Love Bites Bumped Off Fall Schedule

The hourlong comedy anthology Love Bites has been chewed up and spit out.

It has been removed from the fall prime-time schedule (Thursdays at 10/9c) and is being replaced by The Apprentice, NBC announced Thursday.

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"Everyone at the network loves Love Bites, but for a number of reasons, it now makes sense to showcase the comedic anthology series a little later in the new season," Mitch Metcalf, executive vice president of program planning and scheduling for NBC, said in a statement.

Those number of reasons include Jordana Spiro having to pull out because of contractual issues with her TBS comedy My Boys,Becki Newton, who plays a virgin in the Bites pilot, becoming pregnant and Cindy Chupack stepping down as showrunner.

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Chupack, who's staying on as a writer, said: "Launching an anthology series ... is a huge undertaking, and I strongly feel that I can be most helpful not showrunning, but writing."

Meantime, Trump's Apprentice franchise gets to capitalize on the recession by returning to average people — rather than celebrities — who have been walloped by the economy. The 16 contestants encompass people who have lost their jobs and recent college graduates who have few prospects.

Do you think Love Bites will be swallowed up by its problems?