You might be wondering why I’d
do such a post like this randomly. You might wonder that about nearly all of my
posts. Indeed, a lot of them are random. But I saw that a site did their
rankings of all of the CW shows (although I didn’t read what they were) so I
figured that I would do it as well. This will contain a bit of a limit as to
what I’m reviewing as I’m only going to cover their primetime shows and not any
of their kids shows. In fact, I might put all of the Saturday kids shows that I
have seen in some separate ranking all together instead of putting up one
network against all the others. With that explained, I will now get to a list
of hopefully every CW show I’ve seen without forgetting any. I have this split
into three different sections.
List of every CW show I’ve
seen: Arrow, The Flash, iZombie, The Messengers, Star Crossed, Riverdale, Black
Lightning, Legends of Tomorrow, Life Sentence, Aliens in America, Gilmore
Girls, Smallville, Hooten & the Lady, Masters of Illusion, Penn and Teller:
Fool Us, My Last Days, The Outpost, The 100, Burden of Truth, Frequency, No
Tomorrow, Everybody Hates Chris, The Vampire Diaries, Supergirl, Nikita, Reba,
7th Heaven, The Secret Circle, Hart of Dixie, Charmed, Mad TV, Farmer
Wants a Wife, Emily Owens MD, All American, One Tree Hill, Reign, Valor, The
Tomorrow People, Ringer, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, Jane the Virgin, Dynasty, Whose
Line is it Anyways?
What isn’t ranked and why:
Smallville (I don’t think that I saw enough of it in order to rank it in a fair
way among the others as I didn’t see enough of it as I would like it), The
Outpost (this is another one that wouldn’t seem fair in my mind as I never saw
what I wanted to out of it), 7th Heaven (I only saw bits and pieces
out of it and could never gather what I wanted to as a result)
Continued: The Secret Circle
(while I was a fan of it, I missed a lot of it and never saw how it ended and
thus don’t think that I could rank it fairly as a result), One Tree Hill (while
I think that I did gather enough out of it based on the one episode of it that
I saw, I don’t think that that I could rank it fairly among the others as a
result), Ringer (maybe this should be the lowest ranked one, but I felt that I
never saw enough of it to understand it and won’t have it ranked among the
others as a result)
The entire ranking from worst
to best: No Tomorrow, The Vampire Diaries, Everybody Hates Chris, Star Crossed,
The 100, The Messengers, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, Life Sentence, All American,
Masters of Illusion, Reign, Farmer Wants a Wife, Valor, Aliens in America, My
Last Days, Mad TV, Reba, Dynasty, Arrow, Emily Owens MD, Burden of Truth,
Riverdale, Black Lightning, The Tomorrow People, Charmed, Nikita, Frequency,
Hooten & the Lady, Gilmore Girls, Penn and Teller: Fool Us, Hart of Dixie,
Legends of Tomorrow, iZombie, Jane the Virgin, Supergirl, Whose Line is it
Anyways?, The Flash
The bad shows
No Tomorrow: It may seem like
the worst show in my mind on the network as there wasn’t much to it that I felt
was any good. There wasn’t much of a point to it. It might have tried to brand
itself as a funny show, but it wasn’t. And it didn’t make that good of a drama
either. I don’t even know why enough of the people on the network thought that
this would be a good show.
The Vampire Diaries: I liked
this show for a while, but had to stop when I realized that it was too much
like a soap opera and I couldn’t stay with it as a result. It seemed good in
some places, but it was largely just teen angst drama with a supernatural
twist. It lasted too long and wasn’t very good in the end, even if it seemed
good at first.
Everybody Hates Chris: A lot
of these shows on the bad list started out good in my mind but ended in quite a
bad way. That alone isn’t enough to hate this show, but it didn’t really offer
that much to it in the end. The plots were kind of dumb and it seemed odd that
so many bad things kept happening to the main character all the time. It makes
me mad that the creator of this show knew it was going to end and still chose
to end it on a question the way that he did.
Star Crossed: There were some
good points to it trying to teach others that we should get along with others
like those of other races. But it seemed too weird in some places. They
included far too much teen sexuality and the elaborate cliffhanger that ended
the series was terrible.
