"Flash"/"Arrow" Super Panel at TCA Contributes to The CW's Best Day Ever – Ed Martin

As significant as all that Globes excitement was for The CW just a few hours earlier on Sunday morning the network was already having a super day amp8211 at the Winter 2015 Television Critics Association tour Never in its nineyear history had The CW put together a TCA schedule that was as formidable and coverageworthy in its own right as any other presented by any network at this annual twoweek eventDon39t take my word for it One senior CW executive confided in me that it felt as though The CW was quotthe hot networkquot at TCA a feeling no CW employee past or present has likely ever experienced This wasn39t an untrue statement Much of the credit for making The CW39s schedule a major TCA success was a massive 16person panel featuring the actors who portray the many colorful heroes and villains from the network39s two most popular series quotArrowquot and quotThe Flashquot along with the executive producers of those three showsAs exciting as it was to see such acclaimed actors as Victor Garber John Barrowman and Tom Cavanagh on the stage along with stars from both shows including Stephen Amell Grant Gustin Katie Cassidy Colton Haynes Wentworth Miller and Brandon Routh the lobby outside the ballroom at the Langham Huntington Hotel where this tour is being held was also a center of much attention because Warner Bros had set up a museumquality display of the many costumes worn by the actors in both shows There was as much security in the lobby near this display as one might see during rush hour in Grand Central StationThe CW39s morning wasn39t all about superheroes though if that session was all the network offered it would still have been a TCA standout The day actually began with a panel for yet another adaptation of a DC Comics series quotiZombiequot which will be one of those increasingly rare genre series that revolves around a female character On that subject critics have been wondering why Katie Cassidy who plays Black Canary on quotArrowquot was the only woman on the giantsize Heroes and Villains panel Also on that subject CBS has a series based on quotSupergirlquot in development The quotiZombiequot panel was followed by a combo session for quotThe Vampire Diariesquot and quotThe Originalsquot with Ian Somerhalder from the former and Joseph Morgan from the latter along with Julie Plec the executive producer of both shows Heroes and Villains was followed by sessions with Cedric the Entertainer on hand to generate interest in his upcoming reality competition series quotCedric39s Barber Battlequot and a panel for another new genre show quotThe Messengersquot about five people transformed into Angels of the Apocalypse as the Rapture approachesSomewhere in the middle of all that was a session with CW President Mark Pedowitz who must consider Sunday to have been one of the best days of his career Wisely the network that morning announced that all eight dramas on its fall 201415 schedule were renewed for the 201516 season They include quotArrowquot quotThe Flashquot quotSupernaturalquot quotThe Vampire Diariesquot quotThe Originalsquot quotReignquot quotThe 100quot and quotJane the Virginquot Asked if that doesn39t leave very much room for new programming Pedowitz revealed that not all of those shows may come back in the fall quotSome of them will come back midseason andor summerquot he said quotThis enables us now to finally get to the place of providing scripted summer programming The summer of 3916 should be a much bigger summer for us than ever beforequotPedowitz also talked about continuing to develop future programming via the digital platform CW Seed The first Seed to The CW transfer quotBackpackersquot last summer was a Nielsen dud and was quickly pulled though Pedowitz admitted that according to Rentrak data it quotmight have been worthwhile to amp8230 keep it on for a little bit longerquot Undaunted his team is quotlooking at a halfhour potentially coming out of CW Seed for the summerquotIt will come as no surprise to anyone that given the ratings success of and media coverage surrounding the quotFlashquotquotArrowquot crossover in December there will be more to come though The CW is not going to go crazy with them Crossovers between quotVampire Diariesquot and its39 spinoff quotThe Originalsquot will occur when they make sense quotIn terms of 39Flash39 and 39Arrow39quot Pedowitz said quotthose big crossovers we39re only planning to do pretty much once a year in the fourth quarter kind of similar to the 39Dr Who39 Christmas specialsquot The quotDr Whoquot Christmas specials are telecast annually on Christmas night on the BBC and are considered a major holiday event in BritainAs far as adding more series inspired by superheroes from the world of DC Comics Pedowitz said quotWe are having some preliminary discussions in terms of expanding the 39FlashArrow39 universe but we have not yet fully vetted them out and that39s really the extent I can talk about itquot Greg Berlanti the executive producer of both shows pretty much said the same thing during the Heroes and Villains panelThe opinions and points of view expressed in this commentary are exclusively the views of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillage or MyersBizNetamp160management or associated bloggers

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"Flash"/"Arrow" Super Panel at TCA Contributes to The CW's Best Day Ever – Ed Martin

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