I ask for non-American/Canadian/UK live-action TV recommendations at the end of this one. Do you have one for me?? The first 500 people to use my link will get a 1 month free trial of Skillshare: skl.sh/captainmidnight06241
Danger 5 is a great Australian parody show. I haven't watched it myself, but I know a lot of people who like Kamen Rider, which seems somewhat on-brand for this channel. Gaim is the most popular but Build is the favorite of everyone I know. Garo is a show similar to Kamen Rider but with more of a focus on martial arts than special effects. I've only seen the most recent iteration but it was neat.
The Newsreader from ABC (A for Australia). It used to be on Roku until they cut costs. It's an amazing 80s period drama about a rising star in the news world.
Someone at work even mentioned that to anyone under 40 when you watch an NFL or NBA Game and they see a promo for a network show all the scripted previews look like Fake Shows you would see in 30 Rock or GTA.
I have no idea a bunch of these were CW shows. We don't have a CW channel here in Brazil, so a bunch of thee shows came via the Sony Channel, WB Channel, even SyFy
Kids WB used to have the best kids animation, The New Adventures of Batman, Superman: The Animated Series, Static Shock, Batman Beyond, The Batman, X-Men: Evolution, Freakazoid, Men in Black, Jackie Chan Adventures, Pokemon, Yugioh, etc.
Man I grew up on cw from watching vampire diaries nikita, supernatural all the superheroes shows and even cartoon block on Saturday vortex. Cw was my childhood
The CW4KIDS & Vortexx were the reasons why I watched the CW . Matter of fact , I still have my private VHS recordings of each episode (can't say for sure about Tai Chi Chasers) in perfect condition & I do watch them on the weekends. Since the decline of the traditional Saturday morning cartoons on that channel , I dropped out of watching the CW completely. But the only things that I did come back for was the surprising Finale of Smallville & some other show I have recorded (can't clarify it it was an episode of Supernatural because I'm not even at my VCR shelf right now) & I guess that was it . Nowadays, I just look at my private VHS recordings of the CW4KIDS & Vortexx . Clarification: I DO have various Yu-Gi-Oh ! 5d's episodes on my tapes & they are the Satisfaction Town towards the WRGP arc 🎉 ! Isn't that amazing ?
I loved Nikita. It was one of the few pre Arrowverse shows that I actually religiously watched and enjoyed every single episode, even the really, really stupid episodes.
It should not go unsaid that another huge shift from the WB to the CW was in its target demographics, specifically a black audience. Who here fondly remembers shows like The Wayans Bros, Sister Sister, The Jamie Foxx Show, etc.?
I do ! I even remember Tia-chan & Tamara-chan (if I got their names right) from Sister Sister singing " Now back to The Animaniacs " on Kids WB . I've seen plenty of early Kids WB bumpers when I was a little girl . Who else remembers the WB & Kids WB ? The good 'ol days of the WB.
@@KR-si3dxI never picked up on the fact that slogan was a pun on be yourself. I thought KidsWB yourself just meant imagine physically being inside the shows that aired or the bumpers with the logo with that ran around the WB movie studio lot.
Missed opportunity to insert a clip from Supergirl with "You look like the attractive, yet non-threatening, racially diverse cast of a CW show" when the Flash did the first crossover.
Just finished the series finale of Walker. Once Superman & Lois concludes its final season, there's nothing left on The CW for me. End of a decade-plus era...
I'm also on the younger side of people that have a love for network TV (in my 30's) so I can relate to what you said. Honestly makes me sad to see the direction that TV has been going in the last few years. I used to always look forward to the upfronts every year for the fall schedule. I watched so so many CW shows. Not all of them great, but they were fun! There was a comfort to knowing that they would be back every fall.
Smallville, Reaper, Supernatural, and Legend of The Seeker were my go tos back in the day.How they decided to fumble Superman & Lois is insane but I guess they don't enjoy making money lol
What was interesting about the CW is that every once in a while they’d put out a show that was super out of the box but also super genuine, Jane the Virgin and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend being the pinnacle of this. Doesn’t really seem like we’ll get much more of that from them anymore, which is a big bummer.
Jared Padalecki has spoken out and is rightfully upset at the degradation of the channel he’s been on since its inception.Walker was consistently the most watched series on the network for its entire run, with a well run production and a comparatively low budget cost, and it was still cancelled. The CW used to be a lower budget network for shows that new writers could cut their teeth on, learn the ropes of the industry, make connections; a lot of popular shows have writers that started on cw shows - but now it’s just a wasteland.
@@DavidMartinez-ce3lp it’s definitely more of a family drama than an genre action like supernatural, and even a departure from the original walker, but it’s a charming series that highlights its whole cast and was beloved by its fandom. the CW did them so so dirty
I feel like what I'd love from network shows that streaming isn't offering that much of our sitcoms. There are a few streaming sitcoms here and there, but they are very far and few between, and also quite short seasons. Sitcoms are cheap and they are the kind of comfort food I feel network television is associated with. While streaming has had great shows, I miss the days of a 20 episode season of HIMYM.
Its probably because that, by their nature, streaming platforms don't really need the episodic series model. When everything is on demand, it doesn't matter if you're busy during broadcast time/miss and episode. People like watching serials on streaming services in their entirety and those have always had shorter seasons, even on broadcast. What I find odd with streaming services is that you could easily have variable run times but (with the exception of a few shows) they still stick to 18-21/37-45 minutes model. Just a question though, have you tried going back and rewatching HIMYM? I don't think its as good as you remember it being.
@@smalltime0Episodic format if you think about it was itself a byproduct of linear television. It was bound to be changed when a new paradigm formed, and streaming is that new paradigm. As for How I Met Your Mother, not an expert on it by any means, but I’ve seen some episodes and clips over the years and always enjoyed it, but to each their own. Though I don’t think that’s really the best example of a network sitcom. While it did air on CBS for nine seasons, it also was fairly serialized by the standards of a 2000’s to early 2010’s network sitcom given that the episodes were building into the broader narrative they were telling. Even then though, the episodes themselves feel like they may have had a more clearly defined beginning and end than some shows seem to on streaming. At least that’s what I think. What do you think?
it feels like the last recent sitcom that i can talk pretty freely about with everyone is The Good Place, and while its a fantastic show (go watch it, again if that applies), i think thats less owed to the fact the show was popular, but due to the fact that it was the next Mike Schur show--if you liked the Office, Parks n Rec, or B99, it was pretty much a guarantee youd watch this one, even tho IMO TGP far outclassed the others. whats really missing is also fresh creators, thats why i personally look out for anything with Ayo Edebiri and Rachel Sennott, or the please dont destroy guys on SNL. comedy will also always be subjective in that regard.
@@smalltime0 did it. it's definitely as good as I remember. Except for the ending, but it's far more enjoyable than modern sitcoms. It's iconic for a reason.
I feel so bad because the new Librarians series is coming to CW in the fall, two of the staff writers are creators I've been following online for a number of years (Sean and Sinead Persaud) and this is their first mainstream show. I want to see it do well for their sake, but with the way CW is right now, I don't know.
Recommendation: *All of Us Are Dead* (from Korea, on Netflix). It's a teen highschool zombie drama, but like, actually good at all of those things. They do new things with zombies and have some really interesting character dynamics. And conveniently, season 2 was just confirmed, so it's a current thing you can feed to the algorithm.
I did watch that show 2 years ago and I loved it. It was the third K-drama I watched on Netflix after Squid Game and Hellbound. I watched both of these shows at the end of 2021. Then I watched Kingdom and Sweet Home on October of the same year I watched All of Us Are Dead. I even recommended it to my older brother on WhatsApp. He texted that he did watch Squid Game when I showed a screenshot of it on WhatsApp, same as my cousin. When it comes to tv dramas on Netflix Korea has no equal. Well, unless you're Japan of course and the one J-drama I watched was Alice in Borderland after I finished watching Squid Game. Even my brother watched that show. I don't know why but I like it when we both like the same show, same as our cousin.
Agreed. It’s also interesting because you can see the evolution of the CW as the TVDU shows progress - TVD came out when the CW was a leader in teen/YA dramas, The Originals came out when the CW was still relevant but starting to wane in popularity during later seasons, and then Legacies came out right before the end of the CW as we know it. Personally, I have mixed feelings about TVD and dropped Legacies in the middle of season 2, but there will always (and forever) be a place in my heart for The Originals. The show had its issues, but I still love it because of the characters and the unique dynamics between them.
I LOVE the USA shows. Monk (the movie was great too!), Royal Pains, The 4400 (the original!), Psych, Burn Notice, White Collar (which is coming back!), Suits (which might come back eventually!), Graceland, Mr. Robot, Pearson (cancelled too soon!), Briarpatch, Chucky, and soon, Resident Alien!
