The Big Leap

To my amazement, it's funny, slightly daft, and wonderfully contemptuous of not only the reality genre but the entirety of television. Where else would you ever see brother-and-sister twins dry-hump one another during a dance tryout while a producer screams to his assistant, "Call research and see how incest plays in the Midwest!"

It’s also got an ineffable charm that allows it to add up to more than the sum of its not inconsiderable parts. So take a leap – not even a big one – of faith, and just enjoy.

It’s schmaltzy and predictable, but it’s filled with entertaining dance moves and carefully fitted with a character — Scott Foley’s reality TV producer — whose relentless cynicism is simultaneously repugnant and a laugh riot. After about 10 minutes, I was fully onboard, despite the flaws and the overreaches, and ready for more.

Funny, occasionally touching and pretty savvy about how the reality-TV sausage gets made, the series also bears a modest resemblance to "Smash," which looked at the hopes and dreams of those trying to make it on Broadway. Whatever you choose to compare it to, among the major networks' creative standouts, "Big Leap" looks like a big winner.

This is a mild, mostly affectionate lampoon of reality shows and the people who make them and the people who compete in them.

The Big Leap has a lot of funny, feel-good moments, and the show-within-the-show story gives it enough narrative momentum to last an entire network-length season. How the show will adapt and change once everyone dances Swan Lake, however, is anyone’s guess.

It’s amusing and easy to watch. But it also feels hemmed in by its premise, a little too overdetermined. ... But the one consistent reason to watch is Scott Foley’s nimble, convincing performance as the reality show’s producer, a master manipulator whose deceitfulness is so sincere that you can’t help rooting for him.

"The Big Leap" delivers engaging dance numbers and characters that grow in the show’s second episode.

The Big Leap worked for me fairly well as a comedy and felt pretty hollow at every turn as an inspirational drama, though in this broadcast landscape “half-success” almost counts as “success.”