Ashton Kutcher Resurrects The Beautiful Life on YouTube
The Beautiful Life - Mischa Barton and Nico Tortorella
Ashton Kutcher's canceled CW drama, The Beautiful Life: TBL, will live again — on YouTube.
The network axed the series, which chronicles the lives of models, due to poor ratings after airing only two of the five episodes that were produced. Citing fan requests, Kutcher will put all five episodes on YouTube on Thursday.
The CW cancels The Beautiful Life: TBL
"What we feel like we're doing is creating, in some ways, an industry first," Kutcher told Reuters. "A show that couldn't find its legs on television, we believe can find its legs on the Web."
The first two episodes and a third unaired one will run Thursday, while the remaining two unseen episodes will premiere Monday. Thanks to a sponsorship deal with Hewlett-Packard, the episodes will air commercial-free on the video-sharing Web site.
Check out photos from The Beautiful Life: TBL
While YouTube content typically consists of shorts or webisodes, Kutcher is confident that TBL's 40-minute episodes will find success and perhaps set a new trend for original, high-end Web content. "I would bargain that people will be willing to sit a lot longer if the picture looks a lot better," the actor-turned-social media impresario said.
TBL, starring Mischa Barton, Corbin Blue and Elle Macpherson, became the first casualty of the fall season after attracting a paltry 1.1 million for its second episode.