It’s Golden Globe Sunday, and as per tradition, that means The CW is holding court at the Langham Hotel in Pasadena as the Winter TCA Press Tour continues, staging a few premiere announcements and providing updates on future shows and the statuses of their current ones.

Paul Hewitt, CW’s SVP Network Communications, kicked the panel off with a few newsworthy items:

—Legends of Tomorrow and The 100 both premiere January 21, unveiling the network’s new Thursday night pairing.

—Containment will air later this spring; a premiere date and time is TBA.

— CW Seed hit Vixen will return for a second season on the network’s online companion this year. Actress and star Megalyn Echikunwoke will be playing the character on an upcoming episode of Arrow.

—Director Kevin Smith will direct an episode of The Flash, airing sometime in May. More information about the episode is sure to come later, but right now, it appears that Smith will just direct the episode, and will not write.

—Broadway star Lea Salonga will appear and perform in Crazy Ex-Girlfriend later this season.

The network was enthusiastic about its 2015, and psyched by its schedule.

“In my opinion, The CW currently has the best Monday through Friday in our history,” said Hewitt. “The network has come a long, long way.”

From there, President Mark Pedowitz took to the stage (“As you can tell, I did not win the Powerball yesterday”) to elaborate on the announcements and their current and upcoming slate of shows.

“2015 was another great growth year for the CW. It’s shown in the quality of the shows,” said Pedowitz.

This year marks the 10th anniversary of The CW, a network that has “defied a lot of odds,” Pedowitz said.

Last year, Riverdale, an Archie TV series, was brought to The CW under super-producer Greg Berlanti’s stewardship. When asked for an update on its “darker take,” Pedowitz said there is a script, but they have not yet picked the show up.

“We give them that leeway, they deserve it. They’ve earned it. That’s why we’ve gone with a darker take,” he said.

The theme of the day was Crazy Ex-Girlfriend and its moribund ratings. Can it survive?

“I wish I had more optimistic statistics. We don’t. What I do have is great faith in the show, great faith in the show-runners, Aline Brosh McKenna, Rachel Bloom,” said Pedowitz. “We believe in the show. We stand by the show. That’s why we did the back order. We believe there’s a place [for it].”

He continued to sing the show’s praises.

“You can’t beat quality like this. Rachel is an unbelievable hyphenate. The fact that she’s been nominated [for a Golden Globe] is a testament to what she’s done,” said Pedowitz. “I wish numbers were better. I wish more people have found the show.”

(Update: on Sunday night, Bloom won the Golden Globe for best actress in a TV comedy or musical, following in the footsteps of Jane the Virgin‘s Gina Rodriguez.)

But Pedowitz remained optimistic, and happy about their critically acclaimed Monday night of Jane the Virgin and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend.

The CW has made no decision about next season, and Pedowitz hopes Crazy Ex-Girlfriend comes back, though it’s too soon to tell if it will come back and in what form (in terms of episode order), given that they haven’t launched their midseason shows yet.

Regardless, Pedowitz is “not sure we’ll do better than Crazy Ex” as a companion to Jane the Virgin.

Pedowitz is similarly excited about the development of CW Seed, which is now up to 60 million users on various devices.

“CW Seed has always been considered an incubator, a research development operation,” said Pedowitz. “We have a couple things in the works that are comedic.”

First up is Saving the Human Race from [producer] Rick Haskins, who discovered terrific Norwegian filmmakers to bring a zombie comedy (“zom com”) to life.

Then there’s Attention Deficit Theater by star Jaime King, which will be up on the site shortly.

Justin Baldoni, star of Jane the Virgin, is bringing My Last Day to Seed, an inspirational take on how to survive and live your life to the fullest.

Pedowitz promises that with the move to Friday night, both Vampire Diaries and The Originals will remain stand-alone shows, but promises an organic crossover this year.

“Not the size or scope as Flash or Arrow, but it has to make sense,” said Pedowitz. “If they don’t make sense story-wise, don’t do it, don’t force it. The audience can tell.”

“The move to Friday night is not to exile it, but to strengthen Friday night. We made a strategic shift, making Thursday male skewed with Legends of Tomorrow and The 100.”

Pedowitz also provided a very minor update on their Friday the 13th project, based on the long-running horror franchise.

“I have not seen a script yet, so I can’t tell you if we’re ordering it to pilot. We’re being very careful with it.”

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend isn’t the only show on the bubble for next season, with iZombie facing an uncertain future.

“It’s stronger this season. I think it has a very strong shot of making a third season,” said Pedowitz. “I’m very proud of that show.”

Legends of Tomorrow is the big new tentpole on their schedule, and given a chance to describe it, Pedowitz had this to say:

“It is fun. It’s big. It’s lighter than Arrow and Flash, it has great actors and great auspices. I’ve seen four hours, I want popcorn anytime I watch it,” he said of the show, comparing it to Guardians of the Galaxy and Doctor Who. “It takes your mind off the troubles of the world.”

The CW released a new clip from the show, set in “The 70s,” seen below:

Given that the Arrow-verse continues to expand, Pedowitz was asked if there’s hope for a female stand-alone show.

“At this moment, no. But at this moment last year, Legends didn’t really exist,” said Pedowitz, opening the door of possibility, listing off all the strong females on Flash and Arrow. “There’s an opportunity. When Greg and Andrew and Marc knock on our door, and we think it’s time, we’re going to give them a shot.”

Do they have too many superhero shows?

“I don’t believe we have seen a stoppage of people watching these shows. When you have quality shows, people come watch them no matter what the genre is,” said Pedowitz.

While iZombie and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend are questionable to return, the gift that keeps on giving, Supernatural, looks probable for season 12.

“The show is performing better than it did last year, and as well as you can hope,” said Pedowitz. “We’ve made no series pick ups yet, but I’m pretty hopeful that we’ll see it again.”

America’s Next Top Model, finishing after 22 successful cycles last season, was given a kind farewell by Pedowitz, as the show “kept the lights on” throughout the transition from UPN to The CW. They’ve had discussions about a retrospective special, but no active ones.

“We’ll see what happens,” he said.

But it consistently comes back to Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. While its songs and soundtrack could have a Glee factor in terms of added revenue, you still need an audience, Pedowitz said.

“We want this show to stay on the air. We want this show to succeed. We are backing this show and will continue to do so,” he said. “We’re the CW. We’ve defied a lot of odds. I’m pretty comfortable that Crazy Ex has a good chance at defying those odds.”

The network is putting a lot of promotion and marketing into the show to get the word out.

“It requires time, another season, one way or another, to allow Netflix to kick in,” said Pedowitz. “I would not take a lot of credence from the TV Grim Keeper point of view.”

Pedowitz isn’t looking to change the show to appeal to a mass audience.

“I don’t think we would want the homogenized version of that show,” said Pedowitz. “We wanted that very in your face POV. If that’s the reason we’re not getting the mass audience, I’m sorry to hear that. We’re not asking them to change the show.”

The CW isn’t looking to change its formula, either. Looking ahead, the network isn’t looking to go into procedures or half-hour comedies, sticking with hour-long comedies like Jane the Virgin and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend and comedic-based reality shows like Whose Line Is It Anyway? and Penn & Teller: Fool Us, along with its ever growing stable of superheroes.

“The audience that we seem to attract don’t come to us for procedurals,” said Pedowitz.

We’ll see if they continue to come for capes and tights, when Legends of Tomorrow premieres Thursday January 22.

[All images courtesy of The CW]

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