SueTube – Let’s talk TV with critic Susan Young

With ratings like these, if the CW was a TV show, it would have been cancelled long ago.

The barely breathing network trotted out its new game plan today, with the family-in-Africa drama “Life is Wild” missing. If you don’t know what show I’m talking about, don’t worry. Very few viewers ever tuned it. In fact, if you gathered all the regular viewers together they probably wouldn’t even make a noticible line in Starbucks.

Penn Badgley as Dan and Blake Lively as Serena star in Gossip Girl on The CW. Photo Eric Liebowitz /The CW

Not that they don’t have some great shows. “Gossip Girl” is a great guilty pleasure, and although “Reaper”never again rose to the level of its fantastic pilot, it’s still not a bad show.

Enough pitching. Here’s the line-up:

Monday

8 p.m. “GOSSIP GIRL” (Beginning January 28)

9 p.m. “PUSSYCAT DOLLS PRESENT: GIRLICIOUS” (Beginning February 18)

Tuesday

8 p.m. “REAPER” (Beginning January 15)

8 p.m. “BEAUTY AND THE GEEK” (Beginning March 11)

9 p.m. “ONE TREE HILL” Wednesday (Beginning February 20)

8 p.m. “AMERICA’S NEXT TOP MODEL”

9 p.m. “PUSSYCAT DOLLS PRESENT: GIRLICIOUS”

Encore

Thursday

8 p.m. “SMALLVILLE”

9 p.m. “REAPER” (Beginning February 28)

Sunday (Beginning February 10)

7 p.m. “CW NOW”

7:30 p.m. “EVERYBODY HATES CHRIS” Encores

8 p.m. “EVERYBODY HATES CHRIS”

8:30 p.m. “ALIENS IN AMERICA”

9 p.m. “GIRLFRIENDS”

9:30 p.m. “THE GAME”

Name two things that might mean you’re a geek.

If you said being a mechanical engineering student AND a member of the U.C. Berkeley Rubberband club, cue up the winner’s ring-a-ding-ding.

Josh has been named as one of the geeks who will be taking lessons in social graces from a non-intellectual chic when the latest round of “Beauty and the Geek” starts up on Sept. 18.

JOSH FROM OAKLAND

The Oakland native says everyone who knew him, and saw the show, thought he should try out for it.

“The Oakland-Berkeley area has so many different and interesting people and that’s what they want on TV,” Josh, 21, says. “I was hoping to learn the skills of this show teaches like social skills with people, women in particular. That skill was the one I needed the most and the one area where I gained the most confidence.”

Now perhaps the Oakland Tech grad will share that same bravado as another famous alum, Clint Eastwood.

“Well, both my parents have Phd’s and encourage education and analytical thought, but I think I may be the geekiest person to come out of my family. I have three younger siblings who told me I needed to go on this show,” Josh says. “I’ll have to wait until after the show airs to see if I’ll have the star power of Clint, but I believe I have a long way to go.”

By the way, if you were wondering what the Rubberband Club does, it is a club devoted to shooting rubber bands and playing rubber band-based games.

Like that surprises you.