The Southern Ontario/WNY Radio-TV Forum / A Very Obscure But Great TV Series Turns Up For Free Online

**Posted by RadioActive** April 6, 2025 4:23 pm

If you didn't have a TV antenna back in 2004, you may have never seen the short lived WB Network. It came out of Buffalo locally on Channel 49 and I'm not entirely sure if it ever made it to Canadian cable. (Although it was on WPIX New York, so perhaps some saw it.)

It was not very successful but did have a few shows I liked. The one I remember best was an obscure series called "Jack & Bobby," about two young brothers, one of whom grows up to be the President of the United States in the mid 2040s. And yes, the name is deliberately evocative of the Kennedy Brothers, who were clearly the inspiration for the show. It only lasted one season.

I thought I would never see it again, until discovering all the episodes have been put online for free on the Internet Archive site. It was a great series for its time and considering what's going on in the U.S. right now, shows a very different idea at what a better government might look like. Not quite a West Wing, but if you've never seen it, it was pretty high quality for such a small network.

You can see it here.

**Posted by RadioActive** April 6, 2025 4:33 pm

By the way, the WB had a lot of very successful shows and the network did eventually become what we now know as The CW, a sad shadow of its former self.

Among the other shows on the network during its brief heyday: Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Everwood, Dawson's Creek, Felicity, The Gilmore Girls, Charmed, Roswell and Smallville.

Here's what TV Guide had to say about Jack & Bobby:

"Although it was canceled after just one season, [i]Jack & Bobby -- playing off the famed Kennedys in title only -- was a wonderful little show about two teenage brothers (Matt Long and Logan Lerman), one of whom would go on to become president of the United States, being raised by a single mother. Co-created by a total nobody named Greg Berlanti, the series was intelligent and endearing, using flash-forward interviews to the future to interesting effect. And although it wasn't completely perfect, it was good enough that it's a shame it didn't last beyond that single season."[/i]

Every The WB Show, Ranked

**Posted by mace** April 7, 2025 6:56 am

The only series I watched out of that list was Dawson Creek, possibly on Global. I recall both ch 23 and 49 being available on Rogers but were part of a separate package. There wasn't enough programming of interest to me on either channel to warrant me spending the extra $$$.