The 15 best WB shows of all time, ranked by their WB-ness
To celebrate 20 years of One Tree Hill—the last of The WB’s great teen dramas—we look back at the formative network’s most quintessential series
TV Lists Serial drama television series
There was, of course, teen TV before The WB: Saved By The Bell and Beverly Hills, 90210 and My So-Called Life and so on. But the coming-of-age genre didn’t officially, well, come of age until a top-hatted cartoon amphibian named Michigan J. Frog ushered in a wave of generation-defining programming in the late-1990s, populated with acne-free, curiously named creations like Buffy, Pacey, Felicity, and Rory. Running from January 1995 to September 2006, the tenure of the now-defunct network was a short one—alongside several UPN shows, The WB’s most popular series would famously be folded into a new channel entirely, The CW—but undoubtedly significant.
Zeitgeist-capturing titles including Dawson’s Creek, Buffy The Vampire Slayer, and Gilmore Girls not only cemented the network’s status as a haven for teen-centric television but also built The WB brand entirely. A “WB show” held with it the promise of a particular aesthetic, a generational je ne sais quoi: equal parts soapy and sappy, hormonal and heartfelt, precociously smart and preternaturally good-looking. The WB distinguished itself via “smart-teen fare,” as The New York Times dubbed it, handling the inner workings and everyday trials of youth with sharper writing and more thoughtful consideration than they were historically afforded. Even the more “adult” series like Charmed and Angel regularly tapped into the growing pains of growing up.
With its reliance on small-town angst, swoon-worthy romance, and siphoning out the ordinary from the extraordinary—jocks bullied Superman and Buffy’s most terrifying Big Bad was a brain tumor—much of The WB’s signature slate seems downright wholesome in comparison to pulpier descendants like Gossip Girl, Riverdale, and Euphoria. It’s a brand bubble that burst with The CW merger, a DNA-altering effect felt in held-over series like One Tree Hill. Celebrating its 20th anniversary on September 23, OTH was The WB’s last big teen drama, the last one that fully embraced that mix of earnestness and melodrama that fueled the Frog Network. (At least, the first three seasons did, before it moved to The CW for six more seasons and got progressively more insane.) In honor of the feeling—hell, the phenomenon—that The WB sparked all those years ago, here are the top 15 shows that defined the network.
48 Comments
I never watched Buffy because I thought it was a high school teenage drama, like most of the other shows on this list, but with the occasional monster showing up as a B-plot. I finally watched it with my partner (a long time fan) a few years ago and was pleasantly surprised to find out how wrong I was.
I’m glad you finally got to watch it! It’s probably my favorite show of all time.
I definitely consider myself a fan now. It’s funny, at the time I preferred the X-Files as more adult fare (note: I was in middle/high school in the 90s) and thought Buffy was too campy/high school teen drama. Watching them both as an adult, Buffy has a lot of stuff that I enjoy and the X-Files, while it does a lot of things right, also has a ton of clunker episodes, a mythos that nosedives after a few seasons and too many plotlines that are resolved with Mulder going “what if [x]?” in a way that had nothing to do with the episode and is magically correct. Not to say the X-Files is bad, just that I probably over-valued its appeal at the time and wildly under-valued Buffy.
It helped in the 90s that the X-Files built suspense into the fabric of the show – the promise of more “mythos” episodes helped support the weaker standalone episodes, and the less satisfying mythos episodes just raised the stakes for the future mythos episodes. And that was on top of the romantic tension between Mulder and Scully. Knowing that the mythos and the romantic tension are headed nowhere makes it harder to ignore how spotty the writing can be. It’s also a lot of show – even revisiting the first few seasons means dozens of hours.
Good points all around. It’s funny, I hate on JJ Abrams for the mystery box approach and in a lot of ways, X-Files did something similar. Not a mystery box per se, but to your point, it always seemed to hint at something larger. Sadly, when the audience got those things, they were kind of a letdown.I started re-watching from episode 1 a few years back and just started running out of time. With a family now, it became difficult to binge, especially when my partner and I watch a number of things together.
