Hellcats

We've seen it all before, but it's still fluffy fun. [10 Sep 2010, p.82]

The cheerleader drama Hellcats isn't nearly in such danger of taking itself seriously. A brunet Ashley Tisdale makes a speech about how cheerleaders are athletes who deserve respect, and then we get to move on to the triple handsprings in crop tops.

The formula's a little too familiar, the pilot a tad dull. But Michalka's a big talent and for that reason, Hellcats has potential.

Yes, audiences should beware not to let their eyes roll too far back in their heads at the fantasy concept of a) swapping scholarships midsemester and b) a protagonist who wows everyone in sight (known as the "Mary Sue" character in fan fiction parlance). But once the concept is firmly established, Hellcats makes a graceful backflip, with multilayered characters that defy expectations.

For all its formulaic predictability, though, this show has an acerbic self-awareness that may defuse the cynicism you may bring to it.

The end product should be called Hellkittens--not bad, but its tiny claws neither grip nor rip. [13 Sep 2010, p.47]

It's not especially fresh material, nor is it all that nuanced, but it's peppy and occasionally clever and it offers ample eye candy for any and all tastes.

It takes us to the South and to a class-conscious frame of mind and then introduces a web of complicated relationships that the eye recognizes as cross-racial but the dialogue does not. For now, it seems that this is a tale of collegiate self-discovery and hand-spring liberation that just happens to be set in the post-racial America I keep hearing about it.

Is it must-see TV? Perhaps not, but it's a lively and light addition to The CW lineup and pairs well with the unabashed silliness of "America's Next Top Model."

In the larger picture, Hellcats has the deceptively tricky mission of taking what has been a 90-minute idea in most other incarnations and stretching it into an ongoing series. But it serves up plenty of eye candy to enhance the ride, so hey, gimme an M for Marti!

Played partly tongue in cheek, the show's premiere isn't quite unabashedly trashy enough to completely qualify as a guilty pleasure, but one can see it developing into that.

So what you get from Hellcats is a wildly derivative wish-fulfillment view of college life made to appeal to junior-high girls, most of whom are too young to recognize how many shows and movies Hellcats has appropriated.

Tom Welling's picked up all the wrong lessons from behind the screen, from premise to character development. Hellcats is poorly paced and its attempts at comedy and drama stumble.

Story-wise, the show is awful--stock characters, nonsensical motivations, obvious plot turns, bad acting... The routines--and the dynamic filming of them --are dazzling enough to distract from the surrounding lousiness.

With all due respect to cheerleaders, and, um, hellcats, I'm a dog person myself. So when I say I didn't actually hate Hellcats, it means something. If nothing else, I'm in awe of the athleticism.

Mostly I winced: at the irritatingly arch dialogue; at the hoochielicious every-other-scene dance routines; at Michalka's acting range, which seems to have just two settings--smug and self-righteous.

Hellcats, set at a Tennessee college, can do nothing more with the material than a stale story.

This show does not bring it on.

Obviously the CW wanted to milk the popularity of shows like "Glee," which has singing and dancing. And is enormously popular. You can't blame the CW (except maybe for leaving out the creativity, for having a terrible script and for the acting, which hurts to witness).

Hellcats is basically a soft-porn music video for teenagers.