At this point, most linear television channels aren’t what they were a decade ago or longer. Roughly 1992-2008 is perhaps the best variety cable television ever gave us in my opinion. As for the CW, I’m sure their best years are after then, but also in our rear view mirror by several years. They aren’t cable, but they also didn’t exactly behave like broadcast when you break it down.
@@CosmicshamblerI know it’s not cable. But as he said, the CW was kind of a broadcast network by definition, but wasn’t exactly going for the same approach as say CBS, NBC, ABC, or FOX. As for the years where broadcast television was at its best, not sure what I would say.
@@CosmicshamblerAnd as for the CW, I’m sure what people who watched it would call their best years would be after the range I initially typed (it had just formed in 06 after all), but still a number of years behind us.
@@LordWyattFor the record, if you ask me before 1992 cable feels a bit underdeveloped. We don’t see quite as many networks before then. And after the 2007-08 writers guild strike we see a lot of channels using reality TV as a crutch to save money as opposed to experimenting with it in the early to mid part of the 2000’s. I’d also argue that after 08, we see genre specific channels have less diverse lineups, and in the 2010’s a few channels became defined by repeats of one or two shows as opposed to quite a few more. Linear television wasn’t perfect but it was an interesting paradigm when it was around.
Back in the day, early 2000s, Kids WB! was my favorite daily after school animated programming block. So many great shows. Mucha Lucha, Xiaolin Showdown, Static Shock, Freakazoid, and so many more.
They had some iconic shows the DC shows especially the earlier seasons of Arrow and The Flash, The Vampire Diaries, and Gossip Girl. My sister and I used to watch pretty much all of their shows.
Eh, I feel Monk and Royal Pains have stronger chemistry between their duos. Matt Bomer and Mozie basically carry the show in white Collar. And of course there’s Mike and Harvey of Suits.
@@thelinedrive Nah I think Tim DeKay pulls off the hardest job on White Collar when playing Peter. Probably my favourite "straight shooter" performance as his torment over trying to keep Neil on the right side of the law while understanding it's not perfect and not going into absurd "breaking the law himself" territory.
i will still always just take Psych. fantastic light "odd couples" in Shawn and Gus, Shawn and Lassie, Shawn and Jules, and Lassie and Jules, and the crime is never overbearing or bleak, but the show is still able to mine great emotional development from Shawn and his dad, and all the previously mentioned, not to mention the entire rest of the supporting cast is pulling comedic weight.
I'm watching the last season of Superman and Lois and then that's it. It breaks my heart because honestly some of my favorite shows have been on the WB then CW when it transitioned. Those shows were not perfect at all but that seems to be what attracts large fandoms that I spent a lot of time in and really enjoyed. Those shows wouldn't have existed on any other network and I'm sad there won't be a place like the CW for awhile, if ever again. It wasn't a network for everyone but for those who liked it, they were really invested.
As someone who watched the WB back in the nineties, this depresses me, but I understand. Reminds me of when GQ bought G4 (or whatever happened back then) and cancelled all those shows like “X-Play” and “Attack of the Show.” I was gutted then, even though those shows weren’t as much as they used to be when I first started watching in 2005.
The long and short is that the CW was formed because its two founding parent companies (what are now Paramount Global and Warner Brothers Discovery) lost money on UPN and the WB so much, never making much gain on the Big 4 broadcast networks, they decided that they could lose less money by forming a joint venture. And even with the money being made on selling CW shows to Netflix, it wasn't going to last with WBD and Paramount having streaming services of their own. The debt was still piling up so WBD and Paramount bailed out and sold 75% of the company to Nexstar.
So I'm usually not one of those sentimental types; things change, and I'm okay with that. But I really do hope there's some change around the corner with streaming services and we start to see some longer seasons of shows. I don't think I want 22 episode seasons again, but something around 14-16 would be great. I would love to see long form media once again take some time to breathe in a season, give us some episodes to get to know the characters we're supposed to care about on a deeper level. I kinda miss filler episodes.
filler episodes are frowned upon nowadays(could be attention span is ruined) because all they want is story story probably why serialised shows have risen ahead of episodic with some exceptions
@@username.exenotfound2943 the thing is, filler is fun. I always use The X Files as an example, a show I love that even if you haven't seen you've definitely heard of. most of The X Files WAS by definition, filler. most episodes saw the agents investigate a self contained story , with usually around 5 or so (out of 22-24) episodes per season actually leading into the main story mythology. and the funny thing? ask any fan of that show which episodes they prefer and every single one will say the self contained stories. whereas now, TV is so focused on imitating film and people need instant gratification that The X Files probably wouldn't even be greenlit today.
completely agree, and whilst I love many shows with long seasons maybe not exactly 22 episodes, but still longer. it's becoming uncommon these days to find a TV season that extends 8 episodes which is utterly criminal. the point of tv is that it's LONG FORM storytelling.
As someone living in Ireland, the disconnect between Americans and network television is fascinating. While streaming is obviously very popular here too, I feel like far more people pay attention to network than they do in the USA.
As someone who lives in Bangladesh it is also weird that many in my country love the USA's network tv shows more than their expensive streaming shows. My 10 year old sister actually watches animated shows with 15 or more episodes than say the better made animated shows with 8 ish episodes.
I remember when the CW came to be and I would watch Smallville every week religiously. And when Arrow was announced, I was so excited to see if Justin Hartley would be casted. And then it became my biggest disappointment. I couldn't get past three episodes after that.
Smallville is one of those perfect shows you could only get from the early 2000's. Super light and fun, lots of those early 2000's sexy chick shots, it just had a vibe we will probably never see again.
Weren't the Superman and Walker shows doing well? I see cancelling shows that had poor ratings, but why not keep the ones that still had their audience?
What went down was Nextar looked at the data, what viewers were watching the CW, and they saw that the average age for it's viewers was around 58, hence the big pivot from the content they're known for. Though it might've been an oversight/flawed data on their part as they (IIRC) were looking at homes with cable, and the owner of these cable packages is in the 50+ range, and the young adults and teens that would be actually watching the CW would just be watching off their parents cable plan, this skewing the data.
I certainly miss the old CW! I miss stuff like The OC, supernatural, Smallvile and more and I miss the cartoon block of Kids WB. This channel is definitely in a bad situation right now but it’s great to hear people like you make an effort to say what you think they should do or try and promote new ideas for them. Hopefully one day soon we’ll hear they get the green light to do something amazing again but I can always just take a break from it for a while until I hear about something that is really worth my time. Thank you for sharing this information with us!
@@DavidMartinez-ce3lp tbh the entire premise being a masked vigilante to protect your loved ones falls apart if every villain know who you are. By the end of the show he barely uses the mask and outright doesn't use the voice modulator.
CW's height really was DC Comics. No one cares about any thing else. Worst move was benching Flash and Vibe for a bunch of noobs no one heard of and doing two Batwomen both bad. Riverdale was an odd idea too.
For however it is now mocked. The CW successfully connected an entire universe. I’ll never forget reading an article where they were praising DC for dominating TV when it came to superheroes!
Riverdale had potential but the writers or directors really lost their minds by season 4. I was hooked from the first season but it just grew more and more ridiculous like the cult or Betty’s fake brother and on and on
As for foreign TV show recs (your mileage may vary if you’ll be able to find these on UA-cam or a streamer with English subs or something), The Cook of Castamar (really good Spanish costume drama that might just be a 1-season limited series. This was on Netflix, but I’m not sure if it’s available in more countries). Secrets of the Nile (AKA “Gran Hotel”. This is an Egyptian series that’s only 30 eps, and it has so much intrigue and some great acting. This was on Netflix, but only in the MENA region for a limited time. I think I saw some eps on UA-cam, but no English subtitles). Midnight at the Pera Palace (This one might still be on Netflix, and it’s an interesting Turkish series if you like time travel stories. This is an ongoing series). Bandidos (A Mexican series that’s kinda like Ocean’s Eleven meets National Treasure. It’s not perfect, but it’s got a decent vibe. This is an ongoing series). Squid Game (need I say more?).
8 episode seasons are definitely too short but 20-24 is way too long for most shows over 30 minutes. For episodic shows it could work but for serialized shows 10-16 is a perfect range. This is all my opinion though
@@brettbrooks5511 I want Star Trek to have 15-18 episode seasons. The 25-ep seasons old TNG had are unsustainable with modern production value, but Trek works best when the seasons are long enough for some episodes to be small.
Intro to Australian network TV --Sitcom-- Upper Middle Bogan A Moody Christmas / The Moodys Kath and Kim --Comedy/Drama-- Rake Rosehaven Mr Inbetween --Satire-- Frontline Utopia We Can Be Heroes Summer Heights High --Drama-- Harrow Cleverman The Cry Underbelly (s01) - other seasons are hit and miss Boy Swallows Universe --Kids TV-- Bluey The Curiosity Show (its ancient now, but still pretty excellent)
I think in the US "Upper Middle Bogan" is called "Bess of Both Worlds." Most Americans don't know what a Bogan is. I also really liked the comedy "The Librarians." Both could be found on Hulu a few years back. Not sure if that's still the case.
