Starved

Released: 2005-08-04

Runtime: None minutes

Episode Overview

Sam, Billie, Adam and Dan are four New Yorkers who are dealing with their individual eating disorders together. All four of them lean on one another for support and are good friends. They attend Belttighteners, which is a recovery program that approaches their issues extremely ruthless ways. Sam is trying to shape his date into a woman from a hot TV commercial, which horrifies Billie. Dan struggles with his choice for a gastric bypass surgery and Adam chases down a deliveryman for food.

Series Overview

Starved is an FX Network television situation comedy that aired for one season of seven episodes in 2005. The series was about four friends who each suffer from eating disorders, who met at a "shame-based" support group called Belt Tighteners. Its characters included those with bulimia, anorexia, and binge eating disorder. Eric Schaeffer created the show as well as writing, starring in and directing it, based upon his own struggle with eating disorders. In addition to his own life experiences, Schaeffer also drew upon the experiences of the other members of the principal cast, each of whom coincidentally had struggled with food issues of their own. Starved was the lead-in of FX's hour-long "Other Side of Comedy" block with It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. FX executives wanted to use the two series to begin building comedy programming and broaden the network's demographic. The series debuted on August 4, 2005 to poor critical reviews and was cancelled in October 2005, when FX picked Sunny over Starved for renewal.