Bunheads

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Season 1
User Score
7.6

Generally favorable reviews- based on 44 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 34 out of 44
  2. Mixed: 6 out of 44
  3. Negative: 4 out of 44
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User Reviews

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  1. lancekoz
    Jun 22, 2012
    4
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. I wanted to like this. It's snappy enough and pretty and has actors with charm but not overly beautiful, which I am usually a fan of, but it is just painfully over the top with some crazy characters who don't shut up and others who don't ever express themselves. Is it just me, or are characters speaking too fast these days, spinning out all sorts of eclectic references to make cleverer-than-thou jokes? And the only male character (of the first two episodes) dies.... leaving us with a whole world of sniping, cranky women and girls. Any show that has ballet dancing to Tom Waits and jokes about making **** napkins with the Dalai Lama's face on them is maybe trying just a bit too hard.… Expand
  2. Fredsworth
    Jun 13, 2012
    8
    Absent for nearly six years, Amy Sherman-Palladino returns to television with Sutton Foster and Kelly Bishop in hand. The premise is a little clunky on paper and the execution of it not the smoothest; but the dialogue, chemistry and strength in character is so top notch, it makes most concerns an afterthought to the marvel on screen. Hope the show finds a consistent audience as intelligentAbsent for nearly six years, Amy Sherman-Palladino returns to television with Sutton Foster and Kelly Bishop in hand. The premise is a little clunky on paper and the execution of it not the smoothest; but the dialogue, chemistry and strength in character is so top notch, it makes most concerns an afterthought to the marvel on screen. Hope the show finds a consistent audience as intelligent as the writing.… Expand
  3. Movie2talkabout
    Aug 7, 2012
    8
    A completely fresh face to grace TV. The pilot displayed just enough to get you hooked on the graceful world of ballet, small towns and most of all, art. If you aren't watching this, you aren't keeping up with new TV.
  4. HoolaTallulah
    Jun 12, 2012
    7
    I've just watched the pilot of 'Bunheads.' Despite the usual obstacles that a pilot needs to both endure and overcome, the show has a nice feel to it. I am not from North America, and avoid anything that gravitates towards the word 'family' (eg 'family values' -- urrrrgh my blood just ran cold), so when I saw 'abc family' watermarked on the vid, and not having any previous awareness ofI've just watched the pilot of 'Bunheads.' Despite the usual obstacles that a pilot needs to both endure and overcome, the show has a nice feel to it. I am not from North America, and avoid anything that gravitates towards the word 'family' (eg 'family values' -- urrrrgh my blood just ran cold), so when I saw 'abc family' watermarked on the vid, and not having any previous awareness of this channel/network/whatever, I almost didn't bother. Instead, I braced myself for an onslaught of heterosexual-only marriage espousing monogamous Christian fundamentalist saccharine and clicked 'play.' I was very surprised. Very pleasantly surprised. Nicely written. Understated, even. Well...as far as a show about a showgirl can be, I guess :-) Already the characters show more than just signs of depth and humanity, except for one who truly irritated me -- but I can see that I might truly forgive her, in time to come. Let's see if it remains engaging, or if it becomes what I (a non-North American) see as formulaic American pap. Fingers crossed.… Expand
  5. retiredat56
    Jun 12, 2012
    3
    The premise of the story is absurd. A highly talented, former APT ballet dancer goes off to Vegas because the pay is better as a chorus line showgirl. Right. Then, after a few years wasting her talent, sick of the partying life, she goes to Boring Town USA with a guy who visits her once a month or so in Vegas, whom she really doesn't like but marries anyway. Of course. The mainThe premise of the story is absurd. A highly talented, former APT ballet dancer goes off to Vegas because the pay is better as a chorus line showgirl. Right. Then, after a few years wasting her talent, sick of the partying life, she goes to Boring Town USA with a guy who visits her once a month or so in Vegas, whom she really doesn't like but marries anyway. Of course. The main characters are depicted as both witless and very bright at the same time. The townspeople are depicted as witless boobs still living some time in the 50's. It as though TV, radio and the internet haven't penetrated the city walls yet. The acting is mixed, some of it very good but it is the writing and story line that need the most work.… Expand
