Upfronts: The CW

And last but, well, least, The CW.

Returning Shows - No real surprises, other than Nikita getting renewed and moved to Friday. Other stuff has shifted by an hour but stayed on the same day. One Tree Hill returns in the spring for what seems to be its 28th season.

New Shows:

Monday - Gossip Girl moves up an hour and will be followed by Hart of Dixie, named to bring in all those tween pun enthusiasts. Rachel Bilson stars as a new doctor whose plans to become a surgeon fall through, so she takes a job with a doctor in Alabama. She gets down there only to learn that the guy who hired her died, but he left half his practice to her in his will. The other half goes to the town's other doctor, who doesn't like the competition. Turns out his daughter doesn't care for competition, either, as the young doctor finds an ally in the daughter's fiance.

Not sure if this is more Doc Hollywood or Sweet Home Alabama. Either way, this isn't the worst show the network is trotting out next season.

Tuesday - Sarah Michelle Gellar returns (well, sort of, as she was on The WB and UPN but not the merged network) in Ringer. Here she plays Bridget, a woman who is the sole witness to a professional hit. Fearing for her life, she runs and reconnects with her estranged twin sister, and when the sister mysteriously disappears, Bridget adopts her sister's persona - only to learn that her life is no bed of roses, either.

I suppose this could work, though I can't help but think of Lone Star with its one person/two lives set-up. Though I guess that's a nice low bar to clear as a measure of success.

Wednesday - Going back to the last comment I made about Hart of Dixie, this night features what looks like the clear loser of the new shows, H8R, and it's not just because its name is in textspeak. The premise of the show is that celebrities will meet some of their greatest detractors and work to turn them into fans (or at least have them stop being haters). I'm assuming the celebrities will be CW-type personalities that you've likely not heard of if you're over 23.

Mario Lopez hosts, probably wishing he could go back to Pet Star.

Thursday - Secret Circle brings us witches to follow vampires, which I guess makes a certain amount of sense. A girl loses her mother in a fire and is taken in by her grandmother. The girl learns that her new town (where her mom grew up) is actually inhabited by witches, and her return will allow them to form a new circle. As she discovers her powers, she learns that there are other forces at play in town, and that her mother's death may not have been accidental. Regardless of this mumbo jumbo, I suspect that as long as the teen boys on the show are sullen and shirtless, the show will do OK.

No new shows on Friday, and of course no programming at all on the weekend.

Two new shows for mid-season. The first is Re-Modeled, The CW's millionth attempt to launch another fashion-themed show to go with ANTM. Some fashion guy is working to pull smaller modeling agencies together so that they don't get screwed (by whom I don't know, the larger agencies?), and in the process the models themselves get greater control of their careers and health (through a mechanism not yet explained). Whatever.

The other show, The Frame, is some sort of Big Brother rip-off where pairs of contestants are put into some sort of restricted living space (the "frame") and only interact with other pairs remotely. The description says the contestants have "dynamic personalities," which to my mind sounds like they'll all be braying jackasses.