Did you ever give Angel a try, I felt it ultimately surpassed its origin show.Connor’s Season 5 episodes are great IMO even if Season 4 didn’t work for a viewer.
We did Angel at the same time as Buffy, starting with Buffy S4 I think – whichever one lined them up – and then watched as if they had been airing live, so the crossover episodes made sense.As for which is better, that’s a tough one – Angel was probably more consistent since the writers had a three season head start on setting tone and seeing what did (not) work for Buffy, but Buffy probably had higher highs. I would have loved to see S6 of Angel and some day I will get to the comics, once I find an explainer for what I should read chronologically.
Here’s a quick guide to the comic continuations. It’s not that complicated, but there is a ton of stuff.Fray
Fray is a one volume story about a far future slayer. It’s terrific, and while it can be read independently of everything else, it does come into play as the “seasons” progress.After the Fall (this is basically season 6 of Angel, picking up directly after the finale)
Spike: Asylum (optional, set during late season 5)
Spike: Shadow Puppets (optional, set during late season 5)
Angel: After the Fall, volumes 1-2
Spike: After the Fall (optional)
Angel: After the Fall, volumes 3-4
Spike: Alone Together Now (optional)
Spike: Stranger Things (optional)Season Eight
Buffy: The Long Way Home
Buffy: No Future For You
Buffy: Wolves at the Gate
Buffy: Time of Your Life
Buffy: Predators and Prey
Buffy: Retreat
Buffy: Twilight
Buffy: Last GleamingSeason Nine
Angel & Faith: Live Through This
Buffy: Freefall
Angel & Faith: Daddy Issues
Buffy: On Your Own
Angel & Faith: Family Reunion
Buffy: Guarded
Spike: A Dark Place
Willow: Wonderland
Angel & Faith: Death and Consequences
Buffy: Welcome to the Team
Angel & Faith: What You Want, Not What You Need
Buffy: The CoreSeason Ten
Buffy: New Rules
Angel & Faith: Where the River Meets the Sea
Buffy: I Wish
Angel & Faith: Lost and Found
Buffy: Love Dares You
Angel & Faith: United
Buffy: Old Demons
Angel & Faith: A Little More Than Kin
Buffy: In Pieces on the Ground
Angel & Faith: A Tale of Two Families
Buffy: Own It
Season Eleven
Buffy: The Spread of Their Evil
Giles: Girl Blue
Buffy: One Girl in All the World
Angel: Out of the Past
Angel: Time and Tide
Angel: Dark ReflectionsSeason Twelve
Buffy: The Reckoning
It’s easier than you think. For Buffy, start with the Virtual Season 8 graphic novels. There is a Virtual Season 9, 10, and 11. They are a lot of fun! Angel also continues but the order is a little murkier, but “After the Fall” happens directly after the big battle of the series finale. Later it becomes “Angel and Faith” with virtual seasons.
I feel like if we’re ranking on WB-ness, the order is going to depend on whether you think WB-ness means fantastical dramatic teen or grounded/family dramatic teen. If the latter, Dawson’s is definitely number one, but then I’d go One Tree Hill, 7th Heaven, Everwood. If the former, I’d go Supernatural, Buffy, Angel, Charmed.The two sitcoms are way more ABC than WB & I think they should be last. Felicity and Gilmore Girls are two of my favorite shows of all time, but they don’t exude WB-ness to me, they are their own special snowflakes, so I’d put them near the bottom of the list too. Roswell, Smallville & Popular would fall squarely in the middle.
After seeing the headline, I was going to say that I never watched anything on the WB. However, I did watch Felicity & Gilmore Girls. I came to Gilmore Girls after watching the reruns (on ABC Family, I think?) from the beginning while it was still having new seasons.
