Intelligencer

When Networks Collide

What happens when you combine two prime-time schedules?

By Sarah D. Bunting
Published Jan 28, 2006

Last week, it was announced that the WB (a network known for teen-friendly fare, sitcoms you’ve kind of heard of, and reviving Alyssa Milano’s career) and UPN (known for teen-friendly fare, reality shows, pro wrestling, and having stolen Buffy the Vampire Slayer from the WB) would merge into something called the CW. A sneak peek at the combo fall lineup:

(Photo: John Giamundo/Courtesy of WWE; Timothy White/Courtesy of The WB)

WWE Supersmallsmackdown
Professional wrestler Lex “The Truth” Luthor attempts to dethrone the mysterious young grappler Clark Kent—but Clark makes for a formidable champion, given his brutally effective elbow-drop, heat vision, and invulnerability to pain.

(Photo: Hyungwon Roo/Courtesy of UPN; Joseph Viles/Courtesy of The WB)

America’s Next Top Geek
Brainiacs pose for racy photo shoots in an attempt to win a scholarship to MIT. Host Tyra Banks keeps the math pressure on: “How can the square root of zero be zero? I square-rooted for you! We all did! I’ve never in my life screamed at a nerd like this!”

(Photo: Getty Images; Andrew Eccles/Courtesy of The WB)

Everybody Hates Reba
After her dentist husband, Brock, leaves her, soccer mom Reba Hart tries to juggle a country-music career while raising a black family in eighties Bedford-Stuyvesant.

(Photo: Robert Voets/Courtesy of UPN; Todd Selby for New York Magazine)

Everbeach
When his wife dies, Colorado neurosurgeon Dr. Andrew Brown (Treat Williams) is faced with a family crisis—and two young kids to raise. So he closes his practice and moves his family to the seamy, sexy underworld of Miami.