The CW Orders Six Pilots With Strong Female Characters and Some Supernatural Elements

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The CW, which falls under the CBS network umbrella, has greenlit six new pilots, including a modernized version of the Archie comics and a few with sci-fi and supernatural elements. More details about the pilots below.

Riverdale

The Premise: News about Riverdale was announced last year, and it’s being billed as “a surprising and subversive take on Archie, Betty, Veronica, and their friends” that focuses on the present-day “surrealism of small town life—the darkness and weirdness bubbling beneath Riverdale’s wholesome façade.”

The Team: Writer/executive producer Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa (Supergirl, Glee, Big Love), EPs Greg Berlanti and Sarah Schecter (who both work on Arrow, The Flash, Supergirl, DC’s Legends of Tomorrow) and Jon Goldwater (the creator of Archie Comics).

Frequency

The Premise: Dennis Quaid (The Art of More), Jim Caviezel (Person of Interest), Andre Braugher (Brooklyn Nine-Nine) and Elizabeth Mitchell (Lost) starred in the original 2000 movie. The updated TV series is set in 2016 with a female lead who’s a police detective. Similar to the movie, she “discovers she is able to speak via a ham radio with her estranged father (also a detective) who died in 1996. They forge a new relationship while working together on an unresolved murder case, but unintended consequences of the ‘butterfly effect’ wreak havoc in the present day.”

The Team: Writer/executive producer Jeremy Carver (Supernatural, Being Human), along with a group that has TV and movie experience—Toby Emmerich (who wrote and produced the original film and now serves as the President of New Line Cinema, the studio that released the film), John Rickard (Horrible Bosses, the 2010 reboot of A Nightmare On Elm Street), Dan Lin (Forever, The LEGO Movie, Sherlock Holmes) and Jennifer Gwartz (Forever, Veronica Mars).

Transylvania

The Premise: Another female lead is centering this pilot, which takes place in 1880. A plucky and determined young woman searches for her missing father, traveling from “NYC to Transylvania where she teams up with a wrongfully disgraced Scotland Yard Detective.” Together, the both “witness the births of the most famous monsters and villains in history.”

The Team: Writer/executive producer Hugh Sterbakov, along with EPs Jeff Pinkner, Andre Nemec, Josh Applebaum, Scott Rosenberg.

Untitled Mars Project

The Premise: Set on Mars, a group of explorers “join the first human colony on the planet, only to discover that their predecessors have vanished.” Leading the group is a woman searching for her missing husband, but once on the planet, “the colonists are forced to change their mission from exploration and settlement to investigation and survival, while navigating the hostile planet and their own personal demons.”

The Team: Writer/executive producer Doris Egan (Reign, House MD, Tru Calling), EPs Frank Marshall and Robert Zotnowski

Untitled Paranormal Project

The Premise: “A young woman seeks help from a parapsychologist when she begins to experience paranormal phenomena.”

The Team: Writer/executive producer Kevin Williamson (The Vampire Diaries, The Following, Scream features), plus EP David Nutter (Arrow, The Flash, Game of Thrones, Supernatural) and producer Lauren Wagner.

No Tomorrow

The Premise: This particular comedy focuses on “a risk-averse, straight arrow, female procurement manager” who works “at an Amazon-like distribution center.” A potential soulmate enters her life when she “falls in love with a freewheeling man who lives life to the fullest because he believes the apocalypse is imminent” that leads them to “embark on a quest together to fulfill their individual bucket lists.”

The Team: Writers/executive producere Corinne Brinkerhoff (Jane The Virgin, The Good Wife), Scott McCabe and Tory Stanton, along with EP Ben Silverman (Jane The Virgin, The Office, Ugly Betty).