Yea, WB-ness is a tricky thing to quantify, (as stated, it has a certain “je ne sais quoi” heh) but I think they tried to split the difference. The right shows are at the top, so I’m more or less satisfied with today’s list. And Popular was so ahead of its time.
Popular remains, in my opinion, Ryan Murphy’s most watchable show – it was so well-cast and funny as hell.
Upon seeing the headline, my mind immediately went to the latter even though I exclusively watched the former.Every time those first few guitar strums hit when “Torn” by Natalie Imbruglia comes on shuffle I put on my announcer voice and go “this summer on the WB…”
https://freelancerjoni.com/2023/08/28/24-viewsonic-xg240r
Angel #13, is that good or bad? It’s definitely better than most of 12-1, but if it’s “WB-ness” is less than theirs, then I guess… it’s… better…?
Smallville is my #1 as It’s the only one of these shows I watched on the WB. I didn’t get into Supernatural till season 4/5 (even though I like it more than Smallville) so I will wait to rank it whem the CW list comes up!
I only started watching Supernatural at the gym because TNT was one of the TV stations that was reliably on in the mornings, and totally loved it. Absolute fun fluff. Debating starting the series with my 11yo (when we finish The Office).
Yeah, it’s silly fun stuff even if season 1 monster of the week actually could be scary. I got into because I would catch their season finale after Smallville’s season finale and when I saw the Devil was coming, as a horror fan I had to check it out. And loved it (mostly as season 7-9 are a drag) since.
It wasn’t the best show that came out of The WB—that distinction would inarguably go to our second-place holder—but it was by far the most WB show to come out of the network. I usually disagree pretty heavily with these lists but it’s hard to refute this reasoning.I remember rolling my eyes super hard at hearing the Buffy movie was being made into a TV show. What would even be the point? I don’t even think I watched it on purpose, but I was channel-surfing when I stumbled across Xander saying “the only thing I can think is that you’re building a really little fence” in the first episode and I was instantly hooked. That show redefined what television could be, and shaped the industry (and many of our personalities) for years to come.
Everwood was so underrated. Such a solid, well-acted, well-written show.
And Popular was such a bizarre mess in the best possible way.
Angel is the best show on this list, but it’s WB-factor is lower. Basically all characters (besides Connor) are adults and they deal with adult (and fantasy) issues.
Number 0 on this list? Freakazoid!
The most WB animated series on the network is Batman Beyond It started life as “hey can we make Batman a teenager to match all the teen dramas we got?”
“Pretty interesting story, Freakazoid, but there’s one thing I don’t get…. In that movie Congo, how do you tell the difference between the real monkey and the guy in a monkey suit?”
“Lead actors Chad Michael Murray and Hilary Burton, who played Luca Scott and Peyton Sawyer and made up the fan-favorite “Leyton” ship, exited after season seven”Hilarie*, Lucas*, exited after season six* 🤷
Chamm!
It wasn’t the best show that came out of The WB—that distinction would inarguably go to our second-place holderI think that’s a fair statement in terms of Buffy being the best show on the WB by a country mile, but it’s also worth noting that the teen melodrama that defined the programming was a later – and to some degree almost accidental in terms of throwing stuff against the wall and seeing if it got an audience – creation. The original slate wasn’t very good, with the only thing I watched briefly being The Wayans Brothers, which from what I remember of it tried to recreate In Living Color in a sitcom and didn’t really work. I’m looking through the list of the other stuff, mostly sitcoms, and if I watched any of them I doubt I made it past the pilot since they don’t ring a bell with me.
Then Buffy came along as a midseason replacement for yet another clunker soap opera, Savannah, and it did something remarkable, which was to attract both the teen audience the network hoped would come but also an older audience that realized this was remarkably good TV – I remember being shocked to talk with much older coworkers who thought it was terrific – and resulted in their first bonafide hit.
