NBC has announced that nearly a year after it was first scheduled to air, the long-delayed fourth installment of its Average Joe reality will finally premiere on Tuesday, June 28 at 8PM ET/PT as part of the network's Summer 2005 reality programming.
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But rather than feature the edition's previously announced gender-reversed Average Jane premise, the six-episode Average Joe 4: The Joes Strike Back will once again center around not so hunky men competing for a beautiful bachelorette.
Following in the stiletto footsteps of first and second season Average Joe bachelorettes Melana Scantlin and Larissa Meek will be Anna Chudoba, a beautiful red-headed 26-year-old model and UNLV business management graduate (and former Fear Factor contestant) who was born in Poland and raised in Las Vegas. In addition to numerous print ads, commercials, conventions, and promotions, Anna has also competed in the Miss Hawaiian Tropics national competition and appeared in 98 Degrees' "The Hardest Thing" and Sting's "Desert Rose" music videos. Just like Melana and Larissa, Anna thought she was going to be participating in a traditional reality-dating show and was surprised to discover that her suitors would include eighteen average-looking but big-hearted guys.
While NBC is keeping mum about any the specifics of Average Joe 4's twists and turns, it has disclosed that in addition to competing with each other, Anna's average joes will also have to compete with seven strikingly handsome hunks who are confident that Anna will only have eyes for them. In addition to the surprise inclusion of the joes, Average Joe 4 will also feature surprise visitors for both Anna and her joes, a romantic getaway to Tahiti, and the premiere's return of three of the series' most popular former joes.
As for the fate of the network's originally planned Average Jane edition, according to an NBC spokesperson, it's "on the backburner for now," with its production not having advanced past last summer's casting call stage. Despite being on the Fall 2004 primetime schedule that NBC had announced in May 2004, the series was bumped to midseason status when the network, seemingly oblivious to the ratings decline of its Summer 2004 Last Comic Standing 2, impulsively decided to rush a third Last Comic Standing edition onto its Fall 2004 schedule -- a move that ended disastrously.