The 100: While it was
promising towards the beginning of the show, it seemed to lose all of what once
made it good as it went along. It got too boring and strange. It didn’t make
much sense anymore. I do not think that I’ll get back into this, although it is
possible and I might watch the last episode if it ends. But I don’t care about
keeping up with it long term anymore.
The Messengers: There was far
too much strangeness with all of this show. I don’t think that I did myself any
favors by watching it out of order and in so many strange ways that I did. But
I do know is that it did have some good points to it which makes it on the
better end of these bad shows. Still, too much of it did not work such as the
many villains and confusing ending.
Crazy Ex-Girlfriend: I found
this to be quite forgettable. There were too many weird parts to it and I do
not see what so many critics found good about it. Still, it wasn’t that bad as
there was a point to it. But the songs were a bit too weird and not much about
this worked.
Life Sentence: The best of the
bad shows in my mind, there wasn’t as much wrong with it as other shows on this
list. There was a great episode of it, but a lot of it relied on issues that
just didn’t seem like they made good ideas as they just seemed like drama for a
sake of drama and not good storytelling.
The average shows
All American: It didn’t seem
bad to me, but I’ll probably never watch it again. There wasn’t much that
seemed to work, although it did have a good plot to trying to change someone’s
fate in life. I feel that it relied too much on clichés of sorts in the end.
Masters of Illusion: Sure, the
magicians do impressive feats, but the show seems too ordinary in too many
places with the same tricks and same magicians seen time and time again. I like
the fact that we can see tricks and good ones that you wouldn’t be able to see
in most places otherwise. But it isn’t as good as we could potentially see
elsewhere.
Reign: While this was based on
real events in a way, it largely ignored them and just made up what it wanted
to in order to come up with the plots that it did. I don’t have any idea just
how much of this show actually happened. There was some goodness in there even
if it was far too strange, even for a show that largely wasn’t outside the
realm of reality.
Farmer Wants a Wife: It seemed
like they should have probably promoted this better in the end and it didn’t
seem like much outside of a farmer Bachelor show, but it was still a nice one
to all who care about this sort of thing in the end. I don’t always like
reality shows as much as you might think. But I did like this one and thought
that it was largely good even if it could have been way better. I do wonder if
the people in the show are still together.
Valor: While some of it worked
out well, it didn’t work as well as it could have. Some of the plot was good
and interesting, but a lot of it seemed bland and they could probably have used
better actors in this. They could have done better in terms of women
empowerment than they did, although I’m glad that they didn’t make it too much
about women issues as well.
Aliens in America: There were
a lot of good things about this, although some of the plots were bad like you
tend to get from certain sitcoms. I did like how it taught me about the
discrimination that people of the Islam religion face and other misinformation
about them since I didn’t know about it before. And it was nice seeing a social
outsider on TV, even if it is often an overused premise. Still, with too many
of the plots not focusing on good morals, it is hard to rank this okay show any
higher.
My Last Days: Not a bad show
by any means, it failed to be outstanding and that great. Plus, it does have a
rather grim subject matter, talking about dying people and chronically the rest
of their lives. But I still felt that it was good to show this with real people
and show what happened. I do hope that this show airs again in the future. It was a pretty decent show.
Mad TV: While it was funny on
the CW instead of FOX, it wasn’t that good a show on either network. It worked,
for the most part, but wasn’t as good as it could have been. I’m a bit
surprised that they didn’t keep this as a summer show when Saturday Night Live
is on reruns. It was middle of the road in terms of quality, which is why it is
ranked here.
Reba: This show is beloved by
many, yet I don’t have it ranked any higher, despite liking it myself. I felt
that some of it wasn’t as good as it could have otherwise been or other shows
have done. Much of the plots were dumb or flawed in some way while they also
somehow did a good job addressing a lot of some serious subjects while keeping
it funny. This could have easily been a drama, but it worked out well enough
that it wasn’t, even if serious stuff came up a whole lot.