That resulted in the slew of other teen dramas on this list as they figured out the formula. 7th Heaven came the following year, the season after that Dawson’s Creek, Felicity and Charmed the season after that, and then the rest of the legendary teen shows after that since it was what the network became identified with. They certainly tried to make shows aimed at other audiences, but they never stuck – and I think there’s an argument to be made that once the network got that reputation, older viewers avoided it like the plague (excepting the later seasons of Buffy and then Angel.)
Dawson’s Creek was an interesting one because (at least from my memories of junior high) it sold itself unapologetically as melodrama for teens – boys as well as girls. It never presented itself as genre entertainment like Buffy or family entertainment like 7th Heaven. If anything, it filled the niche that Beverly Hills 90210 vacated when the characters went to college, but Dawson’s Creek was a little bit less tacky – give or take Pacey’s statutory relationship with his teacher.
No Veronica Mars? Or was that a different network?
I want to say that VM was on UPN? I didn’t watch it until a few years later on DVD, but I don’t think it was WB.
UPN then CW, but never The WB.
I absolutely love the parenthetical aside about the actors from “Dawson’s Creek”.>(James Van Der Beek, Katie Holmes, Joshua Jackson and five-time Academy Award nominee Michelle Williams)Maybe I’m reading too much into it. Maybe I’m projecting. But that there is a duck of a clause… smooth and calm on the surface, but going furiously just below.
I knew she’d been nominated more than once but didn’t realise it was five times for an Academy Award now!
I loved many of these shows but if we’re judging by “WB-ness”, let us not forget the short-lived, but VERY WB show (and Dawson’s Creek spin-off) Young Americans. Here’s the opening credits in case anyone wants to be reminded of a time when Kate Moenning was romantically paired with Ian Somerhalder. It’s like an Abercrombie photo shoot turned into a series.
There was a terrible, but very WB, summer show called “Young Americans,” that was so WB that it got lampooned on another WB short-lived series called “Gross Pointe.” The latter was a behind-the-scenes look on the lot of a WB show. It was actually pretty damn funny.
In terms of quality, I’d say Buffy is #1, but in terms of WB-ness, this list is pretty much spot on. Dawson’s Creek is about as WB as it gets. Well done!
افضل شركة نقل اثاث بالطائف رخيصة وخصم كبير عل نقل العفش في الطائغف
*اتصل الان نصلك.شركة نقل عفش بالطائف مع سعر رخيص مع الفك والتركيب خدمة من دليل شركات نقل العفش بالطائف تقدم ارقام وعروضhttps://sites.google.com/site/moversintaif/yanbu افضل شركة نقل اثاث بينبع مع ارخص اسعار عمالة مدربة فنية …افضل https://sites.google.com/site/moversintaif/شركات نقل اثاث بالطائف تقدم خدمات جيدة بخصم خاص وتوفر معدات حديثة وعمالة مدربة ماهرين
Out of all of these shows, Dawson’s Creek was literally the only one I ever watched
Heh, heh…WB-ness…😏😏
There’s zero WB-ness to Reba, but it was a cute enough show. Sometimes it shows up as I’m surfing and I’ll get sucked in for an episode or two. Reba is funny in her constant exasperation at the antics that surround her and there’s a good supporting cast to boot.
No Way was Dawson’s Creek #1 over Buffy. No freaking way.
Dawson’s Creek > Buffy and it’s not even close. This coming from someone who enjoyed both shows.
How dare you denigrate one of the greatest scenes in TV history?!
I like that you immediately justify your Supernatural placement. I could almost hear the entire internet suck in breath to “actually” you.
JJ Abrams peaked with Felicity and it was all downhill from there.
“aired on The WB for one season in ’05 before moving over to The CW. Therefore, it identifies more in the latter camp.”
Created by/for the WB, started airing on the WB, doesn’t count as WB?
Fuck entirely off.
how did I miss seeing all of these?!??!