CW set's an 'Arrow' spin-off 'The Flash', 'Supernatural' is doing one as well

With the CW unable, unwilling or just not really caring to bring Wonder Women to their network after years of development, they have decided to bring The Flash to Arrow and then spin him off into a series for 2014-15 TV season. 

Barry Allen will debut on Arrow’s eighth and ninth episode this season and then again in the twentieth before (hopefully) landing a spin-off for the fall of next year.  With Amazon stuck in Developmental Hell, it seems odd that Arrow, created by Greg Berlanti and Andrew Kreisberg, would add a super powered hero to their show, after saying (taking a page from Smallville) that their series would not have anyone with superpowers. 

But apparently, The Flash was Berlanti’s favorite character when he was growing up. And this origin story, told in the three episodes, will be “grounded and realistic as possible,” said Kreisberg at the TCA’s happening in Pasadena this week. “That’s how we’ll get to know him. Then his life will get a bit faster.” The surrounding characters in Arrow will react to Allen “in a very realistic way,” noting that they “won’t be treated as commonplace on the show but as extraordinary events.” Kreisberg added: “It will be fun for the audience to see how we do our take on The Flash’s powers. Some will feel very familiar to those who know the comics, and other stuff will feel different yet fresh and exciting.”

Meanwhile, Berlanti noted, “That said, he does need powers to become The Flash. And he will be The Flash. He will wear a red costume, and he will go by that name.”

Berlanti, Kriesberg and series writer Geoff Johns will write all three episodes of The Flash arc and David Nutter, who helmed Arrow’s pilot episode, will do the same for episode 20.

Meanwhile, another CW series is mounting a long gestating spin-off. Supervising producer Andrew Dadd will write an episode for Supernatural that will also be a backdoor pilot for a potential series that will air in the spring. While in the early stages of development –no title, or cast-, this spin-off will not be as wide roaming as the mothership, instead it will focus on a clashing hunter and monster culture of Chicago (I wonder if it’ll film in Toronto, which many say shares many similarities with Chicago). So it sounds like it could be the Deep Space Nine of this franchise, where the bad guys come to the heroes instead of them searching for them.