NEWS: Arrow, Beauty & The Beast Given Green Light

US TV network The CW has announced both Arrow and Beauty & The Beast have been given the green light.

Arrow is the channel's adaptation of the popular superhero strip, Green Arrow. Presumably they dropped the color-themed prefix to avoid confusion with Green Lantern and The Green Hornet. What is it with superheroes and green?

Anyway, here's the official synopsis:

After a violent shipwreck, billionaire playboy Oliver Queen was missing and presumed dead for five years before being discovered alive on a remote island in the Pacific. When he returns home to Starling City, his devoted mother Moira, much-beloved sister Thea, and best friend Tommy welcome him home, but they sense Oliver has been changed by his ordeal on the island. While Oliver hides the truth about the man he’s become, he desperately wants to make amends for the actions he took as the boy he was. Most particularly, he seeks reconciliation with his former girlfriend, Laurel Lance. As Oliver reconnects with those closest to him, he secretly creates the persona of Arrow – a vigilante – to right the wrongs of his family, fight the ills of society, and restore Starling City to its former glory. By day, Oliver plays the role of a wealthy, carefree and careless philanderer he used to be – flanked by his devoted chauffeur/bodyguard, John Diggle – while carefully concealing the secret identity he turns to under cover of darkness. However, Laurel’s father, Detective Quentin Lance, is determined to arrest the vigilante operating in his city. Meanwhile, Oliver’s own mother, Moira, knows much more about the deadly shipwreck than she has let on – and is more ruthless than he could ever imagine.

The show is being touted as the spiritual successor to the immensely popular Smallville. How audiences will respond to the adventures of a character as comparatively obscure as Green Arrow compared to Superman's early years remains to be seen.

The CW has also given the go-ahead to Beauty & The Beast, which - unlike ABC's identically-titled project - is a remake of the 80s subway-riding romdram starring Linda ''The Terminator'' Hamilton and Ron ''Hellboy'' Perlman.

Detective Catherine Chandler is a smart, no-nonsense homicide detective. When she was a teenager, Catherine witnessed the murder of her mother at the hands of two gunmen. Catherine would have been killed too, but someone – or something – saved her. No one has ever believed her, but she knows it wasn’t an animal that attacked the assassins…it was human. Years have passed, and Catherine is a strong, confident, capable police officer, working alongside her equally talented partner, Tess. While investigating a murder, Catherine discovers a clue that leads her to a handsome doctor named Vincent Keller, who was reportedly killed by enemy fire while serving in Afghanistan in 2002. Catherine learns that Vincent is actually still alive and that it was he who saved her many years before. For mysterious reasons that have forced him to live outside of traditional society, Vincent has been in hiding for the past 10 years to guard his secret – when he is enraged, he becomes a terrifying beast, unable to control his super-strength and heightened senses. Catherine agrees to protect his identity in return for any insight he may have into her mother’s murder. Thus begins a complex relationship between Catherine and Vincent, who are powerfully drawn to each other yet understand that their connection is extremely dangerous for both of them.

Interestingly, the new Vincent seems to have more in common with The Hulk than the original show's deformed outcast (note the synopsis describes Vincent as ''handsome'') but I guess that's because audiences are incredibly shallow these days.

Source: SFX.