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 B ites will be swallowed up by its problems?