Make It or Break It

Now for those of you who think that the title of this blog post is some sort of reference to break dancing or a New Year's Resolution or a motivating mantra, you clearly don't know me. The only thing I've resolved to do this year is buy more baked goods and chocolate, a promise I've thus far kept. How many of you out there can say that about your plans to go to the gym every day?

No, the title of this post refers to the ABC Family television show, Make It or Break It. It has been a long time since I've honored the "gymnastics" part of this blog's name so the start of a new year seemed like a good time to do it.

This show, set in Colorado, is about a group of Olympic hopefuls training at the Rock- not Alcatraz (but wouldn't it be cool to set a gymnastics movie or event on the other Rock? I would very much like to literalize the mainstream's media notions that young gymnasts are forced laborers for their Romanian overlords. C'mon ABC Family or USA Gymnastics- get on this!)

I know I should've written about this show sooner. After all, the series is now in its second season, or midway through the first but I was too ashamed. The show, especially the early episodes, is bad. It's riddled with terrible acting and unreal sounding dialogue. And the worst part is the gymnastics. When you go to see a "dance" movie you don't expect to be wowed by the script or the line delivery but you do expect to see mind blowing dance sequences. I think the same should apply to movies about gymnastics. I think the gymnastics needs to be more impressive than the acting/story by a factor of at least a hundred. That we were hearing the gymnasts/characters speak about the Olympics with a belief that they would be there and yet seeing them perform routines that would get beaten at any NCAA gymnastics meet- well that was a lot of disbelief to suspend. But maybe the gymnastics looks good from a lay person perspective.

Anyway, though I'm still ashamed that I watched every episode of the "first" season and will probably watch the second in it's entirety, admitting this pales when you consider my pre-New Year's blog post where I admit to having James Blunt's Beautiful somewhere on my Itunes.



Though the LA Times, in its review of the second season premiere was more forgiving than I am, they did have this to say about the gymnastics:

"When actually performing gymnastics, all of the actresses look like they're fulfilling community service obligations."

But at least they're not wearing orange jumpsuits. Well, Lauren (Cassie Scerbo) is wearing a shiny orange leotard. And a healthy dose of self-tanner. So maybe she really is performing community service.

The one bright spot is Peri Gilpin from Frasier, who plays one of the gymnasts' mother. But while I'm excited to watch a skilled actress on this show, her presence does make me sad for the prospects of actresses over 40 in Hollywood.