Though the CW network cancelled The Beautiful Life after just two airings, the series may not be gone for good. The three unaired installments are being released online and, if things go well, new episodes could be produced.
The Beautiful Life follows the turbulent lives of of models in the volatile world of high fashion. The series stars Mischa Barton, Corbin Bleu, Benjamin Hollingsworth, Nico Tortorella, Ashley Madekwe, Elle Macpherson, Sara Paxton, Jaime Murray, Ed Quinn, Gal Gadot, and Billy Magnussen.
Produced by Ashton Kutcher’s Katalyst production company, Beautiful Life debuted to poor ratings (even by CW standards) back on September 16th. The second week’s numbers dropped significantly and the show was pulled from the schedule. Production was reportedly shut down in the middle of the seventh episode.
There were recent rumors that the unaired episodes would resurface next summer on CW but they turned out to be unsubstantiated.
In a live video feed on Ustream last night, Kutcher and his staff revealed that episodes of Beautiful Life would be made available on YouTube, starting today.
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In a statement, Kutcher said, “When The Beautiful Life concluded on broadcast television, we were deluged by fans imploring us to bring back TBL. Working with innovative companies like HP and YouTube, we are thrilled to be ending this year by releasing the remaining episodes of The Beautiful Life and taking part in a unique marketing program that could only occur online.”
The first three episodes of the series are currently available and the next two are scheduled to be released on Monday, December 21st. All five installments are being made available without commercials, thanks to a sponsorship deal with Hewlett-Packard.
It was understood that a sixth episode of Beautiful Life had been shot but, based on the current release plans, it seems likely that it was never assembled or completed.
In addition to the episodes, the TBL YouTube channel also features new messages from members of the show’s cast and crew. They encourage people to watch the show and talk about the making “beautiful changes” in 2010, a tie-in to HP’s ad campaign.
Kutcher believes that the show’s high production values will entice people to watch longer-than-usual YouTube fare. His hope is that, if the episodes of Beautiful Life can attract a significant audience, he’ll be able to attract enough sponsor interest to produce new episodes solely for the web.
What do you think? Are you glad that The Beautiful Life episodes are being made available? Do you think there will be enough interest to produce more?
Image courtesy Katalyst.
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The Beautiful Life
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{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
Will Ashton Kutcher appear in this series or he have only produced it ?!
I really hope they make lot more episodes. I love this show.It’s real and,hello Ashton Kutcher produced it. Do you need any more reasons?
IT SUCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! DO NOT KEEP IT ON THE AIR OR EVEN ONLINE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I completely disagree with you, but you are entitled to your own opinion.
I absolutely LOVE THIS SHOW I’m a guy, so that’s saying something. It has a really good grabbing plot similar to Gossip Girl. The problem with this show, why there weren’t enough views I think was the advertising of it. The advertising of it was too similar to Gossip Girl’s original advertisement so everyone was anticipating another copy-cat version of that. Don’t get me wrong, this show has proven to me that it’s different than gossip girl. The characters are more relatable because of the fact that they weren’t brought up on being rich from the Upper East Side of things like the Gossip girl plot is viewed from. Like Gossip Girl this show hopefully has a good future for itself. If i were to advertise for this show again, I would have made it stand-out more just like how we (the public) first watched the first sexually-charged advertisements of Gossip Girl. If this staff took on the mind set of sanding outside the box and trying to advertise The Beautiful Life series in a different light, I guarantee that this show would’ve had a better viewer turnout. This show, I believe, is exceedingly better than some of the shows currently on the CW. I just hope this show makes it’s way back towards the CW because I would love to download episodes onto my Itunes, or buy the DVD season box-set in the store. PLEASE BRING IT BACK CW! It was a short-lived show that didn’t have ENOUGH of a chance. This is a really good TV Show and I know that If it doesn’t continue, it would become a huge disappointment to the wonderful staff, who put so much work into making it happen.
Well for one thing the beautiful life is my favorite show now I tell all my friends to watch it and there all into it but why can’t you make them just not put them on the tv network and just put them on youtube? Beacause there doin really good on youtube and I love watching the episode at least finish the 6th episode so everyone can know what hapened beacause that is the worst way people shut down shows if it is at a hangclift so please finish the 6th episode, and get the show back that will be like the best thing yall could do is just put it on youtube I like watching it on there beter than the tv anyway.
I’m a huge (Dutch) TBL fan!
I was honestly shocked when i heard it got cancelled after just 2 episodes!
I was happy to hear TBL would be back on YouTube.
Seen 5 of them now…and REALLY hope more episodes will be made.
*fingers crossed*
please make more episodes, its amazing
I really fell in love with this show it was awesome and i dont think its right that the cw didnt give the show an opportunity with so ever to gain fans