The CW network kicked off its premiere Tuesday night with a one hour special called ‘ET Presents The CW Launch Party’. The special wasn’t so much a party as it was more an obvious attempt by the network to pimp its new line-up with an hour-long series of promotional segments. There were some red-carpet shots of the networks hotties including ‘Smallville’s’ Tom Welling and ‘Veronica Mars’ star Kristen Bell.
Speaking of hotties, the special featured a brief segment on four of the networks best-looking guys. Clips of Pooch Hall from ‘Girlfriends’ spin-off, ‘The Game’, Jared Paladecki and Jensen Ackles from ‘Supernatural’ and Dustin Milligan from ‘Runaway’ were shown. If there’s one thing we can conclude from the segment its that cute boys sometimes have really weird names.
While shows like ‘7th Heaven’, ‘Everybody Hates Chris’, ‘Gilmore Girls’ and ‘Veronica Mars’ all got a fair amount of coverage in the special, it was evident that the network is hoping to draw in viewers with the new season of ‘America’s Next Top Model’, which will premiere Wednesday, September 20th. Along with getting to meet the latest models that will be featured in the new season (oh, sorry – “circuit”) of the show, there was an amusingly pointless series of clips of Tyra Banks in the earlier years of her modeling career.
All in all based on the special, it’s obvious that The CW network will carry on the tradition of its predecessors by catering to the younger demographic. There is something to be said for that. The WB and UPN never got huge ratings and were often overshadowed by the big networks but they did have their place in television if only to allow shows like ‘Smallville’ and ‘Veronica Mars’ to stay on the air for more than one season. Shows that gear towards younger viewers are often cancelled before their time when left in the hands of networks like NBC or ABC. Thanks to The CW, viewers will probably get to watch new episodes of ‘7th Heaven’ until the end of time.
