UPN + The WB = The CW

UPN and The WB are transforming into The CW — and the made-in-Utah TV series "Everwood" will not survive the transition.

The CW announced its first-ever fall schedule on Thursday, and "Everwood" isn't on it. After four seasons on The WB, the new management of the new network axed the show, which has filmed at various locations from downtown Ogden to Salt Lake's Avenues since 2002.

The demise of "Everwood" was expected yet confounding. CW Entertainment president Dawn Ostroff dredged up an 11th season of "7th Heaven" and renewed the awful teen soap "One Tree Hill."

The announcement of the fall schedule is a big step for the new network, which will rise from the ashes of The WB and UPN in September. Those two entities — which never escaped the "fledgling network" tag attached to them when they launched within two days of each other in January 1995 — lost hundreds of millions of dollars for their corporate owners.

Their rivalry sometimes turned nasty, like when then-UPN president Lucie Salhany arrived at an affiliates meeting wearing a brooch of The WB's mascot, Michigan J. Frog, dripping blood from a stake through its heart. When The WB lured away several local UPN affiliates, UPN sued.

And when Fox-produced "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" switched from The WB to UPN, it looked like real blood might be spilled.

The WB had more than its share of duds and bombs, but it was also home to pop-culture phenomenons like "Buffy," "Felicity" and "Dawson's Creek."

UPN was chiefly notable for its two "Star Trek" series ("Voyager" and "Enterprise") and "Smackdown!" wrestling. It had the occasional gem ("Everybody Hates Chris," "Veronica Mars"), but the list of utter dreck is too long to print here. So let's just mention a few, like "Homeboys in Outer Space," "The Secret Diary of Desmond Pfeiffer," "Shasta McNasty" and "Chains of Love."

UPN seemingly spent most of its 11 years of existence denying it was about to fold. So it's somewhat surprising that, at least in terms of who's programming The CW, UPN won out over The WB. (Ostroff has been programming UPN; she reports to CBS chieftain Les Moonves. The WB programmers are out.)

Turns out WB founder Jamie Kellner was wrong when he predicted in 1997 the two networks would never merge, but he was right when he said in 1999, "Is there room for six networks? . . . The answer is no."