According to Deadline, CW has officially ordered four series for the 2017-2018 season, including an adaptation of a DC comic series, a US military series, and a reboot of a 1980s hit tv show. CW announced on Wednesday that Black Lightning, Life Sentence, Valor, and Dynasty has all been ordered at the network.
Black Lightning will be based on the DC comic, first appearing in 1977, The superhero is known to be one of the first African-American superheroes, and for being a member of the Outsiders, a group of superheroes led by Batman. Black Lightning/Jefferson Pierce is born with the ability to generate and magnify externally-localized electro-magnetic phenomena, by manipulating intense bio-electric fields generated from his body. Originally developed at Fox, the project moved to CW. Producer Greg Berlanti (Arrow, The Flash) will executive produce. Berlanti Productions is also responsible for NBC’s crime drama Blindspot, and CW’s Legends of Tomorrow, Supergirl, and Riverdale.
Life Sentence, starring Pretty Little Liars Lucy Hale, follows a young woman who is diagnosed with terminal cancer, only to find out that she’s not actually dying. She then has to learn to live with the choices she made when she decided to “live like she was dying.” Bill Lawrence (Scrubs, Spin City) will executive produce the series, with CBS Television co-producing. Since 2010, Hale has portrayed Aria Montgomery on the Freeform series Pretty Little Liars, which will end its seven season run this year. The cast joining her on Life Sentence includes Dylan Walsh, Gillian Vigman, Elliot Knight, Carlos PenaVega, Jayson Blair and Brooke Lyons.
Valor, a modern military drama, was written by Kyle Jarrow, and ordered as a pilot in February. It takes place at a US Army base that houses an elite unit of helicopter pilots trained to perform international and domestic missions. The season will see a series of flashbacks, revealing fail missions, government secrets, and a season-long mission to rescue a group of missing soldiers. Bill Haber, of CBS TV Studios, will executive produce. Valor joins a bunch of military-based dramas in development at different networks, including ABC comedy Charlie Foxtrot, Fox’s Behind Enemy Lines, NBC’s For God and Country, and an untitled Navy SEAL drama from CBS.
Dynasty, which will be based on Aaron Spelling’s hit 1980s series, had already been picked up as a pilot by CW, but now officially going to series. The original series ran for nine seasons, and was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Drama Series for the first five seasons. Dynasty follows two of most America’s most wealthy families, the Carringtons and the Colbys, and all the drama that ensues between them and within their families. The first season will find heiress Fallon Carrington facing off against her soon-to-be stepmother Cristal, a Hispanic woman. Other cast members include Sam Adegoke as Jeff Colby, Robert Christopher Riley as Blake’s chauffeur Michael Culhane, Alan Dale as Carrington lead assistant Joseph Anders, and Rafael de La Fuente in an unknown role. Josh Schwartz, Stephanie Savage, and Sallie Patrick, creators of Gossip Girl, co-wrote this new series, along with Richard and Esther Shapiro, creators of the original series.
Stay tuned for premiere dates and more details for CW’s new series coming out in the 2017-2018 season.