| Genre: | Teen drama |
| Creator: | Adam Giaudrone |
| Opentheme: | "Samurai Showdown" by Shane Newville |
| Country: | United States |
| Language: | English |
| Num Seasons: | 1 |
| Num Episodes: | 6 (4 unaired) |
| Location: | New York City |
| Runtime: | 42 minutes |
| Network: | The CW |
The Beautiful Life (also known as The Beautiful Life: TBL) is an American teen drama television series, which ran on The CW from September 16 to September 23, 2009. The series starred Mischa Barton, Elle Macpherson, Sara Paxton, and Corbin Bleu. It revolved around a group of male and female models sharing a residence in New York City.[1] Mike Kelley served as the showrunner for the series, based on the script by former model-turned-writer Adam Giaudrone, and Ashton Kutcher was the executive producer.[2] The CW ordered 13 episodes for the first season.
On September 25, 2009, The Beautiful Life was canceled after two episodes due to low ratings.[3] This was the first network television cancellation of the 2009–10 television season. Six full episodes were produced, while the cancellation came during the filming of the seventh episode.[4] Due to scheduling conflicts for some of the planned guest stars, some filming had also taken place for other planned episodes. On November 17, 2009, The New York Daily News reported that the CW planned to air the remaining completed episodes during the summer months. However, a CW spokesperson stated that "the status of unaired episodes has yet to be determined", and as of now, the remaining episodes remain unaired.[5]
The first five (of six reportedly produced) episodes were streamed on YouTube, with Kutcher stating, in December 2009, "What we feel like we're doing is creating, in some ways, an industry first.... A show that couldn't find its legs on television, we believe can find its legs on the Web."[6] The five episodes, when they first streamed, had been sponsored by HP.[7]
Jaime Murray played a powerful wardrobe stylist, announced as a recurring character who would be eyeing Isaac.[8] Ed Quinn would have played Claudia's husband,[9] and Gal Gadot was cast to play Olivia, a Gisele Bündchen-type supermodel, but neither got the chance after the show's sudden cancellation.[10] Billy Magnussen appeared as Alex, brother to Raina, in what was intended to be a multiple-episode arc.[11]
The first episode shows the models at a Zac Posen runway show at New York Fashion Week, where Posen guest stars. Marie Claire fashion director and Project Runway judge Nina Garcia had a small cameo in the second episode. Designers Matthew Williamson and Erin Fetherston were also set guest star alongside model Jessica Stam.[12] Model Irina Lazareanu made an appearance in the pilot as did So You Think You Can Dance Canada season 1 winner, Nico Archambault and model Boyd Holbrook. Claire Unabia and Mila Bouzinova from Cycle 10 and Cycle 9 of America's Next Top Model respectively made a special appearance at the Nina Garcia's party in episode 2. Magician David Copperfield was set to make a cameo appearance in episode 8 performing various illusions including sawing Sonja Stone in half, and had already filmed his scenes with Mischa Barton when the show was cancelled.[13] [14]
The show was largely filmed on location in New York City. Studio interiors were filmed at Kaufman Astoria Studios, Queens, New York.
In order to give the show an authentic look and feel, the show's producers negotiated a number of product placement deals and other agreements with various designers and fashion houses. This allowed the costume department to secure the loan of a wide range of genuine designer outfits and accessories for the cast to wear.
Prior to the start of production, as part of her preparations for the role of Sonja Stone, Mischa Barton had her ears pierced for the very first time. This was required in order to comply with one of the product placement deals that the producers of the show had negotiated with various high-end fashion designers. One of the terms of this deal was that Barton's character would wear the designer's earrings and, as most of the earrings were made for pierced ears, Barton had to have her ears pierced especially in order to wear them.[15]
Due to scheduling conflicts with his tour to Australia, magician David Copperfield filmed his cameo scenes for episode 8 in July 2009, before any other filming for the episode had begun. The Sawing In Half illusion that he performed on Mischa Barton was a new boxless version of the illusion which has never been performed publicly, although stills of the scene showing Barton apparently divided in two without any boxes covering her did subsequently appear in a popular magic magazine.
