Dance Moms: Season One

Parallels between Dance Moms, a Lifetime cable production, and the reality-TV blockbuster Toddlers & Tiaras, are apt, right down to the begged question: namely, why are we spending time with these unappealing drama queens? Hard-charging Abby Lee Miller runs an award-winning dance school in Pittsburgh, grooming a class of preteen girls for a national dance competition. But with nearly every move she's challenged by a quintet of meddling upper-middle-class mothers (one runs her own rival dance studio in Ohio, so the viewer senses that train wreck coming well in advance). How meddling? Well, in the opener Abby calls the police to expel a "psycho" screaming mom who is disrupting class—a Christian minister, no less. Abby Lee's demeanor recalls Roseanne without the ingratiating punchlines, or John Goodman. In fact, dance-dad males are almost entirely absent here, even when these moms have (miraculously) intact marriages. Conga-lines of conflict arise from jealousy, stage-parent politics, exhausting road trips, and charges that Miller's routines and costumes sexualize or ethnically stereotype the little girls. Only in the series finale—an audition of all the remaining kids for a pop-music video in Hollywood—does the abrasive bitching and manipulative filmmaking style somewhat abate, offering a more satisfying drama about which child wins the spotlight role and why. Most of the dance routines are edited down to fragments that emphasize flubs and motherly shock-horror reaction (usually prefiguring a backstage catfight), which takes away any enjoyment from watching the daughters mature into accomplished troupers. But, then again, the show isn't called Dance Kids (which is rather unfortunate). Compiling all 12 episodes from the 2011 opening season, DVD extras include a “Most Outrageous Moments” featurette and bonus footage. (C. Cassady)