Girlfriends is an American sitcom television series that premiered on September 11, 2000, on UPN and aired on UPN's successor network, The CW, before being cancelled in 2008. The final episode aired on February 11, 2008. Episodes Broadcast history The series debuted on UPN on Monday September 11, 2000. After airing for several years on the network at 9/8C on Mondays, The CW moved Girlfriends to Sundays at 8/7C. After this, the ratings plummeted. On October 9, 2006, Girlfriends, along with The CW's other African-American programs, moved back to Mondays. At this point, Girlfriends returned to its original time slot. While UPN was still airing new episodes of Girlfriends, the network also began airing reruns five days per week. When the show moved to The CW network after UPN merged with The WB network, MyNetwork TV (which was created to take over UPN's former affiliate stations) picked up the rights to air reruns of Girlfriends, although they eventually discontinued running them. WE tv, a network primarily focused on women's programming, later acquired exclusive rights to air the limited-release episodes on Sundays and exercised an option to not allow broadcast television networks re-broadcast rights to these reruns. Due to the 2007–08 Writers Guild of America strike, the last episodes produced aired on February 11, 2008. The CW had announced plans to move the series to Sunday nights. However, it was later announced on February 13, 2008 that the series was cancelled after 8 seasons and a proper series finale would not be produced. A representative from The CW stated that the network was going to cancel the series due to low ratings and that it would have been too expensive to re-enter production. A retrospective episode was in development to conclude the series but was later scrapped. The network had offered the actors only half of their usual episodic salary to take part, and the actors collectively turned the offer down. Characters Main Joan Carol Clayton, Esq: (played by Tracee Ellis Ross) is considered the unofficial "den mother" of the group, as she frequently looks out for her friends even at the expense of dealing with her own problems, which are plentiful throughout the series. Originally from Fresno, Joan owns a home in the Wilton Historic District Joan met Toni when they were children and then met Lynn in college, and Maya is her assistant at the law firm. She has