I actually think that this could be an outstanding long-term play. So long as these shows can get at least 40 episodes, I can see any of these types of scripted shows living long lives on streaming services like Netflix or even Tubi.
I was just reminiscing about how old tv could have 22 episodes to a season and how half of them could be contained stories that wrap up in 24 minutes. I miss filler episodes. But that's 90's television when the economy had money growing on trees. Now with the cost of living crisis, every penny is pinched in half.
My favorite was the one episode of Everwood I was in. A temp service asked me to do some extra background. And in short scene before opening theme and title played i saw my self in background behind main characters. It was a blink a miss it moment but WB/ CW were responsible for my one time on TV.
This is interesting. I'm curious if you've watched the Dropout streamer? They kind of arrived at somewhat similar ideas as far moving away from scripted content and now focus entirely on low budget shows, with one of their biggest ones being a game show. Stylistically the two are night and day, with Dropout being almost entirely improv comedies. The two are almost yin and yang, with the CW going for an older, cable audience and Dropout going for a younger, streaming audience.
As someone who watched Riverdale for it's entire run (look I had my reasons), it really was odd to see the transition from other teen dramas airing around it plus some more niche comedy to just sports. It was truly sad when my local affiliate Pix 11 stopped airing Whose Line Is It Anyway reruns after Riverdale and just aired some sport I don't care about.
Around Season 9 or 10 of Supernatural (around 2013 or 2014) is when I checked out and stopped paying attention. This is around when the "Flash" TV series launched and I could tell the "Arrowverse" was becoming their focus. "Vampire Diaries" was winding down, and they were airing stuff like "Jane the Virgin". It was a strange time period and i was pretty well done with it.
All American actually received an extended sixth season, running for 15 epiisodes instead of 13, and was also renewed for a seventh season (although the caveat is that the lead actor is leaving after the sixth season wraps).
To be honest, Bufy, Supernatural, Veronica Mars, Gossip Girl, The Vampire Diaries, Arrowverse... they all are way more better than %90 of the streaming shows. I miss network tv.
Huh. I haven't watched broadcast TV in over a year (the writer and actor's strike threw a wrench in the shows I had been watching), so I had no idea this was going on with The CW. I hadn't been interested in any of their shows in a bit, but I always looked at what new shows they were coming out with every fall since they definitely had a brand (supernatural YA) and it was one I liked I don't know where TV is going to go nowadays. I'm in my thirties and can't imagine myself buying cable. I have an antenna I pick up broadcast TV on, but I don't watch it much. There's too many streaming services, so I don't have any of those either, save Amazon - which I have for the shipping, with the video just being a nice perk. I find myself these days just rewatching TV shows I own on DVD and blu-ray, or watching free streamers like Tubi
On the subject of the changes American TV is currently going through, and my likes and dislikes about what is happening with it can honestly be boiled down to my feelings about my recent forays back into Star Trek: I grew up watching the original Star Trek and Star Trek TNG with my parent, alongside various other network TV shows. Long story short, as a pre-teen and teenager it was never my thing, so I stopped watching midway through TNG. Recently, I watched Star Trek DS9, Lower Decks, and Discovery so that I could engage with my gf on the subject of Star Trek. I really enjoyed DS9 and absolutely ADORE Lower Decks, but I did not really enjoy Discovery on the whole, and I realized why. There are a few things that I tend to gravitate towards when I am watching TV now: Does the show tell a tight story overall, are the characters compelling/do they get good development, and does the show deserve the time it takes to watch each episode. I am a big fan of a show where the writers KNEW the story they wanted to tell, told it, and then the show ended (Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Newsroom, etc.). I am also a big fan of shows that tell a good story in a relatively short run time (see many anime, Lower Decks, 90s animated Redwall, etc.) And I am a big fan of shows who make you feel like the characters are living incredibly rich lives outside of what is being seen on screen (DS9). My main problem with Star Trek Discovery, is I broadly felt that it failed to do any of the above things. It felt like the show didn't know the story it really wanted to tell. Each episode spent an hour going from place to place and spouting a lot of sci-fi jargon, but didn't tell much of a story, which made me feel that the episodes did not deserve their run time. And ironically, the seasons did not have enough episodes to delve into the lives of their recurring cast beyond the 3-4 MAIN characters. DS9 was a long show, and there were a number of times when I felt certain episodes could have been cut, but no matter what was happening in an episode, there were always moments throughout where I felt that the characters were interacting with each other off-screen, which helped endear me to the cast as a whole and by extension the overall story being told. Similarly, each episode of Lower Decks has a 20-30 minute runtime, but uses every second on screen to the fullest. All this to say, that while the shows on the CW FREQUENTLY needed to see a stricter editor, I do miss many shows where the writers had enough time to tell the story they wanted to tell and develop their characters appropriately. I've been really impressed with Superman and Lois and I am a little sad to see it end somewhat prematurely, but I am also hoping that it getting cut off means that it won't jump the shark so aggressively that I can no longer recommend it to my friends.
I was thinking about this I think last summer or fall! I legit was thinking about making a video called like "My mom watches the CW now" or something like that discussing it, which came about from when she was going through the shows she records and I realized they were on the CW. I was like wait what happened here? The commercials for their other shows felt so off from what I knew in my childhood and then teen years.
It's sad seeing the CW go downhill it gave me great memories of waking up on Saturday/Sunday and watching Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh, Dinosaur King and Sonic on CW 4kids. It's even the Reason I got into Kamen Rider when they aired Kamen Rider Dragon Knight and I watched it
I primarily consumed cable content while living at home with my family up until recently in Canada, and so most of my understanding of American cable stuff comes from videos like this. So I just thought I'd let you know that I was a background extra for basically every show you mentioned getting cancelled that was filmed in Canada. And when everything got canceled the industry here definitely felt it. I have a soft spot for cable and considering what a disaster streaming has been I really don't want to see classic TV go anywhere.
Former Nexstar employee here. Worked for one of the stations. Sat in a meeting when we were told about all of the new shows coming, where not only did they want to focus on building a sports brand but got rid of all of the superhero shows because “who really likes those shows, anyway?” (Yes that’s a direct quote.) Nexstar is an insanely incompetent company and is going to bring about their own downfall.
I have honestly never cared about anything about the WB... But I love Captain Midnight and as always this video was well thought out, informative and entertaining. Thank you for your work!!!
It'll be interesting to see what happens to network TV in general. It just feels like every channel is slowly dying. They are aiming for older audiences that don't mind sitting through live broadcasts with commercials, but older audiences is also a shrinking demographic. The younger people who have gotten used to streaming likely aren't going to switch to network tv in their older years.
All of us are dead, K drama on Netflix, kind of a weird mix of a highschool drama/zombie apocalypse, I like it cause one minute two characters are fighting over their friendship or something very highschool drama-esk, and the next one of them is dead and it stops mattering to the plot lol
Vincenzo!!! If you're into romcoms It's Okay to Not be Okay. I haven't seen Queen of Tears (romcom 0 or Save Me (thriller involving a cult) but I've heard good things.
Broadcast TV has one big advantage over streaming: bandwidth-efficiency. With streaming, the bandwidth requirements scale with the number of simultaneous viewers. With broadcasting, the bandwidth requirements are constant, regardless of how many viewers there are. The catch is that there isn't a lot of content that's a good fit for those characteristics. Something that lots of people will want to watch at the same time, and in sync. Which means live content. Not exactly a lot of options for that. Basically just news and sports. Anything that's pre-recorded is a better fit for streaming or downloading. A broadcaster taking on more sports is just optimising for the medium's strengths.
As someone who never watched CW programming (other than the syndicated shows the UHF affiliate regularly aired), I channel hopped to it a few months ago as one watches a train wreck just to see the damage. And it was utterly depressing and had to turn my head away. However, most recently, they finally introduced some programming that piqued my interest--a docu-series that highlights famous people--"I am Evel" and "I am Bruce Le" are two of the most interesting (to me) programs I've seen in a long time, and actually brought me to watch CW for the first time
I noticed a lot of CBC shows on CW: Coroner, Burden of Truth, Moonshine, Wild Cards.... and I'm like-- yay! Canadian shows getting shown in the U.S. Right on!
The WB imports content from Canada? As a Canadian that has been HUGELY cynical of the creative output coming from my country, this completely aligns with my expectation.
They are not new shows, nowere near it, but Argentina has two amazing shows: Los Simuladores (a procedural about a group of people who create pretend scenarios to solve any sort of problem, from making your ex fall in love with you, to rescuing people from jail, to helping a kid pass several exams) and Okupas (a hang out mini series about four lower class twenty something guys)
An old guy who use to watch cartoons on those former CW affiliates is now looking at the kids who use to watch 'Vampire Diaries', and is saying to them, 'first time?'
