Upfronts 2014: CW to Premiere ‘Flash,’ ‘Jane the Virgin’ in Fall

The CW will roll out two new series when it premieres its season in October, the network revealed as it announced its new fall schedule Thursday morning.

Mondays will kick off with returning freshman The Originals, which moves from Tuesday, where it had been paired with Supernatural. New hour-long comedy Jane the Virgin will follow at 9 p.m.

A second new series, The Flash, based on the DC Comics character, will move into the 8 p.m. Tuesday time period vacated by The Originals. The series is spun out of a storyline from action drama Arrow, and launches 24 years after CBS premiered its ill-fated attempt to adapt the character to television.

In a conference call with reporters, CW president Mark Pedowitz hinted that The Flash was scheduled at 8 p.m. Tuesday only after The CW learned that ABC would move fellow superhero series Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. from that same time period to 9 p.m. “Sometimes it’s good to be opportunistic,” Pedowitz said.

Arrow and returning freshman The 100 will continue to air on Wednesday nights, giving the network back-to-back evenings of genre programming. Thursdays will continue to feature the female-friendly combo of Vampire Diaries and Reign.

Fridays will belong to unscripted series. Half-hour improv showcase Whose Line Is It Anyway?, a new midseason show this season, makes its fall premiere in the 8 p.m. time period on Friday, with a rerun following. America’s Next Top Model will air at 9 p.m.

After years of airing only hour-long dramas, The CW announced in April that it will air two scripted half-hour comedies this summer—one of them Backpackers, from the network’s CW Seed digital unit. Asked whether another half-hour comedy could eventually replace the Whose Line Is It Anyway? rerun at 8:30 p.m., Pedowitz said, “We’re excited to have Backpackers coming on this summer. We utilize CW Seed as we need it. If we find the next one, we could do that.”