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SPOILER ALERT! NBC’s ‘The Office’ Finale 
The CW has picked up its sixth and final pilot this season, the witch tale Secret Circle executive produced by Vampire Diaries co-creator/exec producer Kevin Williamson.
Williamson recently joined the project, based on a three-book series from The Vampire Diaries author L.J. Smith. He worked on the original script penned by Andrew Miller, with the two sharing writer credit. Produced by Alloy Entertainment, WBTV and CBS TV Studios, the companies behind Diaries, Secret Circle tells the story of a young woman who moves to a new town and discovers that not only is she a witch and part of a secret coven, but she’s also the key that will unlock a centuries-old battle of good versus evil.
Miller and Williamson are executive producing Secret Circle with Elizabeth Craft, Sarah Fain and Alloys’ Leslie Morgenstein and Gina Girolamo. Vampire Diaries co-creator/exec producer Julie Plec is not currently attached to the project but could come on board in the future.
Secret Circle joins the 5 pilots previously picked up by the CW: Danni Lowinski, Awakening, Hart of Dixie, Heavenly and Cooper and Stone. The network’s choices include 2 genre shows, Secret Circle and zombie drama Awakening, one medical drama, Hart of Dixie, one cop show, Cooper and Stone, and one legal drama with supernatural elements, Heavenly.
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I hope The CW realises there is very little overlap between Nikita’s audience and Smallville’s. They REALLY need a superhero series, otherwise they’re going to lose out, as it’s not a case of just moving Nikita to Fridays at 8.
I’m surprised they didn’t develop the Raven series.It makes perfect sense to replace one DC series with another.It could have actually been a good match with either the Vampire Diaries, as it’s a supernatural series with a female lead, or even Supernatural, as the main character is a demon.
yay so happy to hear this!! secret circle sounds really interesting! of all the pilots the CW picked up I hope that Secret Circle, Awakening and Dani Lowinski get picked up!
oops i mean I hope those 3 get on air!
SQUEE! Secret Circle are my absolute FAVORITE L.J. Smith books! (I like them just a little bit better than the Nightworld books.) I have been secretly hoping for a while now that they might make a Secret Circle movie, but this is just as good!
(Now as long as they keep to the story and don’t make it a bunch of angtsy AU b.s., I’ll be a happy camper. ^_^)
I also have a few votes for the actor to play Black John. James Remar (Giuseppe Salvatore), anyone? He can do evil so well and I think he’d be great for the role. <3
Every year the CW and/or CBS tries to do a witch drama. Witch dramas don’t work. Never have, not once, and never will. Witch mythology comes from a fear of women and is created by men. Women do no fantasize about becoming witches any more than men fantasize about becoming demons or warlocks. This comes under the heading of “will they never learn”?
charmed?
What about THE CRAFT? That did teen witches well.
My 7 season box set of Charmed disagrees with you
You must have missed those 8 seasons of Charmed.
Your view on witches is as tired as you think witch shows are. All it takes it one show to do it differently. It already stands a better chance than other witch shows — in The Secret Circle, there are just as many male witches as female.
What about CHARMED? That ran for 8 years, and oh look it was about Witches, and whats that? There are Witches in Vampire Diaries and Buffy? Huh.
Actually, Witch series has worked. Charmed was on tv for what like 8 years?
I agree! Charmed was my favorite show for 8 years and I was sorry to see it end. I remember reading The Secret Circle as a kid and I loved the books.
Dude, I want to be a warlock
What about Charmed, or Buffy which included alot of witch storylines from season 2 on. And while not dramas Sabrina the Teenage Witch was pretty popular.
What do you call “Charmed” for 8 seasons!
Damn Charmed just wasn’t a television show! Not to mention Willow from Buffy (she may not been the star)
you might have forgotten about a certain series before the wb became the cw called,Charmed. Although the network had a different name thenm they already had a show about witches why do another one?
How about a really old one: Bewitched.
You say nobody dreams about being a witch or wizard? I’ve got a good one: what about Harry Potter?
Why renew Nikita? More people have seen the posters than the show.
You do realize Nikita is currently their 3rd most watched series, don’t you?Following The Vampire Diaries and Smallville.One Next Top Model returns, it may drop to #4, but still.When Smallville ends, it will be the 2nd and 3rd most watched series, so I’m not sure why you think it shouldn’t be renewed.
Yes, Nikita is the 3rd most watched series on the CW – but it has one of the lowest demos. It drops up to 0.6 demo points from its lead-in. Supernatural, airing on Friday, beat it in all the demos measured and posted: A18-49, A18-34 and W18-34. The only show pulling lower numbers than Nikita in W18-34 is Smallville.
Who gives a rats ass? Compared to the embarassing ratings 90210/Gossip Girl pull in, Nikita is a welcome change. Given the fact few of the pilots picked up exclusively target women, I’d say that there’s a shift going on at the CW.
Doesn’t Networks give a rats ass about demos especially the 18-34 demo. I remember reading somewhere that demos are very important to networks when it comes to TV shows.
Unfortunely 90210 and Gossip Girl can get away with crappy ratings because it’s one of the network’s “pet shows” that they overhyped before it even aired while GG the network’s most high profile show and the one that gets the most media attention because of Blake Lively and Leighton Meester getting the type of press (landing on the cover of big name fashion magazines like Vogue and Harper Bazzar and getting endorsements with prestigious fashion designers etc) that none of the other CW stars recieve.
Agreed. They need to shoot for 3 million viewers or more on all their shows. They should launch 3 shows in the fall, not 2.