Dynasty: I feel that this show
may grow more on me as time goes by. As of yet, I feel that there are good
dramas that can happen in any families that are made even more crazy by trying
to keep track of money and other issues like that. It doesn’t seem as good as
it could be due to issues with some of the writing and acting not seeming as
good as it could be. Still, with interesting plots and gripping storylines
keeping me more into this than other things I could be into, I think that this
could be higher in potential rankings that I might do in the future.
Arrow: Admittedly, this might
also deserve more of a higher ranking, but I feel that enough are better than
it to put it as low. While it can be better than a lot of other shows, it also
often doesn’t seem as good as other shows by being too ordinary and not doing
as much to separate it from other shows in the genre. I’m glad that I got back
into it when I could have and will probably stick with it until the end. But I
will always wonder if I didn’t miss much for the timeframe when I didn’t watch
the show.
Emily Owens MD: Outside of its
dumb ending, there wasn’t much that I didn’t like about the show. Still, I felt
that it could have done better such as focusing more on better medical issues
and not making this more about high school dynamics in real life. Even a show
that’s not teen based is still into the whole high school cliques and clichés. But
it had a lot of heart and good plotting.
Burden of Truth: While it may
seem like the single case was too drawn out, it was nice seeing all of the
meaning behind the huge case in general. There wasn’t that much time spent in
the courtroom, yet we still got what we needed to out of the case in general. More
could have been put into it to make it more of an interesting show than it was,
but I think that it was largely good, if not good enough to rank with the good
shows instead of the average shows.
Riverdale: There were a lot of
things that make this show questionable in terms of quality. Yet, there are
also tons of things that keep a person like me drawn into it. They make
questionable choices such as with the whole Black Hood storyline which went in
weird places and brought an off scene end to what was once an important
character. It seems to have a lot of weird things in it and can be unrealistic.
But I still think that it is a good enough show in some ways.
Black Lightning: The best of
the average shows in my mind, this show is a bit strange and can be a bit slow
moving to the point of wondering if many important things are happening that
much in it. But I do think that it is quite good, even if it can be boring at
times and not as interesting as it could be. I think that the addition of human
villains is a good one and a lot of it works. But too much of the show is just
wasted in conversation instead of more important things.
The good shows
The Tomorrow People: There was
a lot to like about this show. I’m not even upset by its ending, because it
didn’t seem bad to me. While it was a remake of another show I’m not familiar
with and haven’t seen (yet, at least), it seemed to stand out well on its own.
I’ll admit that parts of it didn’t always make sense, such as how the main plot
was them fighting against other people like them while it seemed like all the
regular people were not bad yet bad and things seemed confusing often as a
result. Still, I have this with the good shows, even if I have it ranked as the
worst of them.
Charmed: While this show is
fairly new and could always be judged against the original, I think that it is
still fairly good, even if they kind of hammer down messages to the point of it
being annoying. They like to keep things simple and they have a recurring
storyline thus far to keep us interested. I do wish that they had a somewhat
older cast for this than they do, but I guess that doesn’t matter as much for
now. I think that it is good so I’m ranking it here for now.
Nikita: This show struggled
for a lot of its run to find an audience and stay on the air. It frequently airing
at different times definitely didn’t help it. But it did a good job of wrapping
things up in the end, even if it had such a short, final season. I felt that it
was a good spy show, considering how I often don’t see this type of show on TV.
It was nice seeing a female protagonist kick ass, something we sadly don’t all
that much of on TV. I wish, in a way, that they kept out the love story aspect
and there were a whole lot of unneeded twists and turns along the way.
Frequency: While I liked this
show since the pilot, I also felt that none of the episodes were ever as good
as the pilot episode was. None of them were bad, but not all of it lived up to
expectations. Still, I liked seeing what they could do with the communication
between the past and present making those of us wonder how it could affect
everything in the show. They even had an epilogue wrap everything up that it
could and otherwise wasn’t. Not every show nowadays can do such a simple thing.
Hooten & the Lady: For
those of you keeping track, the top ten starts here in terms of CW shows. This
show was really good, even if it had a last minute cliffhanger that left the
fate of the leads in doubt. It was quite fun seeing the two unwilling partners
always working together with hilarious antics often key to the show’s
greatness. We got a realistic pair of archeologists doing events that could
have happened. I don’t know how much of the mythos might have been true, but I
like it nonetheless.
