There were only 3 CW shows that were likely or certain to be renewed last week and this week all three were renewed. That isn't great news for any of the CW shows on the bubble, but it isn't really any worse news eitherand  Gossip Girl, Hart Of Dixie, The Secret Circle and Nikita remain bubble shows. I'm sure  all four shows won't be cancelled, but I'd be pretty surprised if all four shows were  renewed.

I don't know what Nikita's international sales, online viewing really are, but despite its horrible ratings, it's on Friday and still on the bubble. Fans should hope the hard-to-substantiate reports of Nikita's international prowess are true because a renewal for one more season all but guarantees that it will be renewed for another season after that to get it to syndication.

I give Hart Of Dixie an edge over The Secret Circle because CW already knows how Hart Of Dixie does with a weak lead-in and surely envisions The Secret Circle will do worse when it no longer has The Vampire Diaries as a lead-in.

Cougar Town

Saturday came reports that ABC is in early talks with TBS about taking Cougar Town off of ABC's hands. That's potentially good news for fans, but bad news when it comes to the show's prospects on ABC. I'm not quite as pessimistic as Bill that the TBS talks mean de facto cancellation on ABC. But it clearly indicates that while ABC Studios wants to get the show to enough episodes for syndication, the ABC broadcast network would be plenty happy for someone  else to take on that task.

It'd be hard to fault ABC for feeling that way since the ratings have been terrible and it has several middling-rated (but better rated than Cougar Town) comedies to choose from for schedule padding.

I've downgraded Cougar Town to likely cancellation on ABC.

Scandal

I'm not quite as optimistic as Bill about Scandal of course I had the benefit of seeing Thursday's ratings which Bill didn't have when he posted Tuesday's Renew/Cancel report. But I'm not as pessimistic as many commenters either, and Scandal remains on the bubble.

When it comes to bubble status, like the Renew/Cancel Index we're focusing on the likelihood that a show will be renewed **for next season** (2012-13).  Certain shows are toss-ups where based on the ratings, the renewal decisions could go either way and not be surprising.

Here, “canceled” is used interchangeably with “won’t be renewed for next season” and is not meant to imply a show will be yanked off the schedule in the current season though obviously the two outcomes are not mutually exclusive. The semantics police and lawyers should feel free to break out the handcuffs and plead their cases in the comments. Besides, no matter what anyone at ABC says, reasonable people know with certainty that Pan Am isn't coming back next season.

This Isn't The Renew/Cancel Index

Though the basic methodology is the same (intra-network relative ranking of shows by adults 18-49 ),unlike the Renew/Cancel Index which predicts what would happen if the season ended now, Bubble Watch prognosticates about what will happen by May. The two are still usually closely aligned, and almost certainly very closely aligned towards the end of the season.

Note: only scripted shows that have aired at least one episode this season are in the table below.