By Lisa de Moraes
Friday, May 19, 2006; C07
NEW YORK
A mess of WB shows and a smattering of UPN shows look nice and fresh when wrapped up in a spanking new candy-apple green "Free to be (you fill in the blank)" marketing campaign, ad execs learned yesterday during the new CW network's first prime-time schedule presentation.
You know, "Free to be bold," "Free to be romantic," even "Free to be bald," all of which were splashed across the Jumbo screen at Madison Square Garden.
"Free to be cynical," it said on the lanyard attached to the ID tag we received from the network, which debuts in September.
Really? Great! Here goes:
The CW miraculously found a way to revive "7th Heaven," which the WB had been forced to cancel, citing skyrocketing costs. Turns out, you can't kill this show with a stick if the production company and the new network are both owned by CBS Corp., so the company is negotiating with itself.
CW programming chief Dawn Ostroff said the network found a way to bring it back because the minister-and-his-brood soap was just the perfect lead-in for the new Darren Star drama "Runaway," about a guy on the run with his angsty teenagers and his 8-year-old after being framed for a murder.
Though it was Ostroff's first announcement to advertisers during Upfront Week in her new capacity as CW programming chief, no one from the cast came onstage to do the "we're-so-happy-to-be-here" blah, bah, blah, and we saw only Stephen Collins and one other cast member onstage during the end-of-presentation pretty-people-pose -- a WB upfront presentation tradition that the CW apparently intends to keep. During a post-presentation news conference, Ostroff was asked how many "7H" cast members had been signed to come back; she dodged the question, saying she wasn't sure, but many of them.
Just warming up:
Though the network's programming chief really wanted to hang on to WB's "Everwood," ultimately the CW did not pick it up because there just weren't enough time slots available where the series would work. And yet, the CW has room for a one-hour "America's Next Top Model" rerun every week. Not to mention "Smackdown!," which is so spot-on with the hip, young, sophisticated thing the CW has goin' on. And "One Tree Hill" is on the schedule because it's so compatible with "America's Next Top Model."
Like that? How about this:
Though "Veronica Mars" has been given every advantage, including a plum post-"America's Next Top Model" time slot on UPN and even several broadcasts on CBS, it failed to hang on to viewers in any great number. Even so, the CW has saved that show and paired it with "Gilmore Girls" on Tuesday nights, where you can expect it to be the next "Pepper Dennis" -- ratings starved.
But that doesn't matter because "Veronica Mars" and "Gilmore Girls" are totally compatible because in both shows the hot young chick is dating a guy named Logan.
Here's more:
The WB's highly hyped new series "Aquaman" is still in contention for midseason. And the WB's "Reba" is still "a possibility" for the CW lineup, Ostroff said, for "several reasons" that she declined to discuss. There actually may be about 20 million reasons; that's reportedly what it was going to cost the CW to kill the show because the producers had already sealed a deal with the WB to bring back the show when the brain trust at Time Warner negotiated with CBS Corp. to kill its WB and merge the assets with CBS's UPN network.
The WB's teen-angst Superman drama "Smallville" will be followed by the WB's teen-angst paranormal drama "Supernatural" on Thursday nights. "Smallville" star Tom Welling, looking like he spent hours in front of the mirror, came onstage with the two guy leads from "Supernatural" to entertain the several hundred ad execs with his clever banter about how the "Supernatural" guys always are also behind him on the golf course. Okay, that one wasn't cynical; that was just snark.
Critical darling "Everybody Hates Chris" has been sent to the CW's worst time slot -- Sundays at 7 p.m., along with what remains of UPN's "urban" comedies, which is to say African American casts.
As well, all of UPN's surviving black-cast sitcoms that aired Monday night are being shipped off to Sunday, where they will face stiff competition from NBC's NFL football, ABC's "America's Funniest Home Videos," "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" and "Desperate Housewives," and CBS's "60 Minutes," "Amazing Race" and "Cold Case."
We're not going to attempt cynicism about this transfer of "Chris," which is exec-produced by -- and loosely based on the childhood of -- Chris Rock, as well as "All of Us," "Girlfriends" and new black-cast sitcom "The Game" because Rock took the stage and did a much better job than we ever could.
Chris on the new CW:
They have a new slogan -- The New CW: We're not [horseradish].
Chris is now going to be played by a white girl.
See more white people on CW than ever before. . . . Sometimes they'll just walk through and wave!
I had another kid picked out to play Chris, but [CBS CEO] Les Moonves said, "'I know how to pick black kids ."
"Thanks, Chris, for entertaining everyone," Ostroff said as she returned to the stage. The Reporters Who Cover Television asked her about Rock's comments at the Q&A session afterward. She responded that she had not heard his comments because she was back stage.
Sorry, can't top that one.
In the fall, Fox will air a new drama series Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday nights, plus two new sitcoms on Thursdays and a new late-night show on Saturdays after "Mad TV."
Fox also announced a new schedule for the first quarter, when it returns "American Idol" and "24." But if there's one thing of which you can be certain, whatever Fox announces will be its first-quarter lineup, will most definitely not be Fox's first-quarter lineup.
The only first-quarter information you probably can bank on is that "24" is returning Mondays at 9, and "Idol" will be back Tuesdays at 8 and Wednesdays at 9.
In the fall, Mondays at 9 (after "Prison Break"), Fox will debut "Vanished," another serialized drama -- this one involving the beautiful wife of a prominent Georgia senator.
Tuesdays at 8, before "House," Fox has scheduled "Standoff," with Ron Livingston as a negotiator in the FBI's Crisis Negotiation Unit who is shacking up with another member of the unit -- hilarious drama ensues, or dramatic hilarity, we're not sure which.
And Wednesdays at 9 (after "Bones") is new "Justice," from Jerry Bruckheimer, a behind-the-scenes look at how high-profile cases are tried in the media age. The "dream team" of four lawyers includes Victor Garber.
New Thursday sitcoms are " 'Til Death," starring Brad Garrett of "Everybody Loves Raymond" fame as half of a jaded middle-aged couple living next door to adorable newlyweds. I hate it already.
Plus, there's "Happy Hour," about this by-the-books guy who moves to Chicago to work in the business of his fiancee's family, only she dumps him and he gets sacked and tossed out of his apartment, so he winds up with a roomie who is -- and I know you see this coming, because it's a Fox sitcom -- a vain, flashy, lovable rogue named Larry who is looking for a new protege to teach his bag of tricks. There is also Larry's childhood friend Amanda, a beautiful mess who's trying unsuccessfully to emulate her perfect ideal of womanhood, Kelly Ripa.
Also in the fall, tiding over Thursday and Friday nights from September until Fox's prime-time schedule gets messed up by baseball, is a new reality series from Simon Cowell called "Duets." Established singers will be paired with non-singing celebs to perform duets for charity. Fox programming chief Peter Liguori dropped names such as Smokey Robinson, Cyndi Lauper, Michael Bolton and Chaka Khan at a morning news conference call, but it's unclear whether they've been signed. Viewers get to vote on their fave, just like on "Idol."