I remember when it was The WB. I only watched it for Kids WB as a kid and I wasn't quite old enough to care for the other shows. It is a bummer cause it used to be a good network for kids and even young adults and adults.
Can't recommend the Australian series Utopia highly enough, a workplace comedy that is very different from stuff like The Office (which is ironic considering we are getting an Australian version of it very soon) Also watched the k-drama Queen of Tears, and it was perfect
Great essay! As an old-school (or just old!!! LOL) fan of WB/UPN and the classic CW, your words of appreciation are welcome. I do think scripted 1-camera shows will eventually all go away to either bigger over the air networks, or streaming. As for what shows from overseas..... One SK show I loved was Extraordinary Attorney Woo. If you like shows about people with autism spectrum, this show is very well done, IMHO. An adventure show is Uncanny Counter. I'll save space and say if you like concepts where a band of friends fight evil/monsters/etc, then have a blast!! Both are on Netflix. And I actually do listen to the Netflix English dub. It's not perfect, but I can keep my eyes on the actor's eyes/facial expression.
I left broadcast and cable tv a long time ago now... and I never bother with sports or 'reality tv' or American 'celebrity tv' shows that are out on streaming. I love Canadian, UK, Australian and New Zealand shows I can watch via Acorn or Netflix.. as well as recent materials I've watched from South Africa and Spain and some Asian Shows (so long as there are dubs as I can't do captioning with my eyesight). My problem is that there are a lot of 'one story a year in 6 episodes' stuff out there from these sources, sometimes with a year or two or three between seasons and stories!
I really enjoyed the Korean drama “Moving” on Disney Plus. I don’t usually watch Korean dramas but this one really hooked me. Would love to hear your opinion on it.
An aussie show I found on Amazon is Class of 07. It's basically a school reunion meets female-centric Water World. Funny but does the serious stuff well! Think there's only one season at the moment
I never watched CW until Arrow went to series. I watched most of the Arrowverse and the occasional episode of Supernatural but that was about it. When CW changed regimes, the showrunners/executive producers of shows were given notice and most chose to go with cliffhanger endings instead of wrapping up their shows so technically, the CW isn't to blame for that. I think WWE NXT is the only thing I'll be watching moving forward. There's rumors NWA wrestling might also move from the app to the channel, if that's true I'll watch that too but that's about it
As a person who has watched a lot of Korean Dramas Here are some recommendations: Ventizio, While You Are Sleeping, Guardian: The Lonely and Great God (often people just call it Globin), True beauty.
I can admit Prestige TV has spoiled me but I hate paying for tv and miss appointment, linear, 8/7c, network tv. The last network show i really loved was Will Forte's The Last Man on Earth. Before that Heroes and The Sarah Connor Chronicles.
I just don't really watch modern shows/movies because i don't trust modern writers to deliver a good product after years of crap. I've just kind of given up on new shows. Love revisiting old shows and watching re-runs instead.
Hey that’s what I do too, there’s only one new US show I like Leverage Redemption.waiting for season 3 I’m also rewatching “The Librarians” .Though I mostly watch Asian dramas
Blue Sky programming has some of my favorite older shows! Psych, Monk, Burn Notice! I hope they can capture the magic and produce some more great television.
It’s wild to me but it’s definitely not a surprise. Networks were going to rise or fall as streaming became more and more popular. Hell streaming services are slowly becoming more and more expensive to have as time goes on so who knows what the future holds. However, it is sad to me to see what happened to the CW. My teen years were consumed by the CW. Supernatural and the early seasons of the Vampire Diaries and The Originals were my favorite shows and I remember my friends and I getting excited about the Arrow and the DC comics era of the CW. But hey maybe it’ll work out… and I’m sure these shows will be on Netflix in the future… hopefully they don’t keep trying to make Seed a thing.
you should do a comparison of competition Shows between the US and UK. How the UK Competition shows are mainly kind hearted and undramatized vs the US way of dramatization and rudeness between competitors. There are countless examples and you probably know of the most US Panel shows, so check out some from the UK: British Bake Off, Sewing Bee, Pottery Throw Down. Another idea and current example: Even though The Office has always been used to show the differences between UK Humor and US Humor, I think the current show "The Traitors" shows the differences even better. Watch the first season of the UK version and then the US version, it's amazing how the same concept can land so differently.
@@Code7UnltdWhichever he named his channel after. Either way I’d be curious to hear what he thinks of what he named his channel after, and why he picked the name.
I ask for non-American/Canadian/UK live-action TV recommendations at the end of this one. Do you have one for me??
The first 500 people to use my link will get a 1 month free trial of Skillshare: skl.sh/captainmidnight06241
El Chavo Del Ocho.
Heidi: Bienvenida A Casa.
La Familia P. Luche.
Danger 5 is a great Australian parody show.
I haven't watched it myself, but I know a lot of people who like Kamen Rider, which seems somewhat on-brand for this channel. Gaim is the most popular but Build is the favorite of everyone I know.
Garo is a show similar to Kamen Rider but with more of a focus on martial arts than special effects. I've only seen the most recent iteration but it was neat.
For South Korean shows: Extraordinary Attorney Woo, Hospital Playlist, Mr. Queen, Itaewon Class (most Netflix ones are pretty good)
The Newsreader from ABC (A for Australia). It used to be on Roku until they cut costs. It's an amazing 80s period drama about a rising star in the news world.
Upright. Short and sweet Aussie comedy
The fact that I had no idea about this shows how disconnected I've become from network TV.
This is why I don't have A cable box, or an antenna.
I still use network TV and man it feels like a ghost town these days
Someone at work even mentioned that to anyone under 40 when you watch an NFL or NBA Game and they see a promo for a network show all the scripted previews look like Fake Shows you would see in 30 Rock or GTA.
I have no idea a bunch of these were CW shows. We don't have a CW channel here in Brazil, so a bunch of thee shows came via the Sony Channel, WB Channel, even SyFy
Kids WB used to have the best kids animation, The New Adventures of Batman, Superman: The Animated Series, Static Shock, Batman Beyond, The Batman, X-Men: Evolution, Freakazoid, Men in Black, Jackie Chan Adventures, Pokemon, Yugioh, etc.
And Fox Kids and ABC Kids. I miss those days. I'll add What's New Scooby Doo and Xaiolin Showdown and Ozzy and Drix to the list.
@@nicklundy9965I like going here on UA-cam and watching those streams of hours of content aired on those networks.
They were my childhood😂😔
Me tv toons has all the old cartoons on it now i like the mask cartoon
Yess i miss it
Man I grew up on cw from watching vampire diaries nikita, supernatural all the superheroes shows and even cartoon block on Saturday vortex. Cw was my childhood
The CW4KIDS & Vortexx were the reasons why I watched the CW . Matter of fact , I still have my private VHS recordings of each episode (can't say for sure about Tai Chi Chasers) in perfect condition & I do watch them on the weekends. Since the decline of the traditional Saturday morning cartoons on that channel , I dropped out of watching the CW completely. But the only things that I did come back for was the surprising Finale of Smallville & some other show I have recorded (can't clarify it it was an episode of Supernatural because I'm not even at my VCR shelf right now) & I guess that was it . Nowadays, I just look at my private VHS recordings of the CW4KIDS & Vortexx . Clarification: I DO have various Yu-Gi-Oh ! 5d's episodes on my tapes & they are the Satisfaction Town towards the WRGP arc 🎉 ! Isn't that amazing ?
I loved Nikita. It was one of the few pre Arrowverse shows that I actually religiously watched and enjoyed every single episode, even the really, really stupid episodes.
It should not go unsaid that another huge shift from the WB to the CW was in its target demographics, specifically a black audience. Who here fondly remembers shows like The Wayans Bros, Sister Sister, The Jamie Foxx Show, etc.?
I do ! I even remember Tia-chan & Tamara-chan (if I got their names right) from Sister Sister singing " Now back to The Animaniacs " on Kids WB . I've seen plenty of early Kids WB bumpers when I was a little girl . Who else remembers the WB & Kids WB ? The good 'ol days of the WB.
And also the lineup from the UPN
I remember watching the very night they launched the WB as a station.
Static shock
💁🏿♂That's the UPN I used to love.
I miss when it was The WB
There was the WB, and UPN, and I think they merged in 2006.
Me too
KIDS W BE YOURSELF
WB was an amazing channel back in the 90s and early 2000s
@@KR-si3dxI never picked up on the fact that slogan was a pun on be yourself. I thought KidsWB yourself just meant imagine physically being inside the shows that aired or the bumpers with the logo with that ran around the WB movie studio lot.
There's a big reason as to why "CW Writing" became a term that was used for mockery.
Missed opportunity to insert a clip from Supergirl with "You look like the attractive, yet non-threatening, racially diverse cast of a CW show" when the Flash did the first crossover.