Awakening and Secret Circle sound most promising. Hart of Dixie could work with Hellcats. Both set in south. Secret Circle and Awakening will get a big genre audience off the bat.
Its too bad they moved Hellcats to Tuesdays they could have just left it on Wednesday and launched an all-new Tuesday. Now they have to go all-reality Wednesday cock block.
Umm hello anyone remember the vastly popular shows like buffy and charmed?! Yea they had witch elements
I believe Charmed and it’s 8 seasons and in the UK Merlin and it’s multiple series (later brought to the US by NBC if I’m recalling correctly) would beg to differ. As would anyone who watched Buffy for Hanigan’s Willow. And Bonnie is quickly becoming a fave on VP. So if they do this properly they could have a hit on their hands especially now tgat Schwartz has signed on officially.
Just keep the Vampire Diaries going, it is the BEST!
Go Kevin!!
blah bye people
Pair Hart of Dixie with Hellcats on Tuesday, pair Nikita with Top Model, pair Secret Circle with Vampire Diaries, and pair Awakening with Supernatural. Save Donni for midseason. There, that was easy.
Please note that the only shows I watch on CW are because of the hot guys – it’s true. I love sci fi, I love paranormal, supernatural stuff and I really love watching nice looking guys. Most television is geared toward pleasing dudes or training girls to be pleasing to dudes, so the change with Supernatural, Smallville and Vampire Diaries is incredibley refreshing. Even though there are the chicks in the shows they don’t take the “sexy” spotlight like they usually do in MOST other shows. I will never watch Nikita because the chicks are so stupid.
Lets say…
Mondays: 90210/Gossip Girl
Tuesdays: The Awakening/Hellcats
Wednesdays: Top Model/Hart of Dixie or save for midseason
Thursdays: Vampire Diaries/Secret Circle
Fridays: Nikita/Supernatural
Good move to focus on supernatural type shows. They have worked for the network and their rich teen woman crap has failed, just look at how horrible their Monday and Tuesday night ratings are.
I so hope Secret Circle gets aired. It was once of the best series I ever read!!! And it sucks so bad that L J Smith got fires from writing the Vampire Diaries books!!! She’s the best author evar!! And it’s not fair how the publishers are making her stop and some ghost writer do it.>:( theyre her books and her characters! No one else should write them!!!!
Damn, 90210 is getting good. Just watched last week’s ep. Wanna make Jessica Lowndes my woman. 90210 hasn’t had a big teen death yet. The OC and original 90210 had em’. My vote goes for cousin Emily. Instead of packing up and moving back to Kansas, she needs to just to bite it in a big way.
I’m talkin Brooke from Melrose Place smacking her head drunk with a bottle of wine and drowning in the pool. Marissa from the OC getting driven off a cliff (which kind of brought the whole Rebel Without A Cause references full circle for me). Abby falling off that wood tower into the lake on Dawson’s Creek. If the new 90210 has ever had someone ripe for offing it’s Cousin Emily.
Hey, you guys forgot Sabrina, The Teenage Witch! Yeah it was a sitcom, but nonetheless it had many witch elements.
I for one can’t wait for Secret Circle; I haven’t read the books yet but plan to soon. The only other show I want to get a season order is Awakenings. None of the other shows sounded remotely interesting. The CW needs to get on track, being that they never were since becoming a network. They need to cut their losses with One Tree Hill and get at least 3 new scripted shows for the fall season. They also need to go all out with other shows like Gossip Girl and 90210. This has actually been the best season of 90210 so far. They are finally getting realistic plots that resemble the original series, but they need to get ratings up fast.
You’re joking, right? The Craft makes Witches look like selfish, conniving, spoiled, shallow Satanists, instead of the sincere religious series’s that most of us are. This Wiccan is not amused.
@ The_L
First off, Wicca is religious, but witchcraft is not necessarily. Wicca came into being in the mid-twentieth century, so it has no proprietary claims to the word “witch.”
Second, if you pay attention to the resolution in “The Craft,” it is made very clear that being conniving, spoiled, and shallow has unpleasant consequences. The only witchling who walks away unscarred is the one who makes good moral choices, inspired by the Wiccan Rede. (One of the priestesses in our community wrote a nice analysis of this for the local pagan newsletter when “The Craft” came out.)
Third, and perhaps most important, this is fiction. While fiction can inspire us, it should never be confused with real life religion.
Please don’t make the rest of us look bad by playing the victim card. (Never again the whining times.)
Happy to see another show on witches, and it’s predictable, given the number of YA novels dedicated to them in recent years. Television allows time for story development; surprising the Sweep series was not chosen for TV but instead for film (maybe they’re predicting a sequel goldmine like Twilight); but from what I’ve read of the Sweep series it’s pretty godawful. Maybe a film version will be better. But must all these stories have a plot that involves a witch “discovering” her witch identity and her link to some ancient curse or legacy…I mean, can’t there just once be a story about witches where the witches CHOOSE to be who they are? Just a thought…
OMG! i loved the secret circle series and am sooooooo glad.
not my fave lj smith book but i think that will only help with publicity for it cause if everyone had read it they would be comparing them the whole time like with vampire diaries( which in my opinion the series is good but the books were so different they’re two different stories) cant wait to see how it turns out.
Aren’t your forgetting 8 years of the Charmed series? It worked and different episodes still air four times each weekday ….just saying
So happy to hear this!! I love The Secret Circle books, been hoping to see it on TV or even in theatres someday- especially since The Vampire Diaries are such a big hit..
Just heard Shelley Hennig has been cast for Secret Circle! What a babe!
She just left Days of Our Lives after 4 years.