The former Bio Channel, now known as FYI, has announced its opening slate of shows, and most of them are about consuming horrifying quantities of food and/or living in a tiny house. In particular, the network has landed the TV version of the popular Internet video recreation of the “Gluttony” scene from Seven, Epic Meal Time. The TV version will feature the original crew from the videos—still led by Harley Morenstein, whom the press release refers to with hushed solemnity as the “Sauce Boss”—and be called The Epic Meal Show, so you never accidentally confuse it with the YouTube videos. The first season will consist of 16 half-hour installments, and all of them will presumably be about building a giant Chicken McNugget out of many smaller fast-food items and a couple of pizzas. (We are really looking forward to this show; don’t tell our wife, who keeps talking about “dieting.”)
Also on the docket for the channel’s food-related offerings are The Feed—which has a really vague description but sounds like some kind of travelogue crossed with a food show—and World Food Championships—which is about the titular event, held annually in Las Vegas. Both of those shows will run for six episodes a piece. The network also has a pilot for a reality series following Jennifer Esposito, a sufferer of Celiac’s disease, as she tries to begin a gluten-free bakery. That one is called Jennifer’s Way.
Not content to merely contain shows emulating the Food page of your dying local newspaper’s Lifestyles section, FYI will also feature programs about renovating your home and/or making it super-tiny. In Tiny House Nation, 10 episodes will celebrate the country’s growing “tiny house” movement, which aims to reduce the average citizen’s carbon footprint. It is not, sadly, a recreation of that old Geico ad. Then there’s Renovation Row, wherein two designers take identical homes in urban neighborhoods and give each the renovation of their choice. If that sounds at all like TLC’s old Trading Spaces, just a little bit, then you’ve successfully cracked where FYI took its programming playbook from, because the other show the network picked up is basically What Not To Wear. It’s called B.O.R.N. To Style, and the press release describes the team of makeover experts at its center as “fierce,” because it is 2006, and you just didn’t notice.
The network has one other pilot in development, called Red Hot Design. It’s about a woman who takes everyday objects—motorcycle hubcaps, airplane wings, etc.—and turns them into furniture. That actually sounds kind of cool, so we’re sure it will never make it past the pilot stage. Regardless, the FYI network is bravely venturing forth with lots of shows you can see anywhere else!