The CW Fall Schedule Places 'Superman & Lois' Final Season On Thursdays
Lots of scripted and unscripted fates for the network are still TBD, but they’ve got game shows and sports!
A lot has changed at The CW over the past two years, and more is bound to as Nexstar enters its second full season as the network’s owners. It’s pretty bad that ABC’s only comedy on its fall schedule is Abbott Elementary for all the extra slots it has compared to The CW, but The CW only has four scripted shows on its schedule thanks (in major to WWE NXT on Tuesdays, a mix of ACC Football, NASCAR Xfinity Series and Pac-12 Football on Saturdays, and movies on Sundays. Inside the NFL will follow what remains of Whose Line Is It Anyway? on Fridays. On the bright side, they’re at least all originals. Most pertinently of all, Superman & Lois, the last DC series remaining on a network best known for having grown a universe of them, returns from its strike-induced gap year to air Thursdays at 8 PM.
This comes from having a Tuesday timeslot for all three previous seasons, 9 PM for season 1 and 8 PM for the subsequent two, which are the only two options for hourlongs and only running until 10. While we’ve gone over the premise and cast numerous times, it’s worth noting that The CW’s president of entertainment Brad Schwartz has watched nine of the season’s 10 episodes and describes them as “f–king awesome” and “bangers” of “weekly event television. They got two cries out of him and again, that’s before the finale. He says any viewer can watch this “Emmy-worthy” final season without having watched the previous, and still be emotionally invested.
It has been paired with the new sequel spinoff of the 2014-2018 TNT series The Librarians, which began with TV movies from 2004-2008 that followed the adventures of custodians of a magical repository of the world’s most powerful and dangerous supernatural artifacts.. The Librarians: The Next Chapter centers on Vikram, played by Callum McGowan, a “Librarian” from the past, who is now stuck after time traveling here. The castle he once had is now a museum, inadvertently releasing magic across the continent. He is given his own cleanup crew: a new team of Librarians. The series also stars Jessica Green as Charlie Cornwall, the Guardian; Olivia Morris as Lysa Pascal, The Scientist and Bluey Robinson as Connor Green, the Historian. Dean Devlin serves as Showrunner and executive producer alongside Marc Roskin and Rachel Olschan-Wilson of Electric Entertainment. Original series star Noah Wyle also serves as executive producer. Mark Franco of Electric Entertainment and Jonathan English of Balkanic Media also produce.
Monday nights are game night on The CW now with new TV versions of Scrabble and Trivial Pursuit. In the latter, “wordsmiths battle it out over a series of addictive word games of skill and strategy to win points and master a giant Scrabble board in the center of the set”. This iteration is hosted by Disney Channel legend Raven-Symoné. Trivial Pursuit will see the game reimagined in a question-packed format hosted by Star Trek and Reading Rainbow legend LeVar Burton taking place on a giant life-size version of the iconic Trivial Pursuit game board. Contestants battle over a range of play-along question categories to win wedges and beat each other to the center. The final round sees the winner battle the clock to claim the big money jackpot.
The lack of presence of series returning from last season on the fall schedule is mostly because renewal decisions haven’t been made for anything, scripted or unscripted, but Canadian co-production Sullivan’s Crossing. Domestic carryovers All American and Walker are still in-progress on their current seasons, as well as on renewal discussions. The confidence they’ll be financially viable in the eyes of the overlords has dropped considerably from their renewals a year ago. Walker won’t be able to continue unless the network raises its very low license fee.
Sullivan’s Crossing meanwhile has been paired with British crime drama Joan, which at six episodes will quickly be replaced by something else. Joan stars Sophie Turner, who was second phase Jean Grey in the X-Men movies, as notorious jewel thief Joan Hannington, an impassioned and unyielding 1980s twentysomething woman who is deeply scarred and vulnerable. She is a devoted mother to her six-year-old daughter, Kelly, trapped in a disastrous marriage to a violent criminal named Gary. When he goes on the run, Joan jumps to make a new life for herself and her daughter…as a masterful jewel thief. It’s a thrilling, high-stakes journey that challenges her every limit, motivated by her desire to create stability for her and Kelly. The series also stars Frank Dillane as Boisie, a London antiques dealer, Kirsty J. Curtis as Nancy, Joan’s older sister and salon worker and Gershwyn Eustache Jr. as Albie, an old acquaintance of Boisie who’s made a new life in Spain with his wife Val, played by Laura Aikman. Joan is written by acclaimed screenwriter Anna Symon and directed by Richard Laxton. The series is from Snowed-In Productions and executive produced by Ruth Kenley-Letts, Jenny Van Der Lande, Neil Blair and Richard Laxton. The series is produced in association with All3Media International and The CW.
So what are the candidates to step in? First, there’s Good Cop/Bad Cop, a procedural dramedy about Lou, played by network vets Leighton Meester of Gossip Girl and Henry, played by Luke Cook of Katy Keene, a sister and brother detective team of conflicting personalities in the Pacific Northwest. They deal with quirky residents, a major dearth of resources, and their own complicated dynamics with each other and with their father, police chief Big Hank, played by Clancy Brown. From Future Shack Entertainment and Jungle Entertainment for The CW and The Roku Channel in the United States and Stan in Australia, Good Cop/Bad Cop is written and executive produced by John Quaintance. Jeff Wachtel, Trent O’Donnell and Chloe Rickard also serve as executive producers, with O’Donnell also directing. Phil Lloyd is an co-executive producer.
The other? Well, CBS isn’t the only network with a Sherlock Holmes adaptation this season, as we have mystery thriller series Sherlock & Daughter. Here, the great detective is played by Remus Lupin himself, David Thewlis annd out of his comfort zone, unable to take on a sinister case without endangering his closest friends. A young American named Amelia enters the scene, played by The Originals alum Blu Hunt. Her mom has been mysteriously murdered, and she soon learns her missing father may be Sherlock. With wildly different backgrounds and personalities, the pair must work together to solve a global conspiracy, solve the murder and the parentage. Batwoman alum Dougray Scott also stars as legendary Holmes nemesis, Moriarty. From Starlings Television Distribution, Albion Television and StoryFirst, Sherlock & Daughter is created, written and executive produced by Brendan Foley and led by showrunner and executive producer James Duff.
