The Big Leap was a show-within-a-show that took viewers on a journey of self-acceptance, body-positivity and empowerment at any age. The network met with The Big Leap team to hear their Season 2 pitch before making the final decision.
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Still, Fox brass liked creatively The Big Leap, which scored a rare for a broadcast series 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Linear ratings were soft, with the dramedy ranking as Fox’s lowest-rated series this season.
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Of course, even as Fox is poking fun at the genre, it’s also the home of “The Masked Singer” and “Masterchef Junior.” You can have your reality cake and take a bite of it too.'Ordinary Joe' Canceled By NBC After One SeasonĬancellations/Renewals Scorecard: TV Shows Ended Or Continuing In 2021-22 Seasonīut The Big Leap did not follow Glee‘s ratings trajectory. It’s hardly groundbreaking to see how the producers of these shows might well care about their subjects, but also intend to exploit them and manipulate events if necessary. This is a mild, mostly affectionate lampoon of reality shows and the people who make them and the people who compete in them. In between the “Chorus Line”-type audition sequences, there are plenty of pop culture-heavy one-liners, as when one competitor says, “Name one ballet dancer” and the response comes: “Natalie Portman’s husband.”
Whenever a conflict emerges or it appears love might be in bloom, director Nick always seems to be hovering around the corner, herding the crew into place to record the moment, because if it doesn’t happen on camera, it might as well not have happened at all.
“The Big Leap” sets up a number of storylines, from the pending dissolution of Julia’s marriage to Mike’s bro-buddies not exactly understanding but supporting his quest to Gabby finding herself smitten with Reggie. Mike (Jon Rudnitsky, with Piper Perabo) is supported by his buddies in his TV quest. Anna Grace Barlow’s Britnney Lovewell (now there’s a name to grow up with!), a young and talented and beautiful dancer who’s not here to make nice.Įpisode 3 is set primarily in Chicago (with Chicago standing in for Chicago, hooray), when the contestants take a bus trip to see a world-famous ballet company perform “Swan Lake.” Cue the shots of the Loop and Lake Shore Drive and the reference to Portillo’s - and we also get an innovative and uplifting choreographed sequence set in the hallway and a number of rooms in the Drake Hotel, where the whole team gets their groove going to the sounds of Passion Pit’s brilliant cover of the Smashing Pumpkins’ classic “Tonight, Tonight.” It’s the early season highlight of the show.Teri Polo’s Julia Perkins, who was a ballerina years ago, but these days is a middle-aged social media influencer and married mother of two girls who is rapidly losing followers and sponsors because she has committed the crime of … AGING! (“I’m helping an entire community of women feel less alone,” Julia tells her boss, who replies, “You’re competing with influencers who have existed for less time.”).“The Big Leap” (premiering Monday) is inspired by the British documentary series “Big Ballet,” in which a famed theater director and a prima ballerina worked with a troupe of amateur dancers to mount a production of “Swan Lake.” In the show-within-a-show format here, Kevin Daniels plays Wayne Fontaine, a former dancer and the host of the program Mallory Jansen is Monica Sullivan, a tart-tonged former ballerina and choreographer, and Scott Foley is Nick Blackburn, the temperamental and jaded reality show director who is an expert at manipulating contestants to pour their hearts out - with the cameras rolling, of course. Set in Detroit but filmed at the Cinespace Chicago Film Studios and the Rialto Theater in Joliet, this is a fun, breezy, dance-centric drama/comedy about a group of misfits who are stumbling their way through life and for various reasons jump at the chance to audition for a reality TV show in the hopes one big break can change everything - and yep, that’s kind of dopey, but also not beyond the realm of possibility, seeing as how there are approximately 5 million reality/competition shows these days. If you check your cynicism at the door and allow yourself to be swept up in the broad comedy, the crisp writing and the wonderful performances from an eminently likable cast, “The Big Leap” can become appointment viewing.