  6. jbledsoe
    Jun 15, 2012
    9
    Charming, funny, serious at times, and completely reminiscent of "Gilmore Girls," both in Amy Sherman-Palladino's snappy dialogue and quirky small-town characters and in the wonderful performance of the Lauren Graham-esque Sutton Foster. While not perfect in the first episode (the startling ending left me a little worried), all the pieces seem to be in place for a fun little series. ICharming, funny, serious at times, and completely reminiscent of "Gilmore Girls," both in Amy Sherman-Palladino's snappy dialogue and quirky small-town characters and in the wonderful performance of the Lauren Graham-esque Sutton Foster. While not perfect in the first episode (the startling ending left me a little worried), all the pieces seem to be in place for a fun little series. I think it's only going to get better as we get to know the characters and the town of Paradise better.… Expand
  7. Hipsteran
    Jun 13, 2012
    4
    While watching Bunheads, the thing that I thought about over and over again was the similarity between the show and the horrendous Turkish soaps. Bunheads, doesn't have a realistic plot, the dots just do not connect. Why would a promising ballet move to Vegas? Why would she marry her stalker? How is she 25 years old? And mostly why would ABC Family order this Lifetime-type show while theWhile watching Bunheads, the thing that I thought about over and over again was the similarity between the show and the horrendous Turkish soaps. Bunheads, doesn't have a realistic plot, the dots just do not connect. Why would a promising ballet move to Vegas? Why would she marry her stalker? How is she 25 years old? And mostly why would ABC Family order this Lifetime-type show while the network is clearly all about teenagers? Maybe I just don't like the whole genre, and therefore I didn't enjoy the pilot, but I know that I'm never gonna watch it again.… Expand
  8. miribeau
    Aug 4, 2012
    1
    A show for women who hate men, from the creator of Gilmore Girls.... This program offers the standard rehashing of Gilmore Girls. Sadly, that rehashing is more in line with the last two seasons of that program. Rory was busy (filming movies) so they added some other young person and, I think, Lane had some kids... or something. Who can remember? Who even cares? What is important here isA show for women who hate men, from the creator of Gilmore Girls.... This program offers the standard rehashing of Gilmore Girls. Sadly, that rehashing is more in line with the last two seasons of that program. Rory was busy (filming movies) so they added some other young person and, I think, Lane had some kids... or something. Who can remember? Who even cares? What is important here is that Bunheads, lacking an interesting Rory-type character, revolves around, not one, but four uninteresting, poorly conceived, teenage ballet students who take classes from a women who is a combination of Miss Patty (in that she teaches dance) and Emily Gilmore (in that she is exactly the same, is played by the same actress and spends all her time yelling and having meltdowns). The central Lorelai type character is actually a decent Lorelai clone. That being said, I never realized how annoying and how unrealistic Lorelai was as a character until watching this program. There are no spoilers here, trust me. It will seem like there are. There aren't. The central Lorelai-type woman, name not worth remembering, 25 years old, is a failed, some sort of stage dancer, dancing acting failure from Las Vegas. She is 25 years old, because the writers think anyone who is not at the peak of their career by age 25 is a failure. She is mean and horrible to a nice man who has fallen in love with her (because she's a pretty dancer and because his mother was a horrible meany who left him broken for life and incapable of loving any woman who doesn't call him a loser) and, of course, she doesn't care about him, not one bit, even though he keeps coming back to Vegas (for work) and every time he does he goes to see her, watches her stupid call-girl dancing show and tries to get the mean horrible woman (who fakes being sick so she can avoid him) to go to dinner with him... and she does... and she gets drunk because that's what girls like her do (in the writers' worldview) and she marries him, waking up the next day in his car on the way to his home as his new