The CW Delays Almost All New & Returning Scripted Series Until 2021

When The CW started loading up on acquired programming like Swamp Thing, you had to figure that this news wasn’t far behind. In a call with reporters today to present their upfronts, the network announced that almost all of it’s new and returning scripted programming would be delayed until 2021 due to the coronavirus pandemic. This was presented as a very fluid situation, since no one knows when shows will return to production.

Lucky for Supernatural fans, the final handful of episodes of the show’s final season will air this Fall. Here is what the Fall lineup now looks like:

MONDAY
8 pm Whose Line Is It Anyway?
8:30pm Whose Line Is It Anyway?
9 pm Penn & Teller: Fool Us

TUESDAY
8 pm Swamp Thing
9 pm Tell Me a Story

WEDNESDAY
8 pm Two Sentence Horror Stories
8:30 pm Dead Pixels
9 pm Coroner

THURSDAY
8 pm Supernatural (Final episodes)
9 pm The Outpost

FRIDAY
8 pm WORLD’S FUNNIEST ANIMALS
9 pm Penn & Teller: Fool Us

SUNDAY
8 pm Masters of Illusion
9 pm Pandora

In an ideal world, this is what things will look like beginning in January of 2021:

MONDAY
8 pm All American
9 pm Black Lightning

TUESDAY
8 pm The Flash
9 pm SUPERMAN & LOIS

WEDNESDAY
8 pm Riverdale
9 pm Nancy Drew

THURSDAY
8 pm WALKER
9 pm Legacies

FRIDAY
8 pm Penn & Teller: Fool Us (new night)
9 pm Whose Line Is it Anyway? (new time slot)

SUNDAY
8 pm Batwoman
9 pm Charmed (new time slot)

You might wonder where Supergirl is in all of this. Remember, Melissa Benoist is pregnant with her first child, so that series will likely be pushed back to late Spring or even Summer with DC’s Legends of Tomorrow. Keep an eye out for the Kung Fu reboot around the same time.

Is this a bummer? Absolutely, but I’d rather start at the right time and not have to shut down production again. There are no guarantees, of course, but this plan seems as good as any out there right now. More about this on Episode 316 of our podcast.

Photo Credit: Sergei Bachlakov/The CW -- © 2020 The CW Network, LLC. All rights reserved.