NBC trims 'Love Bites' order

Becki Newton and Greg Grunberg star in the now-9-episode anthology

By HitFix Staff Thursday, Dec 9, 2010 5:36 PM

'Love Bites

Credit: NBC

What's worse than being a fall series that doesn't actually air in the fall? Being a fall series that gets pushed to midseason and then doesn't have a midseason home. What's worse than that? Having your already currently hypothetical number of episodes reduced.

NBC has cut the season order for the romantic-comedy ensemble "Love Bites" from 13 episodes down to nine. "Love Bites" will reach that number next week and will halt production. The news was reported early Thursday (Dec. 9) afternoon by a slew of websites, with Vulture claiming the "exclusive" by five minutes.

The cause for the episode reduction is said to be rather simple: NBC currently doesn't have a place for any episodes of "Love Bites," much less 13, so cutting the number of available hours just makes sense.

"Love Bites" is an anthology in the "Love, American Style" vein, but it features Becki Newton and Greg Grunberg in recurring roles. The departure of original co-star Jordana Spiro, Newton's pregnancy and creator Cindy Chupack's decision to step down as showrunner all led NBC to pull "Love Bites" from its original Thursday 10 p.m. home, replacing it with the ratings disaster that is "The Apprentice."

The network then announced its midseason schedule and rather than returning "Love Bites" to Thursdays at 10, NBC opted to schedule a comedy block featuring "30 Rock" and "Outsourced."

"Love Bites" is just one of several homeless NBC midseason offerings, including the comedies "Friends with Benefits" and "The Paul Reiser Show."