bride. She is annoyed and nervous and wants to go home until she sees his nice house and decides to be a money-grubber. They have sex once, he dies right afterwards and the pilot ends. That's right. I said "pilot". Thereafter, the show revolves around the four boring, nameless, teenage ballet students and the angry mother-in-law who is brilliantly played by a veteran actress who deserves better writing and a better supporting cast and, while we're at it, a better career than she currently has and, let's not forget, the Vegas prostitute who inherited a house and a bunch of land (in Southern California, no less) all for sleeping with a sad, lonely man, one time. The message of the show is clear: Women need men for one thing and that thing is money. Women need men to earn money which they can then give to women or can leave to them in their new wills. Men, according to writer Palladino, are also, apparently, quite stupid. The plot, which moves on from this point in an endless meandering stream of bulls**t, is as simple as it is insulting: Prostitute keeps windfall from man who foolishly loved her (even though she didn't love him) and as a penalty for keeping all the money she allows his mother to stay in her home and keep her ballet studio where she teaches some girls who talk a lot and have "teenage problems" and, by proving she is not so heartless as she seems, somehow makes some small percentage of the viewing public not hate her guts. Don't watch this. By the way, the score of one was awarded purely out of professional love for Alan Ruck who deserves so much better than to be killed off so a struggling network can afford to pay all the little children's salaries and their on-set tutors. I'd thought, at the end of the pilot, that his character might have faked his death just to force his mother and new wife to work together, to bring them into the reality of their new situation and get them each to stand on their own two feet, as it were, and he'd show up in each episode watching them from afar only to return triumphant in episode four or five but, sadly, this did not occur. The writers really meant in when they killed Hubble. (See? His name, I can remember.) They meant it and, even if they tried to take it back, I'm so offended by the portrayal of women as sad, pathetic, dependents who can't fend for themselves without living off their male children or marrying well and then finding themselves conveniently widowed (so as to avoid all that pesky work of actually being a good wife and friend and daughter in law) that I wouldn't watch this again, even if Ruck himself introduced an episode by saying, "Amy Sherman Palladino would like to apologize and let everyone know that she does not, in fact, hate all men and secretly wish her husband would die so she could have all his money." (But, I'd probably watch the clip of that on YouTube, if I'm being honest.)… Expand
  9. martinex
    Jun 15, 2012
    8
    I was pleasantly surprised. I usually avoid ABC Family like the plague but this show is surprisingly mature and well written. Let's hope this is not the last we see of Michelle Simms.
  10. nerdyhousewife
    Jun 29, 2012
    8
    Please, please, PLEASE keep this show on the air! It's the reincarnation of Gilmore Girls... full of hope, laughter, complex characters and unapologetic highbrow references. The only caveats are a few weak supporting actors and an unassuming name. Okay, I'm not especially keen on the ballet theme, either, but it really isn't that pervasive. Regardless, considering the serious dearth ofPlease, please, PLEASE keep this show on the air! It's the reincarnation of Gilmore Girls... full of hope, laughter, complex characters and unapologetic highbrow references. The only caveats are a few weak supporting actors and an unassuming name. Okay, I'm not especially keen on the ballet theme, either, but it really isn't that pervasive. Regardless, considering the serious dearth of respectable shows for women, Bunheads is a welcome treat.… Expand
  11. JordanMarie23
    Jun 19, 2012
    8
    This show is really fresh and bubbly and I really enjoyed it! Sutton Foster is great as Michelle and Kelly Bishop is as great as ever as the over bearing mother. You gotta love this cute show!
  12. NoNora
    Jun 19, 2012
    9
    Really promising. Occasionally over the top acting, and somewhat forced pop culture reference but a genuinely promising new show. I really look forward to seeing where it goes from here. Very smart, fast dialogue.
  13. DeadlyScream87
    Aug 10, 2012
    10
