(This is the latest chapter of the book-in-progress, “TV, and How It Got That Way.” To read the overall book, in order, scroll down under “News and Quick Comments.” There, this is the 10th chapter of 12, so far.)
For decades, few people tried to create a fourth network. Then, oddly, everyone wanted to be No. 5.
There was WB and UPN and Pax – each grasping for a small slice of the audience. It was a race to the bottom that, oddly, everyone lost.
Well, not everyone. Viewers won. These mini-networks gave us Buffy (shown here) and Felicity and Dawson and the Gilmore girls, plus two “Star Trek” series, “Everybody Hates Chris” and Jane the pregnant virgin.
They brought variety to a sometimes-bland TV world. Then they crumbled.
WB and UPN merged into CW, which later dwindled into … well, a lesser version of CW. Pax (that’s the next chapter) became Ion, just another place for reruns.
But at its peak, the race-to-fifth was intriguing.
Even when there was little competition, Paramount had failed its grasps at being a fourth network. Now, oddly, its stab at No. 5 began almost simultaneously with a competitor.
The WB network began on Jan. 11, 1995; UPN began on Jan. 16. Two powerhouse studios – Warner Brothers and Paramount – were colliding.
Both used a similar strategy: Hook up with a station group … start with just two nights a week, two hours a night … hope to gradually add more.
By then, independent stations were eager to join. Cable had started to take away their main draw – movies in primetime and beyond – and the indies that had gone with Fox were thriving.
So Paramount linked with United (the Chris Craft stations), creating the UPN name. WB linked with the stations owned by the Chicago Tribune; WGN – the Tribune’s powerhouse Chicago station – even added an extra service: It had a separate cable feed to markets that didn’t yet have a WB affiliate.
They seemed even, except for one thing: UPN started with the well-crafted “Star Trek: Voyager”; WB started with noisy-but-forgettable comedies.
Early on, WB – with several former Fox people in charge – seemed to be a Fox reflection. “Unhappily Ever After” was from the co-creator of “Married With Children” … “The Wayans Bros.” starred the younger brothers of the “In Living Color” people … “Parent’Hood” starred Robert Townsend, shortly after his Fox variety show.
UPN started strong, pairing “Voyager” with “Nowhere Man,” a compelling story about a guy whose life seemed to vanish. But beyond that, the network wobbled.
Like WB, it tried comedies, with little success. Some were pretty good (“Clueless”), some were at least distinctive (“Homeboys From Outer Space”) and one was plagued.
“The Secret Diary of Desmond Pfeiffer” took a notion that had worked for “Benson” and “Jeeves and Wooster” and others – a wise butler, surrounded by fools. Pfeiffer (the “p” was not silent) was a Black man (Chi McBride) from England, embedded in Abraham Lincoln’s White House.
There were some neatly off-center moments, but groups instantly protested the notion of Black/white humor in a slavery age. Brooks and Marsh called it “a tasteless, bawdy comedy” with Lincoln as a fool and his wife as “a horny shrew.” The TV Guide’s “Guide to TV” (Barnes & Noble, 2005) called it a “reviled, thankfully brief sitcom.”
It lasted four episodes. UPN had followed one of the key rules for a new network – be different and distinctive. This time, it had failed.
But UPN soon had a bigger problem: Its competitor, WB, recovered from its slow start and found its groove. It crafted teen dramas – but not like airhead ones of the past. Each had attractive, likable people in clever situations.
There was “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” in 1997; “Felicity” and “Dawson’s Creek” in ‘98; “Angel,” “Roswell” and “Popular” in ‘99; “The Gilmore Girls” in 2000, “Smallville” in 20001. Previous unknowns – Sarah Michelle Gellar, James Van Der Beek, Keri Russell, etc. — became stars.
UPN had nothing to match that. In the year that the WB surge began, UPN was introducing “Love Boat: The Next Wave”; it sank. The next year it added wrestling and “Blockbuster Video’s Shockwave Cinema.”
In 2001, UPN did make a comeback, mostly via checkbook. It had a new “Star Trek” series (“Enterprise”) to replace “Voyager”; it also outbid WB for the continuing “Buffy” and “Roswell.”
Over the next few years, there were other decent-enough shows on both networks – “Reba,” “One Tree Hill” and “Evergreen” on WB, “Veronica Mars” and “Girlfriends” on UPN. But the luster was fading.
On Sept. 12, 2004, WB aired the pilot “Jack & Bobby.” It was beautifully written (by Greg Berlanti and others), superbly directed (by David Nutter), perfectly acted … and ignored by the younger audience WB had developed.
The next year, secret discussions began. Then – in January of 2006 – came the bombshell:
The two networks would combine into one, called the CW. Half the stations would soon be abandoned; the other half had the best of both networks ….
Except, there wasn’t much “best” to share. One night – WB’s “Gilmore Girls” and UPN’s “Veronica Mars” – had potential. The others had a few good shows — “Supernatural,” “Everybody Hates Chris” – and lesser ones.
