The CW: The Fall Schedule

Although I’m as cautiously amused about the idea of a “Melrose Place” reboot as I was with “90210” last year, and I’m sure my “Twilight”-loving wife will be into the network’s new Thursday night drama, I really only have one observation to make about The CW’s fall schedule: instead of pairing “Smallville” with a third season of “Reaper,” they’ve canceled the latter and are wasting an hour of their schedule re-running the episode of “America’s Next Top Model” from earlier in the week.

Are you kidding me?

Okay, that’s all I’ve got. I’m just really pissed off about that and needed to get it out of my system. Read on to see what else The CW has in stores for “the kids” this season…

MONDAY

8:00 PM – Gossip Girl

9:00 PM – One Tree Hill

TUESDAY

8:00 PM – 90210

9:00 PM – Melrose Place

In an elegant Spanish-style apartment building in the trendy Melrose neighborhood of Los Angeles, a diverse group of 20-somethings have formed a close-knit surrogate family. Sydney Andrews (Laura Leighton) is the landlady, still beautiful at 40, and a central figure in the lives of all her tenants, especially handsome and rebellious David Breck (Shaun Sipos). Sydney started an affair with David despite her turbulent history with his estranged father, Dr. Michael Mancini (Thomas Calabro). Both father and son learned through experience that Sydney was not above using blackmail to control people. Another tenant, high-powered publicist Ella Simms (Katie Cassidy), once considered Sydney her mentor, but their friendship was destroyed by betrayal, and Sydney threatened to evict Ella and ruin her career. Sydney also played a pivotal role in the career of Auggie Kirkpatrick (Colin Egglesfield). After they met at an AA meeting, she became Auggie’s sponsor and encouraged his dream to become a chef. Now a successful sous chef at the trendy restaurant Coal, Auggie has been avoiding Sydney since she began drinking again. The other tenants include Lauren Yung (Stephanie Jacobsen), a medical student in desperate need of money to pay her student loans, and Jonah Miller (Michael Rady), an aspiring filmmaker who has just proposed to his live-in girlfriend Riley Richmond (Jessica Lucas), a first-grade teacher. The newest tenant, 18-year-old Violet Foster (Ashlee Simpson-Wentz), has just arrived in LA with her own secret connection to Sydney. When a bloody body is found floating in the courtyard pool, David is the leading suspect. However, as the police are soon to discover, almost everyone living at Melrose Place had a reason to want the deceased out of the way.

WEDNESDAY

8:00 PM – America’s Next Top Model

9:00 PM – The Beautiful Life

The life of a high-fashion model appears glamorous and sexy, but as every new model quickly learns, behind the beautiful façade is a world of insecurity and cutthroat competition. Two teenage models who are about to discover this world for themselves are Raina Collins (Sara Paxton), a stunning beauty with a secret past, and Chris Andrews (Benjamin Hollingsworth), a strikingly handsome Iowa farm boy. When Raina makes an unforgettable impression at a show introducing the new line from designer Zac Posen, she steals the spotlight from her friend Sonja (Mischa Barton). Sonja has been out of the country for mysterious reasons and is now desperate to reclaim her standing as the reigning supermodel. While Raina and Sonja live at the top of the fashion food chain, Chris is starting at the bottom, having just been discovered by agent Simon Lockridge (Dusan Dukic) of the Covet Modeling Agency, which is owned by former supermodel Claudia Foster (Elle Macpherson). At his first photo shoot, Chris’ inexperience almost derails his career until Raina comes to his rescue, showing him how to relax and work the camera. That afternoon, Raina brings Chris to the “models’ residence” where she lives along with other young hopefuls, including Marissa Delfina (Ashley Madekwe), Egan (Jordan Woolley), Issac (Corbin Bleu) and the current alpha-male-model known as Kai (Nico Tortorella). At an exclusive industry party that night, Chris is again impressed by Raina’s generosity when she steps aside to make sure Sonja lands a job that will resurrect her career. However, after an ugly scene with Simon, Chris is left to question whether he can survive in this world of dangerous excess and fleeting fame.

THURSDAY

8:00 PM – Vampire Diaries

Four months after the tragic car accident that killed their parents, 17-year-old Elena Gilbert (Nina Dobrev) and her 15-year-old brother, Jeremy (Steven R. McQueen) are still trying to cope with their grief and move on with their lives. Elena has always been the star student; beautiful, popular and involved with school and friends, but now she finds herself struggling to hide her sadness from the world. As the school year begins, Elena and her friends are fascinated by a handsome and mysterious new student, Stefan Salvatore (Paul Wesley). Stefan and Elena are immediately drawn to one another, and Elena has no way of knowing that Stefan is a centuries-old vampire, struggling to live peacefully among humans, while his brother Damon (Ian Somerhalder) is the embodiment of vampire violence and brutality. Now these two vampire brothers ─ one good, one evil ─ are at war for Elena’s soul and for the souls of her friends, family and all the residents of the small town of Mystic Falls, Virginia. Based on the series of books by L. J. Smith.

9:00 PM – Supernatural

FRIDAY

8:00 PM – Smallville

9:00 PM – America’s Next Top Model (encore)

Arriving sometime mid-season

* Parental Discretion Advised

After spending all of her 15 years bouncing from one foster family to another in Portland, Oregon, Lux (Britt Robertson) has decided it’s time to take control of her life and become an emancipated minor. Her journey through the legal maze leads Lux to her biological father, 30-something Nate “Baze” Bazile (Kristoffer Polaha), who owns a bar, lives like an aging frat-boy with two slacker roommates, and is astonished to learn that he has a teenage daughter. Lux is equally astonished when Baze reveals that her mother is Cate Cassidy (Shiri Appleby), a star on the local “Morning Madness” radio show, along with her on-air partner and real-life boyfriend, Ryan Thomas (Kerr Smith). Lux has been listening to Cate’s voice on the radio as long as she can remember, so she feels an instant connection with the mom she’s never met. Baze takes Lux to meet Cate, who is shocked and saddened to learn that Lux has grown up in foster care, but thrilled to finally meet her beautiful daughter. When a judge decides that Lux isn’t ready for emancipation and unexpectedly grants temporary joint custody to Baze and Cate, they agree to try to get past the awkwardness and make a belated attempt to give Lux the family she deserves.

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