8/2/2023 0 Comments Cast of the big leap![]() The first season was a terrific bit of television. So if we’re doing loglines, here’s how I pitch The Big Leap: “Imagine UnREAL or Smash, but nice!”īack in 2015, UnREAL was heralded, rightfully so, as delivering the first truly perfect female anti-hero just as the genre had been saturated with men. ![]() The first shows that come to mind as comparisons are UnREAL and Smash, which look behind the scenes of staging a reality show and a stage production respectively ( The Big Leap is doing both at once!). (He’s got the rights to the Bible for his next TV show, and highly recommends the producer read it!)īut there is a key difference between The Big Leap and its showbiz-inspired predecessors: a decency and camaraderie to the characters. (“Call Research and see how incest plays in the Midwest!”) To the extent that The Big Leap has any sort of villain, it’s Zach Peterman – a hilarious Tom Lennon – as the network’s head of programming, who fires off cluelessly callous bon mots about the television industry with no regard to the people involved. And the showbiz satire is on point: the personalities are big, and the jokes fly fast and furiously. The dancing is glorious – let’s just establish that right off the top. No one is unlikable (though many are prickly,) and no one is truly the villain beyond life itself. The characters of The Big Leap wear their hearts on their sleeves, and are earnestly trying to just stay up when life keeps kicking them down. It’s that last aspect that makes it speak to viewers, even those with no prior interest in watching dancing or in peeling back the curtain of reality TV. The premise was inspired by Big Ballet, a real British reality/documentary show, but The Big Leap is a showbiz satire, a dance show with some epic numbers, and a heartwarming dramedy about second chances all rolled into one. Last spring, I extolled the virtues of Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist, which feels like The Big Leap’s spiritual predecessor (earnestness accompanied by big dance numbers.) And this fall, amid the usual glut of new cop procedurals and reality shows, The Big Leap proved to be exactly what I wanted.įor those unfamiliar: Fox’s The Big Leap, created by Liz Heldens of Deception and Friday Night Lights, takes place behind the scenes of a fake reality show (which shares the show’s title) about down-on-their-luck amateur dancers putting on a production of Swan Lake. I began the pandemic bingeing Downton Abbey, then Chuck, then Modern Family. You can keep your antiheroes and your violent delights, I want a show about people that I would actually want to welcome into my home, a show that’s funny and heartwarming and may cause a good cry on occasion. ![]() I can’t speak for everyone, but after the last two years, I want television that’s comforting. However, that is precisely the scenario we find ourselves in thanks to The Big Leap. After all, it would be a show without the edginess of cable or the blank check budgets of streaming. If I told you the best new show of the year was on a broadcast network, I would fully expect the raised eyebrows and sputtering disbelief that inevitably follow. ![]() Read our review of the network’s most impressive 2021 offering, which is well worth a watch over your Christmas break. The Big Leap, Fox’s new hour-long dance dramedy, wrapped up its first season in early December and is streaming now. ![]()
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