NBC has picked up and is currently casting a second installment of its unscripted show “The Biggest Loser,” which has helped the network gain viewers on Tuesday nights recently.
The second edition of the show will run for eight episodes, the Hollywood trade papers report. It’s likely to debut in the spring. Applications for the second show and information on open casting calls is available at NBC.com.
Thrown onto the schedule with little advance hype, “The Biggest Loser” has become a solid performer for the network. The series, in which overweight people compete to see who can lose the most while fighting off temptations, is averaging close to 10 million viewers per week.
NBC expanded the show to 90 minutes for sweeps to fill the spot vacated by “Father of the Pride’s” hiatus. Both of those episodes have logged more than 10 million viewers and decent ratings in the network’s target audience of adults 18-49. The final half-hour of Tuesday’s (Nov. 16) episode scored a 5.6 rating in the demographic, topping the premiere of “The Amazing Race” on CBS.
The series has also delivered vastly better ratings than the 8 p.m. timeslot’s previous occupant. “Last Comic Standing” drew only about 6 million viewers per week in its early-fall run.
Katey Sagal and former TV husband Ed O’Neill will come back into each other’s lives on “8 Simple Rules” later this season.
O’Neill will guest-star in an episode set for February sweeps, playing a former college boyfriend of Sagal’s character, Cate Hennessy. He’ll tape the episode in December.
Cate decides to look up her old boyfriend, just for kicks. Unfortunately for her, though, the guy has been carrying a torch for her all these years and takes her call as a sign that she feels the same way. He then drops everything to be with his unrequited love.
O’Neill and Sagal starred together for 10 years on “Married … with Children,” playing unhappy spouses Al and Peg Bundy. O’Neill has since starred in the CBS series “Big Apple” and ABC’s revival of “Dragnet,” along with such feature films as “Spartan” and “The Spanish Prisoner.”
He’s also set to co-star in a midseason comedy for ABC called “In the Game” with Jennifer Love Hewitt.
Someone at ABC must really like “life as we know it.”
The network has ordered four additional scripts for the struggling first-year drama, the Hollywood trade papers report. ABC has also struck a deal to air repeats of the show on MTV in three-hour blocks Dec. 4 and 11.
While the extra scripts won’t necessarily lead to extra episodes beyond “life’s” initial 13, the order can be seen as a small vote of confidence for the show, which enjoyed generally positive reviews but is stuck in the brutal 9 p.m. ET Thursday timeslot.
Through five airings, “life as we know it” is averaging only about 4 million viewers per week, making it ABC’s least-watched show of the season. It airs opposite “CSI,” the top-rated show on television, and “The Apprentice,” which is in the Nielsen top 15.
The show revolves around three high-school friends (Sean Faris, Chris Lowell and Jon Foster) dealing with the trials of growing up, sex chief among them. Ex-“Freaks and Geeks” writers Gabe Sachs and Jeff Judah created the series.
Credit: Zap2It
