The CW downsizes, makes changes

The biggest change for network-wannabe The CW this fall is what it won't be doing.

It won't be scheduling anything on Sunday nights, leaving affiliates on their own.

Which means that The CW will program only 10 hours of prime time per week, airing shows from 7-9 p.m. Mondays-Fridays. And that should, in theory, make it easier to come up with successful shows.

But only in theory.

And CW programmers haven't actually come up with 10 hours of original programming. They've only managed nine — weekly repeats of "America's Next Top Model" will remain part of the schedule.

If I really wanted to be catty about it — and, hey, why not? — I could point out that 20 percent of The CW's prime-time lineup will consist of shows that are not original ideas. In addition to the return of the marginally rated "90210," the network has, as expected, added a revival of "Melrose Place."

So ... we'll be seeing a spinoff of a revival that's also a revival of a spinoff.

Weird.

On the other hand, the "Gossip Girl" prequel appears to be dead — it's not on either the fall schedule or the midseason slate.

Neither The CW nor its two predecessor networks — UPN and The WB — ever had much in the way of success when it came to half-hour sitcoms. So the network has given up on the genre altogether.

There are no sitcoms on The CW's fall schedule and none were announced as midseason shows, either.

The CW's new fall schedule features:

Melrose Place (Tuesdays, 8 p.m.) is back at the apartment house (which doesn't really exist) on the cul-de-sac (which doesn't really exist) off Melrose Avenue in the trendy part of Los Angeles.

Laura Leighton returns as Sydney Andrews, the character she played from 1993-97 on the original 1992-99 show. Now she's the landlady — but she's having an affair with the son of her ex-brother-in-law, Dr. Michael Mancini (original cast member Thomas Calabro). Oh, and there's a body floating in the pool.

The cast includes Shaun Sipos, Katie Cassidy, Colin Egglesfield, Stephanie Jacobsen, Michael Rady, Jessica Lucas and Ashlee Simpson-Wentz.

The Beautiful Life (Wednesday, 8 p.m.) is a glitzy drama about models — which is why The CW picked this up to air after "America's Next Top Model."