UPN Banks On Midseason Series

Just over a month after announcing its fall primetime line-up (story), Enterprise network UPN yesterday ordered two midseason series for the 2003-2004 television year.

America's Next Top Model, a reality television show which premiered this summer, will return for 10 episodes, according to the Hollywood Reporter, although UPN has yet to announce when the series will make its debut.

The second season pick-up comes after Top Model's summer rating success for the network. Top Model debuted on May 20 after the final episode of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, and has since attracted an average of 3.4 million viewers each episode. In contrast, the previous occupants of the Tuesday 9:00 p.m. timeslot, fared poorly: Haunted averaged just over 2.2 million viewers, while Abby and Platinum scored averages of 1.76 and 2.1 million, respectively.

Hosted by supermodel Tyra Banks, Top Model sees 12 women plucked from obscurity to experience life in the highly competitive world of the fashion industry. Like other reality TV shows, such as Survivor and Big Brother, one of the contestants is eliminated each week, with the winner scoring a Revlon modeling contract.

Top Model will be joined in midseason by the comedy series, Game Over. UPN has ordered six episodes of the entirely computer animated show, which revolves around the Smashenburns, "an ordinary suburban family who live in an alternate video game universe inhabited by action heroes, monsters and cartoon characters". Oscar-winner Marisa Tomei (In The Bedroom) and Patrick Warburton (Seinfeld, The Tick) have been tapped to provide the voices for the Smashenburn parents.

Further information can be found here and here at Yahoo! News.

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