'Smallville' heading
into its final season
Ten-year-old CW drama will end its run in spring
By Toni Fitzgerald
May 19, 2010
When the CW announces its fall lineup, it will include "Smallville" for the very last time.
The show's 10th season will be its last, star Tom Welling revealed, probably a bit prematurely, in an interview with Bonnie Fuller's Hollywoodlife.com yesterday. The network was reportedly hoping to make the announcement itself at today's presentation.
Welling said the show about the young Superman will end after the upcoming season, which received a somewhat surprising pickup earlier this fall. Ten years is a lifetime for a show on a young-skewing network.
Though "Smallville" pulls decent overall ratings, it has a more male-skewing audience than the rest of the CW's lineup and is a holdover from the old WB, which had more fantasy/superhero-type shows.
It's also the CW's oldest show, and its characters have by now aged well out of their teens, much like the folks on "One Tree Hill," another long-surviving WB show.
"Smallville" will likely stay on Fridays when the CW schedule is released later today. There it does not interrupt the nice night-to-night flow the network has going earlier in the week with glam shows that appeal to young women, including "Gossip Girl," "90210," "America's Next Top Model" and "The Vampire Diaries."
There isn't much question what will be on the CW's schedule, merely what days the shows will air on. The network has renewed all but one of its current shows, "Melrose Place," which has been axed.
It has also given pickups to three series: "Nikita," "Hellcats" and "Plain Jane," a reality show that will air this summer.
There's been some speculation that the CW may pair "Gossip Girl" and "90210" on Tuesday nights, moving the former from Monday to make way for a new series.
One of the new scripted shows will likely be paired with "ANTM," as has been the network's format the past few seasons. A more interesting move would be putting "Life Unexpected," the second-year show with low ratings but great creative potential, there instead.
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