Two promising mini-networks had shrunk into a flailing one. Five years later, CW would start to find a new identity … which, a decade after that, crumbled.
After fumbling for years, the CW got a new leader (Mark Pedowitz) and a new emphasis.
That started with “Arrow” in 2012 and “The Flash” in 2014. Both had characters from DC, the comic-book company owned by Warner Brothrs. So did “Superman & Lois,” “Supergirl,” “Stargirl,” “Batgirl,” “Gotham Knights,” “Black Lightning,” “Riverdale” and more.
Most were produced by Berlanti. Most were crisply crafted – albeit a bit too similar. (The Berlanti formula even applied to “Riverdale,” with all those cheery characters from the Archie comics. Soon, Archie was cage-fighting in prison and Jughead was a gang leader.)
How could the CW survive? The network might lose money, Pedowitz said, but its owners (Warner Brothers and Paramount) produced most of the shows, then made money in three ways:
— First, by airing them on CW. That paid for a good chunk of the cost.
— Then, by a mass deal with Netflix, which was popular with young people and early adapters … the same folks who like fantasy shows.
— And then by sales to other countries. Those countries can make their own quiet dramas and such; they wanted to import big, Hollywood-style fantasy.
It was a formula that worked. CW viewers got a steady stream of shows that were solidly made and sometimes more.
Straying from the “Arrow-verse” shows, CW sometimes went bad — “Tom Swift” was exceptionally awful — and sometimes triumphed.
Long before Rose McIver was seeing dead people in “Ghosts,” she was eating dead people in “iVampire.” As a medical examiner, she munched the brains of victims, helping her solve crimes. We’re not sure why Columbo never thought of that.
And two shows didn’t even need a fantasy element. On consecutive years, tiny CW won the Golden Globe for best comedy actress – Gina Rodriguez in 2015 and Rachel Bloom in 2016.
Rodriguez’s show (“Jane the Virgin”) won a Peabody, plus two Television Critics Association nominations for best comedy. Bloom’s (“Crazy Ex-Girlfriend”) had three TCA best-comedy nominations; it won four Emmys – mostly for its brilliant songs and choreography – and should have had more.
But mostly, CW savored superheroes. “Arrow” ran for seven seasons, “The Flash” ran for nine. “Stargirl” only ran three, but stood out: It avoided the cliché of a reluctant hero; instead, a teen and her colleagues enthusiastically battled evil, with the help of her dad … played by Luke Wilson, no less.
The CW adventures were entertaining and well-crafte. Think back to those kids in 1950s Clintonville, so excited by a primitive robot in the micro-budget, black-and-white “Captain Video.” If they had time-traveled to CW’s prime, they would have thought they were in paradise.
And then, as often happens, some business guys botched it.
The Discovery Channel people paid approximately a kajillion dollars to buy Warner Brothers (complete with cable channels and half of CW) … then seemed surprised to find they were deeply in debt.
They stripped some of the channels and linked with Paramount to sell CW.
The buyer was Nexstar, a station mega-group that had bought Tribune Broadcasting (the original cornerstone of WB). It had close to 30 stations that were primarily CW affiliates, plus lots of others that carried CW as a secondary channel.
Nexstar, alas, decided it was going to work with less-expensive shows. That doomed the Arrow-verse and more.
Yes, CW had already had some cheap-show success. It had aired:
— Shows that were already being made for a Canadian network. Some of them – often airing in the summer – were fairly good, including “Family Law,” “Coroner,” “Burden of Truth” and “Sullivan’s Law.” There were also interesting shows from Australia (“Bump”), New Zealand (“Wellington Paramormal”) and beyond.
— Magician shows – “Masters of Illusion” and “Penn & Teller: Fool Us” – and the comedy-improv show “”Whose Line Is It Anyway?”
— And assorted reality shows, some OK and some not. The awful “H8R” lasted four episodes; the U.S. run of “Taskmaster” lasted one.
Overall, such low-budget shows had been OK. But could you fill an entire network with them? CW kept trying.
It threw itself into sports – golf, wrestling, beach volleyball, “Inside the NFL.” It even made deals involving two college conferences, the ACC and the Pac-10 … which, despite is name, consisted of two teams.
It continued the solid “Sullivan’s Crossing,” added another good Canadian show (“Wild Cards”) and even a clever American one (“Good Cop/Bad Cop”) on a co-production deal with Roku.
It grabbed shows from England (“Joan,” “Sherlock’s Daughter,” “Everyone Else Burns”) and beyond. It showed biographical movies from the “I Am” producers and others.
This new version of CW has had its moments – especially with the light adventures on Wednesdays.
Still, it seems like de-evolution: The networks of Buffy and Dawson and Chris and Jane and two “Star Trek” crews became the home of “Totally Funny Animals,” “FBoy Island,: “WWE NXT” and “The Big Bakedown.”