Flesh and Bone, the new Starz drama, had me at ballet. Given my love for dance movies (and Dance Academy), I was a sure thing for this show, and after watching last night’s premiere, you can color me officially COMMITTED.
What I Liked
1. Ballet
There’s sequences of beautiful dancing and shots of humans doing things with their bodies that humans shouldn’t be able to do, but this show doesn’t flinch from showing you the ugly side of ballet. And I mean that literally– there was one scene involving a toenail that was insanely disgusting.
2. Juicy Drama
When you have a studio full of women who are starving themselves and dancing their asses off and doing whatever it takes to nab that one solo, you know it’s not gonna be pretty. (But it will sure as hell be fun to watch.)
3. Performing Arts Politics
In addition to the conflicts between dancers, Flesh and Bone explores the pressures of pleasing patrons and standing out from the competition, all of which I find to be super interesting.
What I Need to Warm Up To
1. The Cast
Claire (Sarah Hay) is definitely worth rooting for, as she’s shouldering serious emotional baggage from a family past that involves some kind of molestation. She’s still very much a victim, which is understandable, but I’m already impatient for her to take the reins of her life and stop letting people manipulate her. At least the pilot gave me this scene, when she covers herself in books before going to sleep, so I know she’s my kind of girl.
We didn’t get to see much of Sascha Radetsky, who plays Ross, but I’m sure there’s more of him to come. I just hope they fix his make-up before that point because dude was looking a little Oompa Loompa-ish in spots.
The rest of the cast is compelling, if a little scenery-chewing. I particularly dig Mia (Emily Tyra), Claire’s totally fierce roommate.
2. The Strip Club Cliché
You couldn’t make a movie about dancing without adding a pole, could you, Starz? This storyline (in which one of the ballerinas, Daphne [Raychel Diane Weiner], takes Claire to the club where she strips) made me roll my eyes REAL hard, and I can only hope that the writers will use this plot device as a tool to show Claire how to take ownership of her dancing destiny rather than an excuse to introduce more controlling men into her life. It seems to be an empowerment thing for Daphne, so.. let’s keep it that way, okay show?
Oh, and nice job trying to butter me up for this storyline with a shot of Daphne’s closet. (It totally worked.)
So yeah, overall, I dug this premiere enough to be hooked for the entirety of season one. It doesn’t completely fill the Dance Academy-shaped hole in my heart (what could?!) but it’s a satisfying fix for anyone who loves dipping your toe shoes in soapy drama.
I’m not planning on recapping it here, unless there’s strong interest, so if you checked out the show, hit me up in the comments with your thoughts. Did you love it? Hate it? Any theories on what exactly happened to Claire? (I pray that we don’t have some kind of Flowers in the Attic situation on our hands.)
