Tonight on The CW: More of the same

Just this morning, I was drinking my coffee at my desk and thinking, "You know what this world needs? Another lousy broadcast television network."

Doggoned if my prayers weren't answered.

CBS and Time Warner finally decided to throw in the towel on their struggling syndicates, UPN and The WB, by throwing them together to create a new network, dubbed "The CW." And no, I guess that doesn't stand for "Country Western," which comes as a great relief to the folks over at CMT (Country Music Television, new TV home of the Miss Redneck Miss America pageant), but as a great disappointment to trailer park denizens across the nation.

Presumably, The CW will compile its fall schedule by glomming onto the better quality flotsam left behind by its predecessors — the WB's Smallville and Gilmore Girls, UPN's Everybody Hates Chris and Veronica Mars — and dumping the rest of the bilgewater these two networks have been floating (Living With Fran, anyone? South Beach?)

It will be interesting to see what happens to the odd station out, in markets where both The WB and UPN have affiliates (most of which, as is the case here in the Bay Area, were local independents before the mini-nets existed). Overall, it means that bad TV shows will have one less place to go to die.