Viewers have seen TLC's "Toddlers and Tiaras" expose the hysteria behind child beauty queens, but Lifetime is bringing preteen divas, along with their overly involved mothers, to an entirely new level with "Dance Moms."
The docu-series follows a competition group at Abby Lee Dance Company in Pittsburgh, where Abby Lee Miller whips hopeful dancers into shape. She's well-known for her harsh but successful reputation. It's no small fee for Miller's coaching — $16,000 a year per child. Many of her students come back year after year, and in exchange for that steep price, Miller refuses to produce anything less than winners.
During the first episode, half a dozen girls ranging from 6 to 13 years old, enter Miller's studio to start training for competition in Phoenix, which takes place in one week's time.
With only seven days to learn two routines, these girls exert every physical and mental resource they have. Miller's scrutinizing eye criticizes and critiques the girls' rehearsals without any filtering, stating she would rather be the reason one of her students cries instead of them crying in front of a crowd at an audition.
For the most part, Miller is brutal in her honesty, and as a result some of her students resent her. But she couldn't care less and retaliates with to-the-point statements such as, "Suck it up. I don't want to see your tears," or "If you're bowlegged, you need to fix that."
Miller wants to not only thicken the skin of her students, but also weed out the uncompetitive and untalented, which leads to lots of tears on the young girls' part.
However, the series isn't called "Dance Kids," it's called "Dance Moms," and the camera quickly shifts to the high-maintenance women sitting in stadium seating behind a sheet of glass fixated on their dancing, bare-midriffed daughters.
With two or three feet of empty space between mom, the women aren't exactly friends. They're more competitive than their daughters because they understand what being on top means, and they express their frustrations freely with a tendency to trash talk.
They complain about Miller's overbearing hostility, the paper pyramid she created to encourage competition, but in reality it just further highlights who the best dancer is and who isn't, all in addition to complaining about their daughters not being as competitive as they had hoped.
During the individual interviews with the moms, one shares that her ex-husband claims her obsession with dance was the final blow to their marriage, while another mom admits to prioritizing dance over school. They then begin to break down, neglect their responsibilities as parents and dance moms and escape to the nearest bar for a cocktail or two — or five.
Between training days and competition days, the stress felt by the parents, the dancers and the coach creates a push-and-pull tension in the docu-series episode.
It highlights the phenomenon of mothers living vicariously through their daughters, exposing them to a world of taxing competition and a price that might be too hefty to outweigh the benefits of becoming a star.
It's the kind of show you can't help but watch because it's downright dysfunctional, intriguing and insightful into this rising culture.
The 8-year-old girls in short spandex and sports bras, doused in hair spray and more mascara and eyeliner than most 30-year-old women dare to wear, don't know any different because their mothers won't let them branch off from dancing, not even to competitive cheerleading.
If the first episode is any inclination to the rest of the series, viewers might not be able to take their eyes off the screen as the dancezilla moms stomp on the competition and battle to the bitter end for their kids to become stars.
"Dance Moms" begins today at 8 p.m. MST on Lifetime.
Email: corton@desnews.com
Today on TV
Women's soccer (9:30 a.m., ESPN): France vs. U.S. in the FIFA Wold Cup semifinal.
Big Brother (7 p.m., Ch. 2): The veto competition takes place.
So You Think You Can Dance (7 p.m., Ch. 13): The Top 12 perform.
Minor League Baseball All-Star Game (7 p.m., MLB): Live from Salt Lake City.
America's Got Talent (8 p.m., Ch. 5): Four acts advance to the top 24.
Love in the Wild (9 p.m., Ch. 5): The couples find supplies to help them journey to Snake Island.