'Up All Night' Season 2: Ava loses her show and more big changes

The first season of "Up All Night" often felt like it was two separate shows -- one about a couple raising their first child, and one about the behind-the-scenes shenanigans at a TV talk show.

They were linked, of course, since Reagan (Christina Applegate) was both the new mom and the producer of Ava's (Maya Rudolph) talk show. In Season 2, though, Ava's show gets canceled.

"I think we wanted to expand Ava's roster of experiences, and we just felt sort of her world being rocked and the rug being pulled out from under her just enabled us to open up her world," creator Emily Spivey told reporters during a set visit this week. "... She's going to have more struggles, whether it be finding what her new creative outlet is, finding a man."

The end of Ava's show means Reagan is out of a job too, so she'll be staying home with little Amy, while Chris (Will Arnett) might have to go back to work. It will be an adjustment for both of them, Spivey says.

"[Reagan] might take some time to be with her little one that she's missed, and I think she may take some of her type-A, producer-type qualities and gear it towards raising a child," Spivey says. "Which is easier said than done. You can't produce a child like a TV show, you guys."

The show has already added Luka Jones as a series regular, playing Reagan's more laid-back younger brother, and Sean Hayes will guest-star in several episodes as Ava's former accompanist from her singing days.

"She kind of left [him] high and dry when she moved on to bigger and better things," executive producer Tucker Cawley says. "So we'll see how those two, when they hook up again, how that goes."

The goal, Cawley says, is to make "Up All Night" "more of a family and friends show."

"We just felt last year, while we had some great moments in some great shows that took place at the Ava show, it always felt like we were juggling two tones. There was the home vibe and then the work vibe, and they never fully meshed," Cawley says. "We just always felt that the Ava character and Maya, they were at their best when they were struggling with something last year. ... And I think bringing her away from having this show that she's the head of and she's very powerful and rich and kind of floating above it all, we would rather, like Emily said, kind of pull the rug out from under her and let her kind of find her way."

"Up All Night" premieres Thursday, Sept. 20 on NBC.