap is out of the way, and half an hour in, we can begin getting to the freakin' lineup already. Sheesh. At least My Network pretty much got to the point right away.

So we get to the lineup, starting with Monday.
Monday nights at 8pm will be.... 7th Heaven.
WHAT!???!

7th Heaven, which is "TV longest running family drama".
7th Heaven, which two weeks ago had it's SERIES FINALE.
7th Heaven, which will. Not. Die.

They had some clips, but they were all from the 10th season, which is hilarious, because from what I've heard, Simon (David Gallagher) will not even be on the show. And of course neither will Jessica Biel (No Biel!!) or Barry Watson. But I'm sure Happy will be! (Happy is the dog.)
It was funny that they all glossed over the fact that six months ago it was announced they were canceling the show. And that the freaking SERIES FINALE aired two weeks back.
But the best part - which almost (almost) made it all worthwhile - was when the clips were done and the camera came back to Dawn speaking - NOBODY in the audience applauded. HEEEEEE!!! I think maybe they were all either too pissed off or all too busy going WTF?
I mean seriously. 7th Heaven. Well, hopefully we'll continue to get recaps at TWOP.

Monday at 9p - a new show called Runaway.
Basic premise - The Fugitive meets Everwood.
It looks halfway decent, actually. "Successful" family (dad is some big shot lawyer, so they're super rich. And we all know $ = success) with beautiful children are all happy in generic WB town. Then, dad is framed for a murder. So he packs up the family and they move to some other WB town. The kids all have to assume new identities, and the teenage son misses his girlfriend back home, while the females in the new town drool over him.
Meanwhile, back in murder town, the CSI lady is trying to track them down.
It has a very CBS look/feel to it, and I'm like 90% sure that it was originally going to go to CBS, but they chopped it, and so, since CBS is a parent of the CW, voila.


Tuesday is "Girls Night". 8pm is Gilmore Girls, followed by Veronica Mars at 9. I've never gotten into either show, but the audience seemed ecstatic about it. As did Dawn. (It's been widely publicized that she is a huge fan of VM.)

Wednesday will be America's Next Top Model and One Tree Hill.
Except in our family, where Wednesday will be Lost.
:)
After the clips, they had some of the actors come out and talk for like, ten or fifty seconds. After the ANTM bit, they had Tyra Banks come out. And she tripped *but didn't fall) on one of the tiles. Then, she called out previous "Next Top Model" winners to be on the stage with her - and one of them tripped (but did not fall) on the same tile. Heh. I still won't watch this garbage, but I might consider it if it was people tripping each night. (See Three's Company)

Thursday
8pm - Smallville returns for it's 6th season. Will I still watch? Absolutely. Will it suck? Absolutely.
9pm is Supernatural.
Pretty good Thursday lineup, actually. Out of all the shows, those are the ones that I find most appealing.

Friday is Smackdown night.

Nothing on Saturdays. (Except Kids WB, which will be called "Kids WB on the CW", and which was not spoken about at the upfront)
Sundays
7pm - Everybody Hates Chris
7:30p - All of Us
8pm - Girlfriends
8:30p - The Game (a new sitcom. It's a spinoff of Girlfriends. Okay, then.)
9pm - America's Next Top Repeat (hee)

After they came back from the clips of the Sunday shows, Dawn was not at the podium. Instead, Chris Rock was.
This was definitely the highlight of the upfront.
I can't remember everything he said, but here were the parts I do recall:

"This year, Everybody Hates Chris is gonna make you care about it more, because Chris will be played by a white girl."
"All of the shows are going to have white people. They'll just show up, wave, and not even have any lines."
"This is the CW. We're not going to change the letters anymore. We have a slogan for the network, even though you don't see it up here right now. It's 'The CW - we ain't bullshittin'.'"
and he ended his speech with:
"Now, I want you advertisers to go out there, and spend some motherfuckin' money on this!"

Hee! I totally want that to be the slogan. "The CW - Spend some motherfucking money!"

When Dawn came back she had a look on her face that was a mixture of terrified and highly, highly amused. She said, "Thank you for being here, Chris!" but she was most likely thinking, "I am so freaking fired."

So that's the lineup. Other stuff that was mentioned:
Two midseason shows: Beauty and the Geek will replace America's Next Top Model during it's seasonal break, and a drama from Kevin Williamson called Hidden Palms, which appeared to be a cross between Supernatural and The OC. I have "meh" feelings about it, but who knows.

The website, cwtv.com, (which I can't get to work while here at work, ironically enough) is going to be much more interactive with the programs. There will be a thing called the CW Lab which will allow viewers to put up pictures of themselves and create 15 second promos that could make it on the air. They're calling this "Famous for :15" and it looks like absolute crap. "Here. Put your picture on our website, and create a promo for us! We'll air it!" I mean, granted, it's a brilliant marketing move - have the viewer do the work for you, and then they'll tune in in the hopes of seeing themselves on national television - but fuck a doodle do, it 's boring to watch on tv. I don't want to look at pictures of people I don't know!

The OTHER (and this is the last thing, I swear) thing that was interesting (note - interesting does not = good) was something they're calling "Content Wraps" or, "CW".
These are "shows within the show". There will be 3 "pods" per hour show (the length was not mentioned) that will air during the commercial breaks. They'll have a 'storyline' and are designed to coincide with the them of the night they're airing on. (Monday being Family Night, Tuesday - Girls Night, Wednesday - Crap Night, Thursday - Hunk Night? SciFi Night? [shrug]) It's all just another way of trying to get people to not fast forward through commercials. Good luck with that.

So, yeah. Now that it's out there and done, it feels a little anti-climatic. Basically the CW will bring in the loyal viewers from WB and UPN. But (this season at least) will do little else to bring in new viewers.

It's gonna be an interesting fall.