Judge Denies Restraining Order Against ABC's The Glass House

Despite CBS’ best efforts to convince the world and the court system that ABC’s brand new show The Glass House is a rip-off of the hit reality series Big Brother, the show did not get barred from airing. CBS kept pushing forward all the same, and now, a judge has spoken out, noting that CBS is free to push the whole ordeal to trial, but the network has little chance of winning its argument.

A couple of weeks ago, the case was in “the discovery phase,” in which each party was obtaining evidence to support its side. In order to push forward, CBS would need to argue The Glass House quarantines people into a house and has them compete for money in a way that is exactly like Big Brother. As TV Blend pointed out earlier, ABC’s line would basically be to point out there are plenty of singing, home improvement, and dance competitions on air, and that logic would follow there being room for multiple people quarantining shows, as well.

Now, Judge Gary Feess has made his recommendation for the case and has denied the motion to implement a restraining order against the show. According to a case manuscript obtained by Deadline, the Eye network may still go to trial regarding the fact some Big Brother employees who now work for The Glass House may be giving up trade secrets; however, there are not enough similar components in the two shows to force ABC to drop its new reality competition series.

Although CBS really has nothing to worry about—the first episode of The Glass House premiered to extremely soft ratings and probably won’t make it beyond its freshman run—you can tell the network is taking this as more of a personal issue than they likely should. Considering CBS has proven its willingness to push a point already, even creating a fake press release for new series Dancing on the Stars, we are likely to here more from the bickering networks in the coming weeks. TV Blend will keep you posted.