The Great White North is where it’s at – and by ‘it’ we mean scripted television dramas.

While the Writers’ Guild of America resolved its labor dispute, the actors’ union SAG-AFTRA is still on the picket line, so production of movies and scripted television is still halted. But what is a poor television network to do? People will only watch so many game shows and lame reality series.

The answer, for The CW anyway, is to look to our neighbor to the north. The struggling netlet has imported a number of shows for its fall schedule, with more on the way. Last week saw the premiere of Sullivan’s Crossing, which follows a star neurosurgeon (Morgan Kohan) who returns to her bucolic home after a scandal rocks her world in Boston. The show also stars two faces familiar to long-time viewers of The CW, and The WB before it: Chad Michael Murray of One Tree Hill and Scott Patterson of Gilmore Girls.

Sullivan’s Crossing is more akin to Everwood (a charming family drama that didn’t survive The WB’s transition to The CW) than like edgier teen dramas like Riverdale, and though it had an inauspicious debut on the network, with only 494,000 viewers, it still could catch fire, or at least a slow burn. The show first launched in Canada in March, where it became CTV’s highest-rated drama launch in over two years.

Crossing is paired with another import, The Spencer Sisters, starring Back to the Future‘s Lea Thompson and Stacey Farber as Victoria and Darby Spencer, a mother and daughter duo who are thrust into investigating crimes in their hometown of Alder Bluffs. The show’s first season premiered on CTV in January of this year, and by May, The CW had announced the pickup. Both air on Wednesdays, for now.

In addition to those dramas, The CW picked up three sitcoms, two from the CBC and one from CTV: ’80s-set coming-of-age story Son of a Critch starts Thursday’s lineup, followed by Run the Burbs about a stay-at-home dad, and Children Ruin Everything, about…well, the title gives it away.

Thursday the network announced that it had ordered two new scripted series to start in 2024: Wild Cards and Sight Unseen. Crime procedural Wild Cards stars CW alums Vanessa Morgan (Riverdale) and Giacomo Gianniotti (Reign), while detective drama Sight Unseen features past CW show stars Daniel Gillies of The Originals and Jarod Joseph from The 100.

Wild Cards, in partnership with CBC, is described as a crime-solving procedural with a comedic twist. It follows the unlikely duo of a gruff, sardonic cop and a spirited, clever con woman. Ellis (Gianniotti), a demoted detective, has unfortunately spent the last year on the maritime unit, while Max (Morgan) has been living a transient life elaborately scamming everyone she meets.

Sight Unseen, in partnership with CTV, follows Tess Avery (Dolly Lewis), a top homicide detective who is forced to quit the job she loves after she nearly kills her partner and is diagnosed as clinically blind. She’s reluctant to accept help and uses an assistance app whereby she connects with Sunny Patel (Agam Darshi), a professional seeing-eye guide and an agoraphobe who lives 3,000 miles away. After losing her vision, Tess is haunted by the unsolved cases she left behind. 

“Wild Cards and Sight Unseen are two unique, binge-worthy shows that reflect The CW’s commitment to compelling, top-tier storytelling that will appeal to our loyal fans and attract a wide range of new viewers,” commented Liz Wise Lyall, the CW’s Head of Scripted Programming, in a statement. “We are thrilled to collaborate with our partners at Blink49 Studios, Front Street Pictures, Piller/Segan and Sisters Troubetzkoy Productions to bring these dynamic series to life and highlight just how expansive The CW brand can be.”

The CW’s returning dramas, All American, All American: Homecoming, Superman & Lois, and Walker are expected to appear in 2024, on the winter or spring schedule.