Andy Cohen’s hosting duties have just expanded beyond Watch What Happens Live. Fox announced during its TCA executive session that the Bravo player will oversee the innuendo and budding romance on a rebooted Love Connection. Mark Fleiss, creator of The Bachelor, will help Cohen bring the dating game show into the 21st century. Fox has already ordered 15 episodes of the one-hour unscripted series, which will send singles out on a round of dates before settling in with Cohen to assess their prospects.
That format probably sounds familiar to fans of the original iteration, which was famously hosted by Chuck Woolery, or maybe even the first reboot back in 1998. But Fox executives say they want the new Love Connection to speak to modern dating on the macro level as well as on the micro. Network CEO Gary Newman has high hopes for Cohen’s ability to provide “comedic commentary” when rehashing the contestants’ romantic rendezvous. And Cohen, who’s executive producing as well as hosting, sounds game—he says he’s a “huge fan of the original Love Connection,” and “hosting the new version allows me to do one of the things I love most: meddling in people’s personal lives.” But even though Fox has recruited a host whose other show involves plying celebrities with booze so they spill secrets, Newman downplayed the “raunch” factor.