Officials with the CW issued a statement Monday saying that they and CBS Paramount Television would not be screening the first ep of “90210″ before it premieres  Sept. 2. They said the move was not made because they were concerned about critical reviews of the show hurting its ratings, but that they’re “simply keeping a lid on 90210 until 9.02, riding the curiosity and anticipation into premiere night, and letting all our constituents see it at the same time.”

Nice try CW, but one has to wonder why all the buzz about the show is about former characters from its parent show “Beverly Hills 90210” returning and not about the newbies in the ZIP Code. It would’ve been good for viewers to know more about the characters than their names before the show airs. Why not follow the lead of “Gossip Girl” and put the pilot up for free a few days before it airs? That didn’t seem to hurt the buzz for that show.

“90210″ isn’t the only show that’s staying under wraps before its network debut. Pilots are usually completed by May to send to critics before the TCA panels in June. However, Variety sez that only CBS completed their pilots before the upfronts in May and had them ready by mid-June.

Most of the blame for the pilot no-shows was laid on the WGA strike, when scribes were out of commission until mid-February. The CW and NBC ordered new shows for fall without pilot scripts completed, while ABC and Fox spread their development period out through the summer.

The effects of the new scheduling have already made things tough for ABC and NBC, who have completely redone pilots for “Life on Mars” and “Kath & Kim”, respectively. Both shows are remakes of foreign hits, and the networks apparently didn’t care for how they translated their moves across the pond.

Instead of shelving them they’re reworking them, which not only makes them hard to promote (we’ll probably never see that scene where Kath comes across her mom and her boyfriend in matching gold robes, which has been shown countless times during the Olympics) but also doesn’t give critics a chance to know more about them than their troubled development.

Despite the delays, NBC told Variety that they plan to send screeners out for their new shows before their premieres on TV (except for “My Own Worst Enemy“, which won’t be ready to go until mid-September. ABC won’t do likewise, but said they would provide streaming video via their publicity Web site.

Since the said site tends to not permit most blogging sites with material to promote shows, that strategy might backfire on them.  It almost makes one wonder if they’re more concerned about screeners showing up on P2P sites than just making things easier for themselves or their pre-chosen “critics”.

(Photo: The CW)

Post from: Media Scribbler