The CW Pushes New Season to 2021, Tease Supernatural Return Date, Arrowverse Crossover

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic continues to wreak havoc on the entertainment industry, with television fall schedules the latest to feel the impact.

Fox has already revealed a schedule that sees none of their live-action series returning in the fall, though there is plenty of animation and reality to pick up the slack, as well as a few spring holdovers.

The CW took things even further a couple days after announcing they’d picked up a few shows from Canadian broadcaster CBC, DC Universe and CBS All Access. On Thursday, the network revealed that virtually their entire returning lineup (which is virtually their entire lineup) would be held back until 2021.

Even that, of course, is a tentative plan as there is no clear idea just yet as to when television production might be able to continue. Nevertheless, though, the network is committed to wrapping “Supernatural” sooner rather than later, and in the fall.

The long-running series was intended to wrap its fifteen season run this month, but production delays left fully seven episodes on the shelf. There were only two left to film but due to extensive post-production and special effects work, there were several episodes left incomplete.

Since that time, production teams have been working feverishly on the five episodes they where principal shooting was complete, with CW president Mark Pedowitz telling reporters in a conference call covered by TVLine that those were basically ready to go.

Rather than drop those episodes this season, leaving only two for the fall, it made more sense to create a larger mini-season for a more satisfying run-up to the finale for fans. It’s similar to how shows like “Breaking Bad” and “Game of Thrones” have divided final seasons into smaller chunks.

“Jared [Padalecki] and Jensen [Ackles] will go back as soon as they’re able to to finish up the last two episodes, and then [Jared] will go off to work on ‘Walker.'” So when exactly will that happen?

“We hope that they will be able to start shooting sometime in late summer or fall,” said Pedowitz. “And if not, we will then become flexible and rearrange our scheduling.” Such adjustments at this point would impact both shows.

Padalecki has been tapped as the lead in the remake of Chuck Norris’ classic “Walker, Texas Ranger” series. The new action series is slated to take over “Supernatural’s” slot on the schedule when the entire CW lineup returns to the air in 2021.

With Melissa Benoist pregnant, the new season of “Supergirl” has been pushed even further back, but never fear “Superman & Lois” will be on hand to fill in as the Arrowverse gets back to business in 2021.

In fact, Superman will be stepping up for Supergirl in another way, as the network announced a dramatically scaled-back Arrowverse crossover for the new season. Encompassing only two shows, the event — which will probably wind up being called “World’s Finest” or something — will feature crossover action between Superman and Batwoman.

But the shows won’t air back-to-back, as “Charmed” is shifting from Fridays over to Sunday nights to pair with “Batwoman.” “Superman & Lois” is getting the network’s biggest launch spot, airing after ratings leader “The Flash” on Tuesdays.

The remainder of the network’s new lineup will look familiar to fans when 2021 hits, though the Fall 2020 schedule is a completely different beast.

Held back for midseason (however that’s going to be defined–summer?) are “DC’s Legends of Tomorrow,” “Dynasty,” “In the Dark,” “Rowell, New Mexico,” “Supergirl” and new series “Kung Fu” and “The Republic of Sarah.”

You can check The CW’s complete fall and winter schedules below:

MONDAY

• 8 pm Whose Line Is It Anyway?
• 8:30 pm Whose Line Is It Anyway?
• 9 pm Penn & Teller: Fool Us

TUESDAY

• 8 pm Swamp Thing
• 9 pm Tell Me a Story

WEDNESDAY

• 8 pm Two Sentence Horror Stories
• 8:30 pm Dead Pixels
• 9 pm Coroner

THURSDAY

• 8 pm Supernatural (final episodes)
• 9 pm The Outpost

FRIDAY

• 8 pm World’s Funniest Animals (new series)
• 9 pm Penn & Teller: Fool Us

SUNDAY

• 8 pm Masters of Illusion
• 9 pm Pandora

MONDAY

• 8 pm All American
• 9 pm Black Lightning

TUESDAY

• 8 pm The Flash
• 9 pm Superman & Lois (new series)

WEDNESDAY

• 8 pm Riverdale
• 9 pm Nancy Drew

THURSDAY

• 8 pm Walker (new series)
• 9 pm Legacies

FRIDAY

• 8 pm Penn & Teller: Fool Us (new night)
• 9 pm Whose Line Is it Anyway? (new time slot)

SUNDAY

• 8 pm Batwoman
• 9 pm Charmed (new time slot)