The CW Pilots Update: ‘Insatiable’ & ‘Searchers’ Still Alive

As I have reported, the field of six CW pilots this year was possibly the strongest ever, making for some difficult decisions. The network picked up four to series, Dynasty and Valor from CBS TV Studios, and Black Lighting and Life Sentence from Warner Bros TV.

That left behind the darkly comedic and quirky Insatiable, starring Debby Ryan, and Berlanti Prods’ big-scope adventure drama Searchers.

The CW had four spots open after opting to renew both iZombie and The Originals, vacated by the departing The Vampire Diaries and Reign and canceled freshmen No Tomorrow and Frequency. That makes it tricky for the CW to accommodate two more new series. There is only a glimmer of hope but I hear discussions on both series are ongoing, with final decisions likely to come after the upfronts. There had been rumblings that the network could try to spread the budgeted number of episodes for next season over more shows, leading to shorter orders for some series but it is unclear if that idea is still viable.

Underlining the CW’s faith in all six of its pilots, it gave its blessing to all to start making if-come offers to writers in late April. Insatiable has had strong internal support, though it’s different than anything else on the CW. Meanwhile, Searchers had a bumpy ride and required reshoots, but the final cut came in OK, and the project has great pedigree coming from The 100 creator Jason Rothenberg and the network’s top producer Greg Berlanti.