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On her old show, Ugly Betty, Becki Newton was the pretty one. On her new show, the long-delayed Love Bites, she’s the pregnant one. The NBC series is an anthology rom-com in the vein of He’s Just Not That Into You or Valentine’s Day — a procession of loosely connected stories, anchored by a few core characters — that was supposed to be NBC’s big new show of last year. But it got delayed, management changed, Newton shot a pilot for CBS that didn’t get picked up, and now Bites has been burned off over the summer. We spoke with Newton, who is in Atlanta, hanging out on the slapstick set of a new Farrelly brothers movie, about how her real-life pregnancy impacted Love Bites, cheating on NBC with CBS, and where Michelle Trachtenberg goes wrong in tonight’s episode.
Annie was supposed to be a virgin. How was that going to play out, originally, before your pregnancy changed the course?
I don’t think that could have played out for long. There’s not a lot of room. It would have become all about who she’s going to lose her virginity to, and then when that happens, it would be over. We used some of that idea for Cassie [played by Krysten Ritter], who pretends she’s a virgin. But happily, my pregnancy opened up the character of Annie. And I was ginormous shooting that pilot, because we had to redo it. I was eight-and-a-half months pregnant; I was about to pop! And yet, Annie doesn’t think of herself as pregnant. “I’m not really a future mom. I can still date!” This of course gets her into these awkward, horrible situations. She’s the total opposite of what you think a pregnant woman is.
How will the show change once Annie gives birth?
You will see Annie have that baby — well, you won’t see it, but you will see the storyline conclude. And if there’s a second season, you’ll get to see how that changes Annie’s life. She thought it wasn’t a big deal to be her sister’s surrogate, but it gave her a purpose. And although she didn’t think she would, she now loves this baby. But this isn’t treated like a cliffhanger. That’s what’s unique about this series: The arcs are short enough and the scenes are long enough that nothing is ever left unresolved.
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Seemingly forever-shelved (and waylaid by backstage drama) for more than 12 months, NBC’s Love Bites – a rom-com anthology series starring Ugly Betty‘s beloved Becki Newton, Heroes‘ charmer Greg Grunberg, and Entourage femme Constance Zimmer — is finally making its debut, this Thursday at 10/9c. After such a lengthy delay, there has to be something wrong with Bites, right? Actually, not really. In fact, I’m pretty smitten with this bit of summer fare — and I’m not alone. Newton is thrilled that the show is finally seeing the light of day, and believes “anything can happen” when it comes to the longevity of this Love.
TVLINE | Given that Love Bites was shelved for so long, was there ever a time that you were worried the show may never make it to air?
You know, I’ve learned through experience that you can’t ever predict what’s going to happen with any show. When I signed on to Ugly Betty, I just prayed that I wouldn’t get fired after the pilot, and four years later, I was still doing it. So, I’m really learning that you can just do your best work, and where the show goes from there is beyond your control.
TVLINE | What were your thoughts on all of the behind-the-scenes drama we kept hearing about? [TNT compelled My Boys star Jordana Spiro to vacate a lead role, original showrunner Cindy Chupack stepped down, the episode order got slashed....]
That’s what was so incredible about this experience — all of these things were going on, but it was actually the most well-run and organized show that I’ve ever worked on. It was really this incredibly pleasant experience. All of [Love Bites'] setbacks tend to happen individually on every show, but we just had a bunch of things happen around the same time. The impression of what was going on made it sound much more chaotic than it actually was. Every step along the way, people just went with the flow.
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Added the first high quality promotional still of the upcoming 1×02 How To episode of Love Bites airing June 9, 2011 on NBC. Plus we added 3 more high quality promotional photos from the shoot. Becki looks really beautiful! Have a look at the photos!
HOW TO… (TV-14) EVERYONE LEARNS A LITTLE SOMETHING “NEW” IN THIS WEEK’S “LOVE BITES” – MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG, KURTWOOD SMITH AND FRANCES CONROY GUEST STAR – When Annie’s (Becki Newton) friend Jodie (Michelle Trachtenberg, “Buffy The Vampire Slayer”) bakes a banana bread for her new flame Charlie (Bret Harrison, “Reaper”), he feels threatened and tells her they should just be “friends.” Suspecting it was the banana bread that scared him off, Jodie is livid and decides to be the best “friend” he ever had. Meanwhile, Ed (Kurtwood Smith, “That ‘70s Show”) and Faye Strathmore (Frances Conroy, “Six Feet Under”) visit their son Kyle (Stephen Rannazzisi, “Paul Blart: Mall Cop”) and his boyfriend in Venice, California and Faye is on a mission to make sure that Ed keeps an open mind and is on his best behavior. Also, when Judd (Greg Grunberg) and Colleen (Constance Zimmer) meet over-the-top television sex therapist Dr. O (Jeffrey Tambor, “Arrested Development”) at a party, he offers some suggestions about their love life that have disastrous results for the couple.