@@Fribee83 Somehow that's less embarrassing than Velmas writing.
The epic highs and lows of high school football
@@claytonrios1 Velma was never even meant to be Scooby Doo. It was meant to be a Mindy Kaling animated series originally.
@@Sorrowdusk But it just had to be connected to a big franchise...
Just finished the series finale of Walker. Once Superman & Lois concludes its final season, there's nothing left on The CW for me. End of a decade-plus era...
same here... it's wild to me that just a few years ago i was watching like 15 cw shows a year
just keep in mind that the CW has literally never turned a profit
Superman & Lois is getting another season on Max.
@@dsnein That can't be true?
@@movieclipsvideos1781no it will be on CW and then eventually go to Max.
The Buffy/Angel/Supernatural Era was peak.
Too much Whedon-speak.
Buffy was waaay before supernatural. Two different eras really.
Definitely 2 different eras but I got what you meant! Good times
Supernatural? That era was like a decade lol
@@nate6045 its wild that its as old as it is ('97, movie '92)
I'm also on the younger side of people that have a love for network TV (in my 30's) so I can relate to what you said. Honestly makes me sad to see the direction that TV has been going in the last few years. I used to always look forward to the upfronts every year for the fall schedule. I watched so so many CW shows. Not all of them great, but they were fun! There was a comfort to knowing that they would be back every fall.
Remember Reaper?
@@Mick_Chicken I do! I liked it.
Honestly, the decline of TV has been more than just a few years. It's decades by this point.
Trust me, if the radio is still thriving, linear TV will thrive too!!
Smallville, Reaper, Supernatural, and Legend of The Seeker were my go tos back in the day.How they decided to fumble Superman & Lois is insane but I guess they don't enjoy making money lol
I forgot about Reaper, great show
Legend of the Seeker was my favorite. I was so mad it got canceled. Me and ma use to watch it every week - it's the only show we could agree on!
Reaper was SUCH A GREAT SHOW! Glad someone else remembers that little gem
What was interesting about the CW is that every once in a while they’d put out a show that was super out of the box but also super genuine, Jane the Virgin and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend being the pinnacle of this. Doesn’t really seem like we’ll get much more of that from them anymore, which is a big bummer.
As a huge CXG fan, I feel even luckier we got our show prior to this era.
Izombie too!
Jared Padalecki has spoken out and is rightfully upset at the degradation of the channel he’s been on since its inception.Walker was consistently the most watched series on the network for its entire run, with a well run production and a comparatively low budget cost, and it was still cancelled. The CW used to be a lower budget network for shows that new writers could cut their teeth on, learn the ropes of the industry, make connections; a lot of popular shows have writers that started on cw shows - but now it’s just a wasteland.
I refused to watch Walker because I thought it would be just like all their modern shows. Still haven't seen it.
@@DavidMartinez-ce3lp it’s definitely more of a family drama than an genre action like supernatural, and even a departure from the original walker, but it’s a charming series that highlights its whole cast and was beloved by its fandom. the CW did them so so dirty
New owners want to make it a sports channel which is sad.
@jaydee6825 would you say the writing is better and less soap opera-y?
@Dru2037 NGL, I did enjoy the ACC Sports they aired this year.
I feel like what I'd love from network shows that streaming isn't offering that much of our sitcoms. There are a few streaming sitcoms here and there, but they are very far and few between, and also quite short seasons. Sitcoms are cheap and they are the kind of comfort food I feel network television is associated with. While streaming has had great shows, I miss the days of a 20 episode season of HIMYM.
Honestly, the sitcoms coming out today feel so bland and boring. They all feel so interchangeable. Nothing like HIMYM or any of the other classics.
Its probably because that, by their nature, streaming platforms don't really need the episodic series model. When everything is on demand, it doesn't matter if you're busy during broadcast time/miss and episode.
People like watching serials on streaming services in their entirety and those have always had shorter seasons, even on broadcast.
What I find odd with streaming services is that you could easily have variable run times but (with the exception of a few shows) they still stick to 18-21/37-45 minutes model.
Just a question though, have you tried going back and rewatching HIMYM? I don't think its as good as you remember it being.
@@smalltime0Episodic format if you think about it was itself a byproduct of linear television.
It was bound to be changed when a new paradigm formed, and streaming is that new paradigm.
As for How I Met Your Mother, not an expert on it by any means, but I’ve seen some episodes and clips over the years and always enjoyed it, but to each their own.
Though I don’t think that’s really the best example of a network sitcom. While it did air on CBS for nine seasons, it also was fairly serialized by the standards of a 2000’s to early 2010’s network sitcom given that the episodes were building into the broader narrative they were telling.
Even then though, the episodes themselves feel like they may have had a more clearly defined beginning and end than some shows seem to on streaming.
At least that’s what I think. What do you think?
it feels like the last recent sitcom that i can talk pretty freely about with everyone is The Good Place, and while its a fantastic show (go watch it, again if that applies), i think thats less owed to the fact the show was popular, but due to the fact that it was the next Mike Schur show--if you liked the Office, Parks n Rec, or B99, it was pretty much a guarantee youd watch this one, even tho IMO TGP far outclassed the others. whats really missing is also fresh creators, thats why i personally look out for anything with Ayo Edebiri and Rachel Sennott, or the please dont destroy guys on SNL. comedy will also always be subjective in that regard.
@@smalltime0 did it. it's definitely as good as I remember. Except for the ending, but it's far more enjoyable than modern sitcoms. It's iconic for a reason.
I feel so bad because the new Librarians series is coming to CW in the fall, two of the staff writers are creators I've been following online for a number of years (Sean and Sinead Persaud) and this is their first mainstream show. I want to see it do well for their sake, but with the way CW is right now, I don't know.
Thank you for your channel, it's really a comfort channel to me!
Recommendation: *All of Us Are Dead* (from Korea, on Netflix). It's a teen highschool zombie drama, but like, actually good at all of those things. They do new things with zombies and have some really interesting character dynamics. And conveniently, season 2 was just confirmed, so it's a current thing you can feed to the algorithm.
I did watch that show 2 years ago and I loved it. It was the third K-drama I watched on Netflix after Squid Game and Hellbound. I watched both of these shows at the end of 2021. Then I watched Kingdom and Sweet Home on October of the same year I watched All of Us Are Dead. I even recommended it to my older brother on WhatsApp. He texted that he did watch Squid Game when I showed a screenshot of it on WhatsApp, same as my cousin. When it comes to tv dramas on Netflix Korea has no equal. Well, unless you're Japan of course and the one J-drama I watched was Alice in Borderland after I finished watching Squid Game. Even my brother watched that show. I don't know why but I like it when we both like the same show, same as our cousin.
I will forever be a Vampire Diaries universe fan. Sad to see the CW's downfall. Makes me feel... old.
Agreed. It’s also interesting because you can see the evolution of the CW as the TVDU shows progress - TVD came out when the CW was a leader in teen/YA dramas, The Originals came out when the CW was still relevant but starting to wane in popularity during later seasons, and then Legacies came out right before the end of the CW as we know it.
Personally, I have mixed feelings about TVD and dropped Legacies in the middle of season 2, but there will always (and forever) be a place in my heart for The Originals. The show had its issues, but I still love it because of the characters and the unique dynamics between them.
@@ban_ana_bread The Originals had the best writing of all of them.
I LOVE the USA shows. Monk (the movie was great too!), Royal Pains, The 4400 (the original!), Psych, Burn Notice, White Collar (which is coming back!), Suits (which might come back eventually!), Graceland, Mr. Robot, Pearson (cancelled too soon!), Briarpatch, Chucky, and soon, Resident Alien!
White Collar is coming BACK!? BE STILL MY BEATING HEART!!!
Isn't Resident Alien a Syfy show?
@@DavidMartinez-ce3lp Season 3 was the last season on Syfy. Starting in season 4, it will be on USA
@@TheRovingPunster oh
At this point, most linear television channels aren’t what they were a decade ago or longer.
Roughly 1992-2008 is perhaps the best variety cable television ever gave us in my opinion.
As for the CW, I’m sure their best years are after then, but also in our rear view mirror by several years. They aren’t cable, but they also didn’t exactly behave like broadcast when you break it down.
Cw isnt cable
@@CosmicshamblerI know it’s not cable.
But as he said, the CW was kind of a broadcast network by definition, but wasn’t exactly going for the same approach as say CBS, NBC, ABC, or FOX.
As for the years where broadcast television was at its best, not sure what I would say.
@@CosmicshamblerAnd as for the CW, I’m sure what people who watched it would call their best years would be after the range I initially typed (it had just formed in 06 after all), but still a number of years behind us.
Well said. It became more and more obvious after 2009, 15 years ago
@@LordWyattFor the record, if you ask me before 1992 cable feels a bit underdeveloped.
We don’t see quite as many networks before then.
