At the TV upfronts this week, it became clear that to a great degree, much of The CW could be called The GB. That’s because the network is set to strip most of its week with shows by “super”-producer Greg Berlanti, who has a knowing knack for mixing capes and one-hour escapades.
The CW, which for so long looked lost in the programming desert — the latchkey seed of the fallen UPN and the WB — has recently found a sense of mission based on superheroes, super-soaps and the supernatural. And now it’s the DC Comics characters that could provide the CW with its strongest sense of identity.
Helping to forge that brand is Berlanti, who is becoming not unlike a small-screen version of Marvel Studios mastermind Kevin Feige — an engaged overseer and guide of an entire interconnected universe.
The CW’s forthcoming season is all about interconnectivity of character and franchise. The network announced Thursday that its newly inherited “Supergirl” will remain airing Monday nights at 8 — the same slot it inhabited during its rookie season on CBS — so as not to disturb the non-DVR’ing masses too greatly during the fan migration.
Also on the schedule are the Berlanti/superhero shows “Arrow,” “The Flash” and “Legends of Tomorrow,” which even as separate silos would make for a powerhouse of DC programming.
But CW chief Mark Pedowitz signaled at Thursday’s upfront that a four-way crossover is planned — a mass version of the type of show-hopping that worked so well in March between “Supergirl” and “The Flash.” (A crossover between “Supergirl” and the CW’s “Jane the Virgin” has even been floated.)
To be clear: This isn’t simply about stunting. It’s more organic, and longer-lasting, than that. The CW is doing on TV what Disney has so brilliantly unfurled at the massive cinematic level: Build bridges between the properties in your super-universe. Fans are guided into a latticework of sticky interconnectivity — character and narrative binding agents with the tensile strength of Spider-Man’s web.
What Hollywood is doing, of course, is taking many pages from the playbooks of the superhero side of the comic-book industry, which especially in lean eras needed to crossover properties to boost sales. It seems Hollywood has purchased not just character rights over the decades, but also the framework for building a growing fandom, like the resilient interior that happens to come with a used car.
Come this fall, the CW should become a stronger sort of power-player. And its universe will revolve around its truest star: the GB.
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