The CW has officially renewed ten TV shows for the 2018-2019 season, including all four of the Arrowverse TV series, Riverdale, and Black Lightning. Home to no less than five live-action DC superhero TV series and multiple comic book adaptations, The CW has become famous for being as loyal to its longtime offerings as its dedicated fanbase is to the network at large. This has not only allowed The CW’s shared DC television universe – aka. the Arrowverse – to flourish and continuously expand on an annual basis, it has also allowed critical favorites like Jane the Virgin and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend to live on in spite of their comparatively small ratings.
With ratings for the four Arrowverse TV shows (Arrow, The Flash, DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, and Supergirl) having held steady over the past year, their renewal was all but a given. The same goes for other long-running series on The CW like Supernatural, which just made headlines this past week for its animated Scooby-Doo crossover episode, ‘ScoobyNatural’. While the network has yet to make a final decision on the fates of certain TV series, it has announced renewals for some of its best-known original programming.
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The CW has now officially ordered new seasons of all four Arrowverse TV shows along with Black Lightning and Riverdale; all six of which are produced and/or were co-created by Greg Berlanti. In addition, Supernatural season 14 has now been ordered, along with a second season of the network’s Dynasty TV show reboot. Jane the Virgin and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend are also returning for what will apparently be their final seasons as well as fifth and fourth overall, respectively. Arrow star Stephen Amell has already posted a funny message on Twitter, in response to the news.
Additional announcements will be made by The CW in May, concerning the fates of lesser-watched shows like the freshman additions Life Sentence and Valor, along with the zombie comic book adaptation iZombie and YA dystopian novel-based The 100 (both of which have run for multiple seasons already). While the odds are not equally in favor of all four of these series making the cut for the 2018-2019 season, at least one or more of them should manage to avoid being axed. The CW will be expanding its original TV shows lineup to Sunday starting this fall, and that means there will soon be extra room for a couple more shows, either new, returning, or both.
Though this update should by and large come as welcome news to the respective fanbases for these shows, the renewal of Arrow itself might be the fly in the ointment for some. A growing number of Arrowverse fans feel that it might be time for the show that started the franchise to call it a day, following what has been an arguably stale and tedious sixth season overall. Even some longtime Arrow actors are leaving the show now, further raising questions about whether Oliver Queen ought to lay down his quiver and allow another superhero series to take his own show’s place on The CW.
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Several of The CW’s series will be airing their 2017-2018 season finales over the next two months, but are now confirmed to return this fall.