And after the 2007-08 writers guild strike we see a lot of channels using reality TV as a crutch to save money as opposed to experimenting with it in the early to mid part of the 2000’s.
I’d also argue that after 08, we see genre specific channels have less diverse lineups, and in the 2010’s a few channels became defined by repeats of one or two shows as opposed to quite a few more.
Linear television wasn’t perfect but it was an interesting paradigm when it was around.
Back in the day, early 2000s, Kids WB! was my favorite daily after school animated programming block. So many great shows. Mucha Lucha, Xiaolin Showdown, Static Shock, Freakazoid, and so many more.
Yu-Gi-Oh.
Road Rovers. 🏎🐶
X Men Evolution
Pokémon
The Batman (2004)
Batman beyond
They had some iconic shows the DC shows especially the earlier seasons of Arrow and The Flash, The Vampire Diaries, and Gossip Girl. My sister and I used to watch pretty much all of their shows.
“It’s basically White Collar”
Ok, might give this a try given White Collar is probably the best “odd couple” light procedural show ever made.
Eh, I feel Monk and Royal Pains have stronger chemistry between their duos. Matt Bomer and Mozie basically carry the show in white Collar.
And of course there’s Mike and Harvey of Suits.
@@thelinedrive Nah I think Tim DeKay pulls off the hardest job on White Collar when playing Peter.
Probably my favourite "straight shooter" performance as his torment over trying to keep Neil on the right side of the law while understanding it's not perfect and not going into absurd "breaking the law himself" territory.
i will still always just take Psych. fantastic light "odd couples" in Shawn and Gus, Shawn and Lassie, Shawn and Jules, and Lassie and Jules, and the crime is never overbearing or bleak, but the show is still able to mine great emotional development from Shawn and his dad, and all the previously mentioned, not to mention the entire rest of the supporting cast is pulling comedic weight.
It's not Suits. Its more like 1-800 Missing & Wild Card (2003) in writing, style-"family" content.
@@quinnmarchese6313 Definitely the best one. Chuck is a good one too!
I'm watching the last season of Superman and Lois and then that's it. It breaks my heart because honestly some of my favorite shows have been on the WB then CW when it transitioned. Those shows were not perfect at all but that seems to be what attracts large fandoms that I spent a lot of time in and really enjoyed. Those shows wouldn't have existed on any other network and I'm sad there won't be a place like the CW for awhile, if ever again. It wasn't a network for everyone but for those who liked it, they were really invested.
As someone who watched the WB back in the nineties, this depresses me, but I understand. Reminds me of when GQ bought G4 (or whatever happened back then) and cancelled all those shows like “X-Play” and “Attack of the Show.” I was gutted then, even though those shows weren’t as much as they used to be when I first started watching in 2005.
I'd say the ending of the WB channel was more depressing. The CW was never really that good especially compared to when it was the WB.
The long and short is that the CW was formed because its two founding parent companies (what are now Paramount Global and Warner Brothers Discovery) lost money on UPN and the WB so much, never making much gain on the Big 4 broadcast networks, they decided that they could lose less money by forming a joint venture. And even with the money being made on selling CW shows to Netflix, it wasn't going to last with WBD and Paramount having streaming services of their own. The debt was still piling up so WBD and Paramount bailed out and sold 75% of the company to Nexstar.
So I'm usually not one of those sentimental types; things change, and I'm okay with that. But I really do hope there's some change around the corner with streaming services and we start to see some longer seasons of shows. I don't think I want 22 episode seasons again, but something around 14-16 would be great. I would love to see long form media once again take some time to breathe in a season, give us some episodes to get to know the characters we're supposed to care about on a deeper level. I kinda miss filler episodes.
filler episodes are frowned upon nowadays(could be attention span is ruined) because all they want is story story probably why serialised shows have risen ahead of episodic with some exceptions
@@username.exenotfound2943 the thing is, filler is fun. I always use The X Files as an example, a show I love that even if you haven't seen you've definitely heard of. most of The X Files WAS by definition, filler. most episodes saw the agents investigate a self contained story , with usually around 5 or so (out of 22-24) episodes per season actually leading into the main story mythology. and the funny thing? ask any fan of that show which episodes they prefer and every single one will say the self contained stories. whereas now, TV is so focused on imitating film and people need instant gratification that The X Files probably wouldn't even be greenlit today.
completely agree, and whilst I love many shows with long seasons maybe not exactly 22 episodes, but still longer. it's becoming uncommon these days to find a TV season that extends 8 episodes which is utterly criminal. the point of tv is that it's LONG FORM storytelling.
I am still pissed off and angry that my favorite show Superman and Lois is ending for garbage but that’s is just my opinion.
You can't have your own opinion. I hereby strip you of any and all ability to have an opinion. It is done.
@@DavidMartinez-ce3lp okay?
Didn't they kill Close Enough for Velma?
@@AndrewDasilvaPLT I have no idea
@@TevyaSmolka alright
As someone living in Ireland, the disconnect between Americans and network television is fascinating. While streaming is obviously very popular here too, I feel like far more people pay attention to network than they do in the USA.
As someone who lives in Bangladesh it is also weird that many in my country love the USA's network tv shows more than their expensive streaming shows. My 10 year old sister actually watches animated shows with 15 or more episodes than say the better made animated shows with 8 ish episodes.
@kazinadbiralamadit6905 do you find any of them interesting
I remember when the CW came to be and I would watch Smallville every week religiously. And when Arrow was announced, I was so excited to see if Justin Hartley would be casted. And then it became my biggest disappointment. I couldn't get past three episodes after that.
Yeah, I could never get into Arrow. Flash was OK, but I would've preferred a good movie over 9 crappy seasons
Smallville is one of those perfect shows you could only get from the early 2000's. Super light and fun, lots of those early 2000's sexy chick shots, it just had a vibe we will probably never see again.
Weren't the Superman and Walker shows doing well? I see cancelling shows that had poor ratings, but why not keep the ones that still had their audience?
Yes they are the top rated shows, so good question.
they were the highest rated shows on the network
Exactly.
What went down was Nextar looked at the data, what viewers were watching the CW, and they saw that the average age for it's viewers was around 58, hence the big pivot from the content they're known for. Though it might've been an oversight/flawed data on their part as they (IIRC) were looking at homes with cable, and the owner of these cable packages is in the 50+ range, and the young adults and teens that would be actually watching the CW would just be watching off their parents cable plan, this skewing the data.
I really love the CW lolz. At least, I used to. They don't seem to do any cool sci-fi or comic book stuff any more? After the sale.
Shogun and Banshee are amazing if you haven't seen them yet
Love them both!
I certainly miss the old CW! I miss stuff like The OC, supernatural, Smallvile and more and I miss the cartoon block of Kids WB. This channel is definitely in a bad situation right now but it’s great to hear people like you make an effort to say what you think they should do or try and promote new ideas for them. Hopefully one day soon we’ll hear they get the green light to do something amazing again but I can always just take a break from it for a while until I hear about something that is really worth my time. Thank you for sharing this information with us!
The only thing I remembered from CW back in the day was the Flash
Same
The mad goose wizard
"We are the Flash." Man that show went downhill
@@DavidMartinez-ce3lp tbh the entire premise being a masked vigilante to protect your loved ones falls apart if every villain know who you are. By the end of the show he barely uses the mask and outright doesn't use the voice modulator.
@smalltime0 yeah, and honestly the team aspect made Barry seem like an idiot who couldn't think for himself without the team in his ear
THERE WAS A 4400 REBOOT?! Sucks to find that out simultaneously with its cancellation.
It wasn't good
Literally my same reaction 😂 I even had to rewind it rq to make sure
It was bad.
I actually liked the reboot.
CW's height really was DC Comics. No one cares about any thing else. Worst move was benching Flash and Vibe for a bunch of noobs no one heard of and doing two Batwomen both bad. Riverdale was an odd idea too.
Wrong. It was popular for supernatural, and the vampire dramas too.
For however it is now mocked. The CW successfully connected an entire universe.
I’ll never forget reading an article where they were praising DC for dominating TV when it came to superheroes!
Riverdale had potential but the writers or directors really lost their minds by season 4. I was hooked from the first season but it just grew more and more ridiculous like the cult or Betty’s fake brother and on and on
I personally remember CW Vortex Saturday morning cartoons on channel 12
I remember 4Kids
@@wotintarnation8388 there's a lot good and bad when I comes to 24kids
@wotintarnation8388 loved 4Kids
Mine was on channel 11
@@wotintarnation8388they're remember for Good and bad
As for foreign TV show recs (your mileage may vary if you’ll be able to find these on UA-cam or a streamer with English subs or something),
The Cook of Castamar (really good Spanish costume drama that might just be a 1-season limited series. This was on Netflix, but I’m not sure if it’s available in more countries).
