![]() Even COVID-19 is presented as a thing that happened, contributed to some rough times, but no longer exists in any tangible way. It takes almost no time for The Big Leap to soften Nick to the point that he barely comes across as adversarial, much less villainous, in a show that’s so soft it rarely feels like it has any stakes at all. The behind-the-scenes maneuvering plays as a Cliffs Notes version of the detailed manipulations in UnREAL, but it’s still entertaining because Foley is funny and likably amoral, rather than irredeemably venal. The cynicism that infuses the show-within-the-show comes from Nick and his role in fabricating love triangles and ginning up situations that prioritize bickering and in-fighting over the participants’ real struggles. Wayne and Monica are skeptical, but their skepticism comes from the value they put on their own dance experience. Overseeing the entire mess with Nick are judges/producers Wayne (Kevin Daniels) and Monica (Mallory Jansen), neither especially pleased that this is where their respective dance careers have landed them. ![]() There’s Julia (Teri Polo), a former ballet dancer now doing social media posts about the wonderful journey of growing old, which isn’t such a wonderful journey. ![]() There’s disgraced NFL star Reggie (Ser’Darius Blain), recruited by Nick for his star power and his immediate chemistry with Gabby. There’s Mike (Jon Rudnitsky), whose entire personality changed when “they” shut down the auto factory where he worked, causing him to lose his joy and his wife, Paula (Piper Perabo), who beat cancer and may have been responsible for pushing Mike into the gig economy. This in turn caused her to stop talking to her former boyfriend Justin (Raymond Cham Jr.), whose own dancing dream died when his father kicked him out of the house after he came out as gay. There’s plus-size Gabby (Simone Recasner), who set aside her dancing dreams when she got pregnant at the end of high school. Perhaps aware that Fox would never, under any current circumstances, make a show as ostensibly wholesome as the fictional Big Leap, producer Nick (Scott Foley) has been brought in to stir up soap opera hijinks and mini-scandals.įortunately, the aspiring contestants give Nick plenty to work with, and they’re the real focus of the series, most of them battling multiple forms of adversity. The gimmick is that this isn’t an elimination show, though two of three episodes sent to critics revolve entirely around auditions and eliminations. A new Fox reality series of the same name is coming to Detroit to recruit a cast of amateur dancers with the goal of staging the aforementioned Swan Lake. That’s a lot of, well, big leaps to buy into, and maybe that’s why The Big Leap worked for me fairly well as a comedy and felt pretty hollow at every turn as an inspirational drama, though in this broadcast landscape “half-success” almost counts as “success.”Ĭreated by Liz Heldens, The Big Leap is a story of second chances. Cast: Scott Foley, Teri Polo, Jon Rudnitsky, Kevin Daniels, Piper Perabo, Ser'Darius Blain, Simone Recasner, Raymond Cham Jr., Mallory Jansen, Anna Grace Barlow ![]()
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