TVSquad

My name is Danny ... and I am a slave.

As far as I can figure, I've been sitting here on my couch for 60 minutes, and my TV is trying to drag my eyeballs to their death.

It wasn't always like this. I had a real job with a real salary and real health expenses that would pay for glasses when my eyes were weakened by the incandescent glow of a television that could ruin the vision of a night owl.

My TV Squad editor sent my TV and I to a small network in the UHF channels. A producer had come to a remote cabin in the woods to create his latest reality show project, 13: Fear is Real. Bound in flashy camera tricks and dipped in sappy horror movie cliches, this reality show contained bizarre challenges, petty altercations, and a demonic, unoriginal mastermind who tortures and watches over all. It was never meant for the watching.

The producer released something dark on the network, something ... awful.

Director Sam Raimi, the man who created such gut-wrenching horrors as The Evil Dead trilogy and Spider Man 3, takes his talent for disemboweling innocent people and chopping off limbs with a dull ax to television ... for a reality show?!?

13 - Fear is Real premieres tonight January 7 on The CW at 8 p.m. eastern. It puts 13 innocent (not really) people in the middle of a fake horror movie, and the last one standing on their bloody stumps takes home the grand prize.

The reality show aims to do for horror movies what Next Action Star did for action movies - rip them off and turn them into another schlock reality show that requires little to no creative ideas or thought.

When you're a ratings-challenged fledgling network like the CW, you're going to do anything you can to get a leg up on the competition. Releasing sex-filled advertisements for your most high-profile show is a good start, but that alone won't get the job done. To that end, the CW has just announced that it's moving its fall premiere dates up to September 1st, well ahead of the beginning of the traditional broadcast season.

The idea behind the move is that you're already going to be hooked on Gossip Girl and Top Model by the time the other networks get around to premiering their fall shows, sometime around mid-to-late September. The season isn't the only thing the CW is starting early, however. Starting in November, they're also extending prime time, with original programming beginning at 6:30 on Sunday nights.

Check out CW's full premiere schedule after the jump.