ABC Family Renews 'Make It Or Break It,' Orders More 'Lying Game'

ABC Family

The Lying Game

ABC Family has renewed Make It Or Break It and picked up 10 additional episodes of freshman drama The Lying Game, in addition to giving pilot orders to four projects.

“ABC Family expanded its schedule to present three nights of original programming this summer, and we saw our most successful on record, one that gave us our very own ‘triple-threat’ -- Switched at Birth, The Secret Life of the American Teenager and Pretty Little Liars,” ABC Family president Michael Riley said in a statement announcing the news Friday.

The renewal will take gymnastics series Make It Or Break It, created by Holly Sorensen and starring Chelsea Hobbs into its third season. The eight-episode third season will premiere next year, which will see the cast journey to the Olymics.

The youth-skewing network’s back-nine order for Lying Game, from Alloy Entertainment and Warner Horizon and based on the novels by Sara Shepard launched in August to 1.39 million viewers, according to Nielsen. The additional 10-episode order extends the rookie series' season to 19 installments.

The news comes a day after the cabler canceled rookie drama The Nine Lives of Chloe King.

Meanwhile, the four projects picked up to pilot include a two comedies and two dramas:

• Bunheads, an hourlong scripted drama from Gilmore Girls’ Amy Sherman-Palladino, revolving around Michelle, a Las Vegas showgirl who marries a man on a whim and moves to his sleepy coastal town where she winds up working alongside her new mother-in-law at her dance school.

“I spent 20 years of my life with my hair in a bun. I was supposed to be a dancer,” Sherman-Palladino said. “My mother was a dancer. Her greatest heartbreak was when I got on ‘Roseanne’. So, while writing this will never equal playing ‘Rumpelteazer’ in a bus and truck tour of ‘Cats,’ it does let me to tip my hat to a really special time in my life.”

• Intercept, an hourlong action thriller revolving around a group of college students who get roped into solving crimes when one of them creates a high-tech communication device that intercepts conversations throughout the West Coast. Ray Wright (The Crazies) wrote the pilot and will executive produce.

• Baby Daddy, a half-hour comedy from The Nine Lives of Chloe King executive producer Dan Berendsen that revolves around Ben, a twentysomething who becomes a father overnight after his ex-girlfriend leaves their daughter on his doorstep.  

• Village People, from Brothers executive producer Meg DeLoatch. The multicamera half-hour comedy revolves around a single, high-powered career woman who adopts a baby from a teen mother and winds up caring for both of them.

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