‘Little Couple’ Update: Will Jen Arnold, Bill Klein, And The Kids Be Back On TV?
Reality television fans have followed Dr. Jennifer Arnold and Bill Klein of The Little Couple for years, but new episodes of the series haven’t aired on TLC in quite some time — and the family is sorely missed by viewers. The series first met Jen and Bill before they got married, and it followed them through the adoptions of children Will and Zoey as well as through Jen’s cancer battle and a difficult back surgery for Bill. Is the Little Couple family ever returning to TLC with new episodes?
As InTouch notes, TLC’s Little Couple series has been in limbo since last summer, and from the sounds of things, it will continue to be in limbo for the foreseeable future. Luckily, the issue isn’t that Jen Arnold and Bill Klein want to be done with the show. Rather, there is a legal battle over the series, and for now, everything seems to be at a standstill in terms of when new episodes can begin to air again.
Deadline reported last June that Discovery Communications, the company that owns TLC, where Arnold and Klein’s series airs, was in a legal battle with LMNO Productions, the company that produces Jen and Bill’s Little Couple series. LMNO was the target of a lengthy criminal investigation, and Discovery decided to terminate some of the contracts they had with the production company. In turn, LMNO filed suit against Discovery, and among their numerous allegations, they are claiming copyright infringement and breach-of-contract.
This fierce legal battle between the production company and Discovery Communications is impacting a handful of TLC shows, as LMNO produces not only Arnold and Klein’s Little Couple, but shows like 7 Little Johnstons, The Coroner: I Speak for the Dead, Unusual Suspects, Hollywood & Crime, and Killer Confessions as well. The production company had originally indicated that everything would be on hold temporarily, and LMNO claims that one of the key issues in this mess is that they were having to deal with an accountant who embezzled money from them and tried to extort them.
The production company alleges that Discovery saw the accountant scandal as an opportunity to take advantage of them. They claim that Discovery went on to manufacture claims about the situation and use all of that to try to steal Little Couple from LMNO to produce themselves. In fact, the lawsuit LMNO filed alleges that Discovery went started shooting more episodes with Jen, Bill, Will, and Zoey behind their back.
The Little Couple has already aired eight seasons, and at the time of the season finale last year, fans had every reason to believe that Arnold, Klein, and the kids would be returning with new episodes soon. As for 7 Little Johnstons, another TLC series about little people, it was filming its second season when this legal issue arose. There are numerous episodes of these various shows sitting on shelves at this point, waiting for the legal battle to clear up, but it doesn’t look like there’s any end in sight yet.
When will this be resolved and when will Little Couple return to TLC? It isn’t clear when Jen Arnold, Bill Klein, Will, and Zoey will debut on the network with updates on their lives, but as recently as last December, Arnold replied to a fan on Twitter that they were currently filming new footage. Although Jen does share some updates on Will and Zoey via her social media pages, fans miss seeing them in action every week on The Little Couple and desperately hope that they will be returning with new episodes on the network soon.
[Featured Image by Neilson Barnard/Getty Images]
