Bunheads

When I heard there was a new tv show coming out that had named itself Bunheads, it was the last thing I thought I would find myself watching.  However...

You know how nothing really good is on primetime tv during the summer?  And, how it's no fun doing hobbies at night, because that's regularly designated "tv time"?  And, how the same thing goes for reading a book because reading is delegated for quiet afternoons or bedtime?  And, how this leaves you, partially reclined, clicking the remote with such fervor that you're practically inviting carpal tunnel syndrome into your life?  Well, that's how I ended on the ABC Family channel last night, which---mind you---is a channel that I rarely ever flip to.

I had read that Bunheads was created by Amy Sherman-Palladino, the inventor of all things Gilmore Girls.  I loved Gilmore Girls as much as every other fast-talking sarcastic gal of my generation, but this show is called Bunheads for crying out loud!  There are toe shoes involved!  I'm no princess.  I'm a Lorelai! But, noting that I was already settled in my pjs and my other viewing options were the even less enticing reruns of River Monsters, Lizard Lick Towing or My Big Redneck Vacation, I decided to give it a go.

Our lead bunhead is named Michelle (played by Sutton Foster) who is a dancer gone cryptically wrong who somehow ended up as a Las Vegas show girl.  Which seems like an unlikely employment option once you see her slim birdy figure getting swallowed up by a giant red feathered headdress and spangly french-cut panties.  But, this is fiction... so we can overlook this and suggest to ourselves that maybe there are a few Vegas shows who consider themselves equal opportunity employers to the unimplanted.

Well, Michelle has a sweet-seeming fan/stalker who (uncreepily, they somehow convince us) shows up backstage once a month bearing lavish gifts and dinner invitations.  His name is Hubble, which is interesting and left unexplained.  But, even better, he is played by Alan Ruck (first seen, by me, as Cameron in Ferris Bueller's Day Off and last noticed as a nameless second-rate ghost in Ricky Gervais's Ghost Town.)

Michelle apparently still auditions for more noble productions whenever she can swing a break.  But, after a particularly disappointing veto and a pity dinner date with Hubble to vent, she finds herself imbibing in a few too many cocktails and waking up in a preppy-looking station wagon cruising down the early morning coastline (Left Coast, I'm assuming... even though it had a very Right Coast feel to it) with a little sparkler on her left ring finger.

Bunhead got herself hitched and out of Vegas!  Hubble lives in a quaint little town (They don't even have a movie theater! This is made very clear to us several times throughout the episode.)  Oh yeah, and with his mother (Gloriously played by Gilmore Girls Kelly Bishop) who runs the local ballet studio.  It's made very clear, very quickly, that the whole town---who she hasn't even formally met yet---absolutely hates her!  News travels fast on the West (or maybe East) Coast!  This all leads to funny little encounters with appropriately quirky, for a Sherman-Palladino production, town folk who mistakenly refer to her as "stripper", "hooker" and "Playmate".

I started to fall in love with the show a little just as Michelle was finally falling a little bit in love with Hubble.  THEN they had to go and kill my little show crush by ***SPOILER ALERT!  SPOILER ALERT!  DON'T SAY I DIDN'T WARN YOU!!!*** literally killing Hubble!  (Poor Cameron, never could catch a break.)

I understand, this is probably just the writers way of finding a way to get the Michelle character out of Vegas and into this small town, but then allowing an open door for a little Luke-Lorelai sexual tension with some new character eventually down the road.  But, pilot episode?!  Poor Hubble never even stood a chance!

Overall, it was cute enough where I'll probably find myself tuning in again next week.  Sutton Foster has the right speed to snark ratio in reciting her dialogue to make this potentially a signature Sherman-Palladino hit.  They squeezed in a sweet bonding scene between her and the junior bunheads to hint at where her place might end up being in this sleepy coastal town.  And, have I mentioned the magnificent Kelly Bishop?

Now, let's just cross our fingers for Alan Ruck next pilot season.  Get at least six episodes written into your next contract, buddy!