Gilmore Girls: If you missed
this show at all, it might be worth something you should watch in the future if
you are ever able to. We saw a teen pregnancy storyline much later than usual
with the child now a teen herself. It was very quirky and even if it seemed
weird, this show could have happened in reality. Nothing about it was something
I felt couldn’t be real, although they did some questionable plot choices from
time to time. Still, I felt that it was wonderful and am a bit upset that I
missed it when it was on the first time.
Penn and Teller: Fool Us: Never,
in any episode I saw, has a magician failed to successfully perform a trick on
this show. We often see great tricks for free on TV that we would never get to
see elsewhere without having to shell out money for it. While we only get cryptic
hints into how they aren’t fooled, we do get a good performance to enjoy every
time this is on.
Hart of Dixie: Sure, it wasn’t
as much about medical issues as it could have been even if it had a doctor as a
protagonist, but this show was awesome and I loved the way they ended things.
We saw a town full of wonderful people having different adventures and we even
saw songs in the show that worked, even if this wasn’t a musical show. Long
live the heart.
Legends of Tomorrow: This only
issue that I can think of with this show is that it recycles far too much from
the rest of Arrowverse. Outside of that, it is hard to think of how this show
could be bad. It has a lot of great time travel elements in it and keeps you
linked into the larger world that it is part of. I have liked it since the
pilot, which I felt was quite awesome, so it is hard not to wonder why one
wouldn’t want to stick into it unless you can’t make the time commitment.
iZombie: A reinvention of the
zombie genre, it is nice to see something other than just the usual people run
from zombies and try to defeat them in a zombie show. Now, we get to see a
zombie protagonist who only eats brains because she has to in order to live
(interesting, since her name is Liv). It is more than just a standard
procedural with a zombie twist and knows how to keep people interested in it
over all the time that it has aired thus far. It’s a shame that it is ending
soon.
Jane the Virgin: Its premise
may be quite odd, but the show is wonderful to keep up with. I might not have
seen the show were it not for a dream about it. There are so many twists and
turns with it that you would want to make sure that you stay up to date on all
of it if you can. You wouldn’t expect a lot of the crazy things that have happened
in this show to happen all the time. Yet that is what can make this show quite
an awesome one in the end.
Supergirl: Some seasons of
this have been better than others so far. Still, it is hard not to like this
with it often going beyond just the simple superhero show and into much bigger
dynamics than that. We get to see a lot of lessons regarding racism or other
issues of our time that need resolved. It doesn’t seem to hammer down a message
that is too strong while making sure that we know what is right and not. I do
look forward to seeing what else this show has in store for the future.
Whose Line is it Anyways?: Not
a conventional show by any means, it is still quite hilarious, even if we often
see the same types of things on it from time to time. If you can watch this
show without laughing, than I think that you are doing something wrong with
life.
The Flash: In my mind, this is
the best CW for different reasons. One is that it shows us the real world
consequences of decisions in life despite being set in a world that couldn’t
happen in reality. We see the flash go after people who are often more than
just a villain of the week. There isn’t much wrong with it, even if it isn’t a
perfect show. It wasn’t hard for me to rank it here as the highest show on this
network. I just hope that they can keep it going for a while.
Before I close this post, I
might as well mention what rankings I might do next. There aren’t as many to
chose from if I just go through the other four major networks and their
primetime shows. I also do not know if I can do the kids shows as well with all
the strangeness that has happened with a lot of them. I might, though, go
through kids shows in groupings, such as putting those from FOX, the CW, the
WB, and cartoon network in one group.
There are also shows on this
list that have aired on other networks. I might need to go through all of the
WB shows sometime that I have seen. Supergirl has aired on CBS, Mad TV has
aired on FOX, and ABC has also aired Whose Line is it Anyways? If you can think
of what network’s shows I should rank next, then let me know by commenting on
this blog.
Well, I think that I’m finally
done with this post. I don’t think that I forget anything that I wanted to rank
and if I did, well, I can always update this list in future years. I’m not sure
when the next post of this blog will be just yet, but know that I will let you
know if I finish with these alternating Monday updates.
