Nellie Andreeva

Client List Lifetime RenewedA month into its run, Lifetime’s new Jennifer Love Hewitt drama series The Client List has been renewed for a second season with a 15-episode order, up from 10 for Season 1. The pickup was expected following the series’ strong ratings start. Client List opened with 2.8 million viewers April 8 to log Lifetime’s most-watched series debut since the 2009 premiere of Drop Dead Diva (which also averaged 2.8 million viewers), and the second-largest premiere viewership in the last 5 years behind the 2007 launch of Lifetime’s flagship drama Army Wives. Client List‘s premiere viewership total was even more impressive given that the series debuted on Easter night with lower HUT levels and strong cable competition. Last week, the Hewitt starrer was the No. 1 drama on basic cable among adults 18-49. “The Client List represents everything we want to be — fresh, exciting and original with attitude,” Lifetime president and GM Nancy Dubuc said.

Client List, which originated as a TV movie before being turned into a series, tells the story of Texas housewife Riley Parks (Hewitt) who, after being deserted by her husband, takes a job at a seemingly traditional day spa only to learn that sexual favors are being offered there on the side. Conflicted at first, she seizes the opportunity and takes the job, balancing two starkly different lives — one as a single mom in a conservative town struggling to provide for her family and the other as a masseuse working with a rowdy and unpredictable group of women. Client List co-stars Cybill Shepherd, Loretta Devine and Colin Egglesfield (Something Borrowed). It is executive produced by Hewitt, John Tinker, Jordan Budde, Efrem Seeger, Howard Braunstein and Dannielle Thomas, with Hewitt’s Fedora Films and Jaffe/Braunstein producing in association with Sony Pictures TV.

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