Secrets of the Nile (AKA “Gran Hotel”. This is an Egyptian series that’s only 30 eps, and it has so much intrigue and some great acting. This was on Netflix, but only in the MENA region for a limited time. I think I saw some eps on UA-cam, but no English subtitles).
Midnight at the Pera Palace (This one might still be on Netflix, and it’s an interesting Turkish series if you like time travel stories. This is an ongoing series).
Bandidos (A Mexican series that’s kinda like Ocean’s Eleven meets National Treasure. It’s not perfect, but it’s got a decent vibe. This is an ongoing series).
Squid Game (need I say more?).
im tired of 8 episode seasons. give me back 20-24 episode seasons
8 episode seasons are definitely too short but 20-24 is way too long for most shows over 30 minutes. For episodic shows it could work but for serialized shows 10-16 is a perfect range. This is all my opinion though
@@brettbrooks5511depends on the show
@@brettbrooks5511 yeah breaking bad or the sopraos length is best not stranger things 8 eps
@@brettbrooks5511 I want Star Trek to have 15-18 episode seasons. The 25-ep seasons old TNG had are unsustainable with modern production value, but Trek works best when the seasons are long enough for some episodes to be small.
That would be great, but it isn't feasible without the syndication model.
Intro to Australian network TV
--Sitcom--
Upper Middle Bogan
A Moody Christmas / The Moodys
Kath and Kim
--Comedy/Drama--
Rake
Rosehaven
Mr Inbetween
--Satire--
Frontline
Utopia
We Can Be Heroes
Summer Heights High
--Drama--
Harrow
Cleverman
The Cry
Underbelly (s01) - other seasons are hit and miss
Boy Swallows Universe
--Kids TV--
Bluey
The Curiosity Show (its ancient now, but still pretty excellent)
I think in the US "Upper Middle Bogan" is called "Bess of Both Worlds." Most Americans don't know what a Bogan is.
I also really liked the comedy "The Librarians." Both could be found on Hulu a few years back. Not sure if that's still the case.
Not only one season of Supes&Lois but a truncated one missing half the cast because they slashed the budget in half. It’s grotesque.
I actually think that this could be an outstanding long-term play. So long as these shows can get at least 40 episodes, I can see any of these types of scripted shows living long lives on streaming services like Netflix or even Tubi.
I was just reminiscing about how old tv could have 22 episodes to a season and how half of them could be contained stories that wrap up in 24 minutes. I miss filler episodes. But that's 90's television when the economy had money growing on trees. Now with the cost of living crisis, every penny is pinched in half.
Prime should acquire Walker, it fits their current lineup with Reacher and Terminal List.
My favorite was the one episode of Everwood I was in. A temp service asked me to do some extra background. And in short scene before opening theme and title played i saw my self in background behind main characters. It was a blink a miss it moment but WB/ CW were responsible for my one time on TV.
This is interesting. I'm curious if you've watched the Dropout streamer? They kind of arrived at somewhat similar ideas as far moving away from scripted content and now focus entirely on low budget shows, with one of their biggest ones being a game show. Stylistically the two are night and day, with Dropout being almost entirely improv comedies. The two are almost yin and yang, with the CW going for an older, cable audience and Dropout going for a younger, streaming audience.
As someone who watched Riverdale for it's entire run (look I had my reasons), it really was odd to see the transition from other teen dramas airing around it plus some more niche comedy to just sports. It was truly sad when my local affiliate Pix 11 stopped airing Whose Line Is It Anyway reruns after Riverdale and just aired some sport I don't care about.
Riverdale is quite possibly my least favorite show lol
Man His Dark Materials was tremendous, one of my 5 favourite TV programs probably.
Around Season 9 or 10 of Supernatural (around 2013 or 2014) is when I checked out and stopped paying attention. This is around when the "Flash" TV series launched and I could tell the "Arrowverse" was becoming their focus. "Vampire Diaries" was winding down, and they were airing stuff like "Jane the Virgin". It was a strange time period and i was pretty well done with it.
Made it through all 15 seasons of Supernatural. It was my last remaining CW show.
Captain, if you havent yet, watch Godzilla minus one, probably the best version of Godzilla in a while and a Japanese studio and story.
Loved it, great movie
The WB used to have some good sitcoms. Now I'm pretty sure they don't have any of their own; the only ones I see are syndicated ABC shows.
They have two Canadian imports, Son of a Critch and Children Ruin Everything. They’re currently off the air but CRE will return mid fall.
All American actually received an extended sixth season, running for 15 epiisodes instead of 13, and was also renewed for a seventh season (although the caveat is that the lead actor is leaving after the sixth season wraps).
"Death's Game" & "Marry My Husband" are the 2 best things from old school tv that I watched this year. South Korean bangers.
At least it gave us Superman & Lois before it became a zombie. That show is awesome, even if it didn't last longer than 4 seasons!
To be honest, Bufy, Supernatural, Veronica Mars, Gossip Girl, The Vampire Diaries, Arrowverse... they all are way more better than %90 of the streaming shows. I miss network tv.
Thank you for the Veronica Mars mention! S1-3 and the movie are so good
Huh. I haven't watched broadcast TV in over a year (the writer and actor's strike threw a wrench in the shows I had been watching), so I had no idea this was going on with The CW. I hadn't been interested in any of their shows in a bit, but I always looked at what new shows they were coming out with every fall since they definitely had a brand (supernatural YA) and it was one I liked
I don't know where TV is going to go nowadays. I'm in my thirties and can't imagine myself buying cable. I have an antenna I pick up broadcast TV on, but I don't watch it much. There's too many streaming services, so I don't have any of those either, save Amazon - which I have for the shipping, with the video just being a nice perk. I find myself these days just rewatching TV shows I own on DVD and blu-ray, or watching free streamers like Tubi
On the subject of the changes American TV is currently going through, and my likes and dislikes about what is happening with it can honestly be boiled down to my feelings about my recent forays back into Star Trek:
I grew up watching the original Star Trek and Star Trek TNG with my parent, alongside various other network TV shows. Long story short, as a pre-teen and teenager it was never my thing, so I stopped watching midway through TNG. Recently, I watched Star Trek DS9, Lower Decks, and Discovery so that I could engage with my gf on the subject of Star Trek. I really enjoyed DS9 and absolutely ADORE Lower Decks, but I did not really enjoy Discovery on the whole, and I realized why.
There are a few things that I tend to gravitate towards when I am watching TV now: Does the show tell a tight story overall, are the characters compelling/do they get good development, and does the show deserve the time it takes to watch each episode. I am a big fan of a show where the writers KNEW the story they wanted to tell, told it, and then the show ended (Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Newsroom, etc.). I am also a big fan of shows that tell a good story in a relatively short run time (see many anime, Lower Decks, 90s animated Redwall, etc.) And I am a big fan of shows who make you feel like the characters are living incredibly rich lives outside of what is being seen on screen (DS9).
My main problem with Star Trek Discovery, is I broadly felt that it failed to do any of the above things. It felt like the show didn't know the story it really wanted to tell. Each episode spent an hour going from place to place and spouting a lot of sci-fi jargon, but didn't tell much of a story, which made me feel that the episodes did not deserve their run time. And ironically, the seasons did not have enough episodes to delve into the lives of their recurring cast beyond the 3-4 MAIN characters.
DS9 was a long show, and there were a number of times when I felt certain episodes could have been cut, but no matter what was happening in an episode, there were always moments throughout where I felt that the characters were interacting with each other off-screen, which helped endear me to the cast as a whole and by extension the overall story being told. Similarly, each episode of Lower Decks has a 20-30 minute runtime, but uses every second on screen to the fullest.
All this to say, that while the shows on the CW FREQUENTLY needed to see a stricter editor, I do miss many shows where the writers had enough time to tell the story they wanted to tell and develop their characters appropriately. I've been really impressed with Superman and Lois and I am a little sad to see it end somewhat prematurely, but I am also hoping that it getting cut off means that it won't jump the shark so aggressively that I can no longer recommend it to my friends.
As soon as you started describing Wild Cards I just though "Characters Welcome" lol
I was thinking about this I think last summer or fall! I legit was thinking about making a video called like "My mom watches the CW now" or something like that discussing it, which came about from when she was going through the shows she records and I realized they were on the CW. I was like wait what happened here? The commercials for their other shows felt so off from what I knew in my childhood and then teen years.
It's sad seeing the CW go downhill it gave me great memories of waking up on Saturday/Sunday and watching Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh, Dinosaur King and Sonic on CW 4kids.
It's even the Reason I got into Kamen Rider when they aired Kamen Rider Dragon Knight and I watched it
Since you mentioned it, if you watch the show, I think a doctor who video would be amazing
I primarily consumed cable content while living at home with my family up until recently in Canada, and so most of my understanding of American cable stuff comes from videos like this. So I just thought I'd let you know that I was a background extra for basically every show you mentioned getting cancelled that was filmed in Canada. And when everything got canceled the industry here definitely felt it. I have a soft spot for cable and considering what a disaster streaming has been I really don't want to see classic TV go anywhere.
