‘Beauty And The Beast’ Eyes CW’s Post-’Vampire Diaries’ Slot

I hear Beauty & The Beast, the CW‘s reboot of the 1980s series, is likely to snag the network’s marquee launching pad behind The Vampire Diaries on Thursday in the fall. The series, starring Kristin Kreuk, is one of five new scripted series the CW has picked up for next season — the most in the network’s six-year history. Among those is Arrow, based on DC’s Green Arrow character, which, like Vampire Diaries, is a genre show but skews a lot more male. That makes Beauty & The Beast, a cop procedural set against a love story between Catherine/Beauty (Kreuk) and Vincent/Beast (Jay Ryan), a more suitable companion to the vampire love saga.

Related: CW Picks Up ‘Carrie Diaries’, ‘Arrow’, ‘Cult’, ‘Beauty And The Beast’, ‘First Cut’ To Series

Speaking of female-centered new CW series, the network has the Sex And The City prequel The Carrie Diaries on tap. The series shares a lot of its DNA with CW veteran Gossip Girl — both are about high-school fashionistas in New York, just living in different time periods, and both are produced by Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage. Because of the similarities, with Gossip Girl ending its run with a 11-episode final season, it is logical for The Carrie Diaries, already hailed as its successor, to also succeed Gossip Girl on the schedule when it goes off the air. (Though how funny would it be to have a “diaries” CW lineup with The Vampire Diaries and The Carrie Diaries back-to-back — utterly confusing yet cute.) Two series have launched after Vampire Diaries so far, Nikita and last season’s The Secret Circle.

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