Making its first upfront appearance since rebranding in January, Discovery Life Channel Tuesday (March 31) announced a mix of new and returning docu-series that continue its focus on medical programming while delving more into human sexuality as well.
The network formerly known as Discovery Fit & Health will continue its revamp this year, adding new docu-series such as the upcoming New Girls on the Block, premiering April 11, as the first cable series to profile a group of female friends in the transgender community and, in the third quarter, the provocatively titled Sex in Public. It isn't actually about fornicating in public but rather discussions in public places about fornicating: Sex expert Jill Dictrow will go "undercover to get unsuspecting pedestrians to dish about their private lives in public settings," the network explained.
Also planned for the 2015-16 upfront season in the sex-and-sexuality category is How to Make Love to Your Wife, a special Discovery Life described as "a light hearted, brutally honest and self-deprecating examination of one suburban dad’s ineptitude in bed and his hilarious – and sometimes humiliating – attempts to turn himself into a world-class lover and finally please his wife." The network did not announce a premiere date.
That and the new series will provide the network with extra fodder for its Sextember programming stunt, scheduled to return this year, the network said.
Also on tap for the season is Faking It, which is not about sex but about attention-seeking people who fake having an illness or condition. Specifically, it's about interventions with those people when their fakery has "reached a crisis point." (Wouldn't that be Day One?) The network has also slated an addiction-and-recovery themed one-hour special, The Meeting, which Discovery Life said "provides unprecedented access into the raw and anonymous world of addiction recovery."
Other new series rounding out the network's core brand of medical programming include An Hour to Save Your Life, about ER doctors; In an Instant, first-person stories of life-changing events that happen in a flash; The Day I Almost Died, another first-person narrative-based docu-series; Vegas 911, stories from the case files of University Medical Center in Las Vegas; and Shock Trauma, an unscripted docudrama about the doctors, nurses and patients at the world-renowned R Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center in Baltimore.
“Discovery Life chronicles the high stakes and raw emotion of ordinary people in extraordinary situations," said Jane Latman, the network's general manager, in a statement. "We will continue to be bold in our programming choices as we share relatable and authentic life-defining moments.”
Returning series include network stalwarts Untold Stories of the ER and Hoarding: Buried Alive.
