E! renews ''The Anna Nicole Show''

Anna Nicole Smith is the biggest thing to hit E! in the cable network’s history. And even though the novelty has worn off for a lot of viewers, ”The Anna Nicole Show” remains popular enough for E! to renew the series for a second season. E! reports that Anna, son Daniel, lawyer Howard K. Stern, assistant Kim, and neurotic poodle Sugar Pie will start filming 13 new episodes next month, to air in early 2003.

The show’s August debut scored 7.6 million viewers, marking E!’s best numbers ever and the best debut for a reality show in cable history. Since then, the numbers have dipped to about 2 million viewers, but it remains E!’s most-watched series.

The current season has two episodes yet to run, this Sunday and Nov. 3. The season finale should keep viewers gripped until next year, executive producer Jeff Shore tells the New York Post. ”We’re going to put a little cliffhanger at the end of this season which will give viewers a rough idea where the show is headed,” he says.

What can viewers expect next year from the model/stripper/actress? Shore says Smith has ”a lot of ideas for next season and we’ll be following her to the next stage of her life.” For instance, ”she may go to acting class, and needless to say it will be hilarious,” Shore said. “There are other things she wants to do in terms of getting her career back on track.” (Isn’t that what ”The Anna Nicole Show” was supposed to do for her?) Shore also says he hopes to introduce at least one new player — à la ”The Osbournes,” whose upcoming second season will include Robert Marcato, a teen whom the rock family took in this summer after his mother died of colorectal cancer, the same disease that Sharon Osbourne is battling. ”That’s what keeps this kind of show fresh,” Shore tells the Post, ”Anna’s conflicts and relationships with outside people.”

E! reports that the Smith, who has complained about her lackluster romantic life in the years since her nonagenarian billionaire husband J. Howard Marshall died in 1995, will be seen going on a date with an unnamed ”lucky guy.” Let’s just hope she doesn’t challenge him to another one of the series’ eating contests.