By 
The CW has given three more series orders for the 2017-2018 season – the DC Comics superhero drama Black Lightning, dramedy Life Sentence and military drama Valor.
DC Comics’ Black Lightning was created by Tony Isabella and Trevor Von Eeden in 1977 and was one of DC’s first major black superheroes. Mara Brock Akil (The Game, Being Mary Jane) and husband Salim Akil co-created the adaptation for television.
Black Lightning follows the story of Jefferson Pierce (Cress Williams), a man who hung up the suit and his secret identity years ago, but with a daughter hellbent on justice and a star student being recruited by a local gang, he’ll be pulled back into the fight as the wanted vigilante and DC legend Black Lightning. One Life to Live alum Nafessa Williams, China Anne McClain and Christine Adams co-star.
Brock Akil and Akil wrote the pilot and will serve as showrunners. Greg Berlanti, producer of The Flash, Arrow, Legends of Tomorrow and Riverdale, will executive produce with his partner Sarah Schechter. The show will be produced by Akil Productions and Berlanti Productions in association with Warner Bros.
Life Sentence stars Pretty Little Liars alum Lucy Hale. It’s the actress’ first series post-Liars, which will end this summer. The series, created by Erin Cardillo and Richard Keith, centers on a young woman diagnosed with terminal cancer who learns she’s not dying after all. She now must learn to live with the choices made when she thought her time was up.
Joining Hale in the series is Dylan Walsh, Gillian Vigman, Elliot Knight, Carlos PenaVega, Jayson Blair and Brooke Lyon. Life Sentence marks a return to The CW for Hale, who previously starred in the network’s 2008 drama Privileged.
Valor is a serialized military drama and conspiracy thriller from Kyle Jarrow. Starring Matt Barr, Christina Ochoa, Charlie Barnett, W. Trè Davis, Corbin Reid, Nigel Thatch and Melissa Roxburgh, the series tests the boundaries between military discipline and human desire at a U.S. Army base that houses an elite unit of helicopter pilots trained to perform clandestine international and domestic missions. Two timelines will be featured — the present and flashbacks — involving a failed mission with one of the unit’s first female pilots that will expose personal and government secrets over the course of the season-long plot to rescue a group of missing soldiers.
Jarrow will executive produce with Being Human’s Anna Fricke.
These shows, along with Dynasty, brings puts the network’s new series orders at four. The CW has renewed eleven of its current series, including Riverdale, DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, The Flash, Arrow, Supergirl, Jane the Virgin, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, Supernatural, The 100, The Originals and iZombie.
Comments