In the wake of announcing early renewals of its top shows, including a fourth season of horror-drama Supernatural, The CW has issued a press release on its midseason schedule, as reported by The Futon Critic. It's more good news for Supernatural fans. While new episodes of Supernatural won't air until April 24, the show will return to its original Thursday night time slot starting April 3.

After the last of Supernatural's pre-strike episodes, "Jus in Bello," aired February 21, the network moved its struggling freshman show Reaper into Supernatural's slot with Smallville as the lead-in. There was no indication from the network whether it would air Supernatural repeats, and until the news broke about a season four pickup, fans faced seeing the show vanish from the schedule altogether. On March 25, Reaper moves to Tuesdays at 9 pm.

Supernatural's regular time slot, Thursday nights at 9, has been a tough one. It puts the cult hit up against ratings giants CSI and Grey's Anatomy. Then ABC announced it was moving Lost to Thursdays at 9 pm. Lost and Supernatural are both genre shows, and appeal to a similar audience. Many viewers had to decide between TiVo-ing one and watching the other. On April 24, ABC is moving Lost to 10 pm, which should take some, but not much, of the ratings heat off the brothers Winchester for the remainder of season three.


Sources:
The Futon Critic: Lost press release
The Futon Critic: CW schedule press release