    This is as real as the dance world gets. This show has spark, excitement every element that a show of this genre can have. Any dancer knows this is how the dance world really works!
  14. bee
    Jul 4, 2012
    9
    After three episodes I am tonally hooked. The characters are all well cast and the four main girls are well fleshed out characters that I can't wait to find out more about. Foster gives a sharp, endearing performance. I want more shows like this airing. Can't recommend enough!
  15. marisa2013
    Jul 26, 2012
    10
    This show is funny, the characters like ble the story line a little to so much but is better than others so I liked and is in my on my watch list. I look forward every Monday for for the show. Mitchell is so funny and her lines are great, Fanny good contrast and I love boo and the dynamic with Sasha not to mention Hubell ex girlfriend and Michell friend I really enjoy this one.
  16. hjwelte
    Aug 7, 2012
    10
    Another hit from Palladino and a big one for all the Gilmore Girls fans that have been waiting for a movie, this is a hint of Gilmore girl nostalgia (GG actors popping up everywhere I look) and I can not wait to see more... I have never done ballet do not understand ballet, but this is such a great show. I am already involved in the lives of the characters.
  17. dkeliik
    Aug 16, 2012
    9
    It is so good to have Amy Sherman-Palladino writing on TV again. She is perhaps the most brilliant creator and executive producer in all of television history. She has such care for all her characters, down to every townsperson in the little California town of Paradise. Though some may say it the construction of the show is too much like Gilmore Girls I don't mind because the writing is SOIt is so good to have Amy Sherman-Palladino writing on TV again. She is perhaps the most brilliant creator and executive producer in all of television history. She has such care for all her characters, down to every townsperson in the little California town of Paradise. Though some may say it the construction of the show is too much like Gilmore Girls I don't mind because the writing is SO refreshing to TV. No other young adult television creator would weave some of the references she has put into the series, she so prevalently believes that your audience is only as dumb as you let them be, a philosophy I think all writers should live by, regardless of the age range, with certain limitations. I can't wait to see were this series goes because there are endless possibilities. Sutton Foster handles the quick dialogue as well as Lauren Grahm did as Loralie, but brings less of a sense of sarcasm and more seriousness to the dialogue, something Kelly Bishop nailed in Gilmore Girls and continues to do on Bunheads. Besides the atrocious title this show is absolutely flawless and brings life to an otherwise boring summer season… Expand
  18. Watchtower
    May 2, 2018
    10
    I laughed several times in the pilot and i could not stop watching. Enuf said. What a great breath of fresh air - love this show. It is sparky, witty and fast paced. Kinda resembles what my life is like-i relate to it. Good stuff.It has a nice feel and inspirational. I like the happy feel for once. Just quirky and entertaining. I loved Sutton Foster in younger, that is what drew me toI laughed several times in the pilot and i could not stop watching. Enuf said. What a great breath of fresh air - love this show. It is sparky, witty and fast paced. Kinda resembles what my life is like-i relate to it. Good stuff.It has a nice feel and inspirational. I like the happy feel for once. Just quirky and entertaining. I loved Sutton Foster in younger, that is what drew me to this show and she is amazing in this show.… Expand

Awards & Rankings

37
#37 Best TV Season of 2012
47
#47 Most Discussed TV Season of 2012
96
#96 Most Shared TV Season of 2012

Critic Reviews

All reviews »
Metascore
74

Generally favorable reviews - based on 20 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 19 out of 20
  2. Mixed: 1 out of 20
  3. Negative: 0 out of 20
  1. PopMatters
    Reviewed by: Chris Conaton
    Jan 7, 2013
    70
    At last, Sasha is less a collection of TV teenager tropes and more convincingly a Sherman-Palladino creation.
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  2. New York Daily News
    Reviewed by: David Hinckley
    Dec 31, 2012
    80
    It's worth the effort to figure out what this offbeat cast of characters is up to.
    Read full review
  3. St. Louis Post-Dispatch
    Reviewed by: Gail Pennington
    Aug 27, 2012
    75
    A show that is beautiful and sweet, funny and touching.
    Read full review
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