The Beautiful Life was heavily promoted through the cast's and producer's Twitter with promotional photos of Sara Paxton, Corbin Bleu, and Ashley Madekwe appearing semi naked with the tag line "What are you looking at?".[16] The Beautiful Life was heavily promoted during New York Fashion Week and through New York magazine. In a very targeted mailing, 4,000 high profile contacts in the fashion and media worlds got a polybagged edition of New York magazine featuring those semi naked shots of the cast and then, during Fashion Week, copies of New York featuring an ad spread and the naughty nudes were handed out in the show tents. The show also received some unplanned publicity due to Mischa Barton's medical issues in the weeks leading up to the start of production.[17]
The series premiere did poorly with 1.38 million viewers, and a 0.6/2 in Adults 18–49, 0.8/2 in Adults 18–34, and 1.1/3 in Women 18–34. The second episode also drew in low numbers, with a 0.6/2 rating with adults 18–49, with only 1.1 million viewers.[18] The show was officially cancelled on September 25, 2009, due to the poor reception.[19]
On Metacritic the series received a score of 40 out of 100 based on reviews from 13 critics, indicating "mixed or average review".[20] Glenn Garvin of The Miami Herald gave the series a positive review, noting that Paxton and Hollingsworth's characters were "so unexpectedly affecting that you may find yourself sucked into the show against your will."[20] Paige Wiser of the Chicago Sun-Times also positively reviewed the series, stating "most of the characters are about as distinctive as mannequins. You won't mind, though, because they're awfully nice to look at."[20] Wiser complimented Barton's character, stating through her it may achieve "inadvertent poignancy."[20] Robert Lloyd of The Los Angeles Times noted how the show was very similar to most The CW dramas, commenting "because they do not aim particularly high, they pretty much hit what they aim at."[21] David Hinckley of The New York Daily News echoed the same thoughts stating that the show "is designed to fit alongside CW anchors like 90210, except that even by those standards, it's pretty predictable and stilted."[22] Brian Lowry of Variety said "the cast and writing are efficient enough, but nothing really pops."[23]
Robert Bianco of USA Today gave the series a mixed review, stating "It may lack Melrose Places flashy production values and trashy pedigree, but it makes up for that by being marginally better written, though admittedly, we're not talking about a particularly high bar here."[24] Bianco went on to criticize the acting of the cast, calling them "unimpressive", stating "what's dispiriting about Beautiful Life is that it's too lazy to even work as successful eye candy."[24] Bianco also criticized Mischa Barton, calling her "inept" in her role, stating that "she was stilted at best on The O.C., and instead of improving as an actress, she's merely solidified bad habits."[24] Matthew Gilbert of Boston Globe called the pilot "half-baked" further stating, "Whether that's due to Barton or deeper creative problems is unclear."[20] Tim Goodman of the San Francisco Chronicle called the show "unwatchable", noting its "pointless gloss and heinous writing."[25] Linda Stasi of The New York Post said that only 12-year-olds could believe the show, calling the actors "unbelieveable", commenting "they can't even get the runway stomp right."[26] Stasi also negatively commented on the dialogue of the show.[26] Calling the plot "laughable" and the acting "mediocre", Jonathan Storm of The Philadelphia Inquirer said the show featured the "usual cynical CW glorification of teen sexuality and substance abuse."
The show was originally announced as being part of the Autumn schedule of Ireland's TV3, but the show was later moved to TV3's second station 3e.
Network Ten in Australia and the United Kingdom's Channel 4 had the rights to air the show, but both networks refused to carry it after the CW's cancellation announcement.
On December 17, 2009, executive producer Ashton Kutcher reported on The Beautiful Lifes official YouTube channel that because of the cancellation, the remaining four episodes would be carried online, with a hope that additional episodes could be produced if viewer demand was high enough. Only five of the six produced episodes were released on the program's YouTube channel on December 21, 2009, under a sponsorship deal with Hewlett Packard.[27] The effort did not lead to new episodes being produced and the sixth episode has never been released., the channel still exists, but the episodes no longer stream. The channel originally included additional footage and cast member interviews, some discussing plotlines they hoped would be executed in possible future episodes.