Ellen Gray: CW shuffles shows, adds Gellar's 'Ringer' to its mix

SARAH MICHELLE Gellar will be back on TV this fall, on the CW, the network that grew from the two networks that each once featured her as "Buffy the Vampire Slayer."

The 10-hour-a-week network yesterday announced its fall schedule for the 2011-12 TV season, with changes in all five of the nights it programs, and the big news, of course - widely reported in recent days and actually made official Wednesday morning by CBS entertainment president Nina Tassler - was that Gellar's new show had been picked up.

And perhaps in deference to "The Vampire Diaries," which is one of the successes of the CW's lineups, she will not be dispatching the undead this time around.

"Ringer," originally developed for CBS and then passed on to its younger-skewing (but much, much smaller) corporate sibling, has Gellar playing a woman who takes on her rich identical twin's identity to escape danger, only to find out her sister's life's no picnic, either. It'll follow "90210," which is moving to Tuesdays.

Other highlights of the CW schedule (full text is available on my blog at go.philly.com/ellengray):

* "Gossip Girl" moves an hour earlier, to 8 p.m. Mondays, to make room at 9 for "Hart of Dixie," a show about a young doctor from New York who's transplanted to a small Southern town. It stars "The O.C.'s" Rachel Bilson and producers include Josh Schwartz ("Gossip Girl," "Chuck," "The O.C.").

* "America's Next Top Model" gets a new "reality" lead-in: "H8R," whose producers include Mario Lopez. Gist seems to be that celebrities are brought together with people who don't like them - i.e., "haters" - and the famous people try to win them over.

* The long, long-running "One Tree Hill" returns at midseason for what the CW promises will be its final gasp.

* On Thursdays, "Vampire Diaries" gets a new supernatural companion in "The Secret Circle." Think witches, not vamps.

* "Nikita" moves to 8 p.m. Fridays to become the lead-in to the seventh season of "Supernatural." *

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