I watched this new show called “Bunheads” last night on a sketchy website which shall not be named. Since the themes were pretty feminine and non-manly, figured that I get it out in the open unless people find out about it later on when I run for public office or something.
Overall, the show is decent. Its about a showgirl named Michelle who hates her job because of her flat chest size (big-breasted dancers are allowed to display, and therefore get more money), and her rat-infested apartment. Ironically, the only excitement she can get in Las Vegas is by avoiding the eager yet annoying advances of Hubble, a fourtysomething who snakes his way into the dressing room whenever he’s in town. Her friends tease here for hating a guy who seems nice, but in her eyes, Hubble’s a scrub and she don’t want none.
After a failed audition for the famed “Chicago” cabaret, she agrees to spend some of Hubble’s time on a date- while downing tons of alcohol. Determined to win her heart, he tells her of the place he lives, a town called Paradise with a house built at the edge of the ocean. Normally, this is where our protagonist screams rape and douses him in pepper spray, but in vino veritas. She takes him on his offer, freakin’ marries him at a drive-through cathedral, and moves to his house.
So, up to that point, I didn’t dislike the show, but I wasn’t digging it either. Since the show’s producer was the same lady who created “Gilmore Girls,” most of the dialogue comes out in this catty repartee, sort of like Busta Rhymes without the rhyme and on half the speed. But the show remained on that topic of romance and love which, although not overt and vomit-inducing, was still not able to keep me beyond the first episode.
What at least guarantees a viewing of the second episode deals with Hubble’s cantankerous hag of a mother and the children she trains in ballet. Long story short- He lives with his mom. Blech. And Michelle was nearly ready to rescind all hope for the dude, especially since her new mother-in-law, Fanny, did not particularly greet with the grace of a swan; more like the grace of a woodchipper.
Anyways, the four main teenage girls that Fanny teaches sum up nature’s usual female stereotypes: the biotch, the biotch’s accomplice, the oblivious one, and the body conscious chick on the verge of an eating disorder (seriously? the chick with the nicest thighs gets disowned? white people, why?). Michelle finds them with a making idle talk about some scholarship audition in between swigs of stolen beer. She then decided to impart some knowledge to the young’ns by conducting one for them.
It was her most human moment of the show, as she gave these girls a break from the worthless drama that reigns supreme in their lives while also giving herself a break from the newfound drama of her scandalous marriage. In the end, the body conscious chick has great confidence in herself, although decidedly temporary, and Fanny eases up on Michelle when she realizes that she did in fact know how to dance and was not a Vegas hooker as she immediately suspected.
The twist that takes place after this feel-good moment seemed pretty risky for a new relationship drama, especially on on ABC Family, but if the writers and the actors make it work, and the show manages to inject more organic humor into the show, I might have something to watch on that channel. To be honest though, “Secret Life” has that really hot chick in it, but the hell with cringing through fabricated suburbian baby mama drama for that. Give me the makings of an interesting story.
I will now write about Breaking Bad in another post to redeem myself.