    
GALLERY LINK:
Love Bites > Season 1 > Episode Stills > 1×02 How To
Love Bites > Season 1 > Promotional Photos > Promoshoot
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We added 15 high & medium quality episode stills of the 1×01 Firsts episode of Love Bites. Becki looks so stunning! We dunno about you guys but we’re so excited for June 2, 2011! Be sure to not miss the premiere of Love Bites on NBC!
FIRSTS (TV-14) “LOVE BITES” PREMIERES WITH THREE INTERWOVEN STORIES OF LOVE, SEX, MARRIAGE AND DATING – JENNIFER LOVE HEWITT AND CRAIG ROBINSON GUEST STAR IN THE PILOT EPISODE – Annie Matopoulos (Becki Newton, “Ugly Betty”) is a young, single woman who has taken on an incredible task – serving as a surrogate for her sister. Jealous of the attention that Annie receives while being pregnant, her friend Cassie (Krysten Ritter “Breaking Bad”) decides she must have a “story” as well, and decides to masquerade as a virgin to attract a man. Meanwhile, when Carter (Kyle Howard, “My Boys”) is fired from his accounting job and comes home early, he finds his fiancée Liz (Lindsay Price, “Eastwick”) in bed with a unique gift from her bachelorette party. Also, Judd Rouscher (Greg Grunberg, “Heroes”) and his friend Bowman (Craig Robinson, “The Office”) end up on a cross- country flight with Jennifer Love Hewitt (“Party of Five”), who is on Judd’s “celebrity exemption list,” allowing him sleep with her without marital consequences. When Judd ends up actually sitting next to her, he must decide what to do with this opportunity.
    
GALLERY LINK:
Love Bites > Season 1 > Episode Stills > 1×01 Firsts
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NBC has had a tangled relationship with “Love Bites,” its new show about sex, dating and marriage. A year ago, NBC showed advertisers a 12-minute clip of the series and anointed it the centerpiece of the network’s fall 2010 schedule. “Love Bites” was then pushed back to midseason. In January Comcast Corp. acquired control of NBC Universal and new managers temporarily shelved the series. After months of reworking, eight episodes of “Love Bites” will air starting June 2.
Originally created by “Sex and the City” writer Cindy Chupack, “Love Bites” was designed as a three-part “anthology” series in which each episode contained three self-contained vignettes of romantic quandaries. Former NBC entertainment chief Jeff Gaspin championed it; NBC’s Universal Media Studios spent heavily on shooting on location and on stars like Becki Newton (“Ugly Betty”). Then Ms. Chupack left the show for personal reasons. Executive producers Tracy Poust and Jon Kinnally (“Will & Grace,” “Ugly Betty”) were signed on to run the show and write storylines with more connected vignettes. In an interview, the writers said they had to redo the pilot multiple times. Vernon Sanders, an executive vice president at NBC Entertainment and Universal Media Studios, denied this account. In a subsequent interview Ms. Poust said that only a portion of the pilot had been rewritten to accommodate the fact that Ms. Newton had become pregnant. “We probably wrote seven versions of the pilot,” Mr. Kinnally says.
Mr. Gaspin later left NBC. Production was almost finished when newly-named entertainment chairman Bob Greenblatt took over and felt the anthology format would be tough to sustain long term, according to people familiar with the matter. Mr. Sanders says “Love Bites” is debuting in the summer because there’s less competition and that Mr. Greenblatt is on board. “Bob has said if we have success we can absolutely do it again,” he says. Not since the 1970s series “Love, American Style” has network TV attempted a romantic anthology. With no ongoing storylines or regular characters to build on, “Love Bites” writers sometimes pulled words randomly out of a hat (“Rottweiler, shadow,” in one case) and tried to use them as a springboard for storylines.
“We were that desperate,” Mr. Kinnally said.
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