Former Nexstar employee here. Worked for one of the stations. Sat in a meeting when we were told about all of the new shows coming, where not only did they want to focus on building a sports brand but got rid of all of the superhero shows because “who really likes those shows, anyway?” (Yes that’s a direct quote.) Nexstar is an insanely incompetent company and is going to bring about their own downfall.
I have honestly never cared about anything about the WB... But I love Captain Midnight and as always this video was well thought out, informative and entertaining. Thank you for your work!!!
It'll be interesting to see what happens to network TV in general. It just feels like every channel is slowly dying. They are aiming for older audiences that don't mind sitting through live broadcasts with commercials, but older audiences is also a shrinking demographic. The younger people who have gotten used to streaming likely aren't going to switch to network tv in their older years.
oh i love your stuff man
All of us are dead, K drama on Netflix, kind of a weird mix of a highschool drama/zombie apocalypse, I like it cause one minute two characters are fighting over their friendship or something very highschool drama-esk, and the next one of them is dead and it stops mattering to the plot lol
Vincenzo!!! If you're into romcoms It's Okay to Not be Okay. I haven't seen Queen of Tears (romcom 0 or Save Me (thriller involving a cult) but I've heard good things.
Broadcast TV has one big advantage over streaming: bandwidth-efficiency. With streaming, the bandwidth requirements scale with the number of simultaneous viewers. With broadcasting, the bandwidth requirements are constant, regardless of how many viewers there are.
The catch is that there isn't a lot of content that's a good fit for those characteristics. Something that lots of people will want to watch at the same time, and in sync. Which means live content. Not exactly a lot of options for that. Basically just news and sports. Anything that's pre-recorded is a better fit for streaming or downloading. A broadcaster taking on more sports is just optimising for the medium's strengths.
I am kind of surprised that they're canceling the football drama when they're going all in on sports now.
As someone who never watched CW programming (other than the syndicated shows the UHF affiliate regularly aired), I channel hopped to it a few months ago as one watches a train wreck just to see the damage. And it was utterly depressing and had to turn my head away. However, most recently, they finally introduced some programming that piqued my interest--a docu-series that highlights famous people--"I am Evel" and "I am Bruce Le" are two of the most interesting (to me) programs I've seen in a long time, and actually brought me to watch CW for the first time
The South Korean shows on Netflix so good.
Some of my favorites are My Name, Bloodhounds, and Extraordinary Attorney Woo.
Nexstar's hq is in Irving, TX suburb of Dallas.
I noticed a lot of CBC shows on CW: Coroner, Burden of Truth, Moonshine, Wild Cards.... and I'm like-- yay! Canadian shows getting shown in the U.S. Right on!
CW content was VERY popular on the piracy scene. Even with low TV ratings in US their shows reached millions abroad.
Thinking that cable viewers would rather watch Scrabble than a remake of Walker Texas Ranger is insane
I agree, but the Scrabble show is like 10x cheaper I’m sure
Thinking that people who still watch broadcast TV would rather watch news, and sports than cartoons is insane.
The WB imports content from Canada? As a Canadian that has been HUGELY cynical of the creative output coming from my country, this completely aligns with my expectation.
watched shoresy recently and loved it. so at least not all our stuff is bad lol
@@K.Arashi Shoresy and Letterkenny are good - making it the exception that proves the rule
They are not new shows, nowere near it, but Argentina has two amazing shows: Los Simuladores (a procedural about a group of people who create pretend scenarios to solve any sort of problem, from making your ex fall in love with you, to rescuing people from jail, to helping a kid pass several exams) and Okupas (a hang out mini series about four lower class twenty something guys)
An old guy who use to watch cartoons on those former CW affiliates is now looking at the kids who use to watch 'Vampire Diaries', and is saying to them, 'first time?'
I remember when it was The WB. I only watched it for Kids WB as a kid and I wasn't quite old enough to care for the other shows. It is a bummer cause it used to be a good network for kids and even young adults and adults.
I miss kids wb
Can't recommend the Australian series Utopia highly enough, a workplace comedy that is very different from stuff like The Office (which is ironic considering we are getting an Australian version of it very soon)
Also watched the k-drama Queen of Tears, and it was perfect
Great essay! As an old-school (or just old!!! LOL) fan of WB/UPN and the classic CW, your words of appreciation are welcome. I do think scripted 1-camera shows will eventually all go away to either bigger over the air networks, or streaming. As for what shows from overseas..... One SK show I loved was Extraordinary Attorney Woo. If you like shows about people with autism spectrum, this show is very well done, IMHO. An adventure show is Uncanny Counter. I'll save space and say if you like concepts where a band of friends fight evil/monsters/etc, then have a blast!! Both are on Netflix. And I actually do listen to the Netflix English dub. It's not perfect, but I can keep my eyes on the actor's eyes/facial expression.
I left broadcast and cable tv a long time ago now... and I never bother with sports or 'reality tv' or American 'celebrity tv' shows that are out on streaming.
I love Canadian, UK, Australian and New Zealand shows I can watch via Acorn or Netflix.. as well as recent materials I've watched from South Africa and Spain and some Asian Shows (so long as there are dubs as I can't do captioning with my eyesight).
My problem is that there are a lot of 'one story a year in 6 episodes' stuff out there from these sources, sometimes with a year or two or three between seasons and stories!
I really enjoyed the Korean drama “Moving” on Disney Plus. I don’t usually watch Korean dramas but this one really hooked me. Would love to hear your opinion on it.
An aussie show I found on Amazon is Class of 07. It's basically a school reunion meets female-centric Water World. Funny but does the serious stuff well! Think there's only one season at the moment
I never watched CW until Arrow went to series. I watched most of the Arrowverse and the occasional episode of Supernatural but that was about it. When CW changed regimes, the showrunners/executive producers of shows were given notice and most chose to go with cliffhanger endings instead of wrapping up their shows so technically, the CW isn't to blame for that.
I think WWE NXT is the only thing I'll be watching moving forward. There's rumors NWA wrestling might also move from the app to the channel, if that's true I'll watch that too but that's about it
As a person who has watched a lot of Korean Dramas Here are some recommendations: Ventizio, While You Are Sleeping, Guardian: The Lonely and Great God (often people just call it Globin), True beauty.
Going from Supernatural, Buffy, Arrow, Flash, Superman and Lois, etc. to this schlock is just a slap in the face. People will pay more for quality.
I can admit Prestige TV has spoiled me but I hate paying for tv and miss appointment, linear, 8/7c, network tv.
The last network show i really loved was Will Forte's The Last Man on Earth. Before that Heroes and The Sarah Connor Chronicles.
Saturday morning captain midnight with my cheerios
I just don't really watch modern shows/movies because i don't trust modern writers to deliver a good product after years of crap. I've just kind of given up on new shows. Love revisiting old shows and watching re-runs instead.
Hey that’s what I do too, there’s only one new US show I like Leverage Redemption.waiting for season 3 I’m also rewatching “The Librarians” .Though I mostly watch Asian dramas
@@mysticloverfairy1 that's cool. I've been rewatching Chuck and a show called Falling Skies.
Blue Sky programming has some of my favorite older shows!
Psych, Monk, Burn Notice!
I hope they can capture the magic and produce some more great television.
It’s wild to me but it’s definitely not a surprise. Networks were going to rise or fall as streaming became more and more popular.
Hell streaming services are slowly becoming more and more expensive to have as time goes on so who knows what the future holds.
However, it is sad to me to see what happened to the CW. My teen years were consumed by the CW. Supernatural and the early seasons of the Vampire Diaries and The Originals were my favorite shows and I remember my friends and I getting excited about the Arrow and the DC comics era of the CW.
But hey maybe it’ll work out… and I’m sure these shows will be on Netflix in the future… hopefully they don’t keep trying to make Seed a thing.
you should do a comparison of competition Shows between the US and UK. How the UK Competition shows are mainly kind hearted and undramatized vs the US way of dramatization and rudeness between competitors.
There are countless examples and you probably know of the most US Panel shows, so check out some from the UK: British Bake Off, Sewing Bee, Pottery Throw Down.
Another idea and current example: Even though The Office has always been used to show the differences between UK Humor and US Humor, I think the current show "The Traitors" shows the differences even better. Watch the first season of the UK version and then the US version, it's amazing how the same concept can land so differently.
Yknow I’d love a retrospective on La Rosa de Guadeloupe. I think you’d have a unique perspective on it
A question I have Captain Midnight:
Have you ever done a review of what your channel is named after?
The radio serial or the HBO hijacker?
@@Code7UnltdWhichever he named his channel after.
Either way I’d be curious to hear what he thinks of what he named his channel after, and why he picked the name.
I’ve probably watched every single one of CW’s supernatural/sci-fi adjacent series. Sad to see it go.