I was a gym rat. When you spend 20+ hours per week in a smelly gym, you don't have time to waste on angsty teen dramas. Trust me. So, when I saw the commercials for this show, I was pretty pumped. What could be better than a TV show that I could actually relate to? I knew this show would become an instant favorite of mine.
I have never been so wrong—and if you knew me you'd know just how horrible this show is if I'm admitting I was wrong about something. I couldn't get through the first five minutes of it without feeling offended by the mockery it makes of the sport of gymnastics. I will never understand how even non-gymnasts could tolerate one full episode of this show, let alone get invested in the characters and the story lines as some of my friends did. It's baffling. Make It or Break It is just about as bad as they come. It is silly, it is inaccurate and it is above all offensive to gymnasts.
If you're going to watch this show, expect horrendous acting. I've been forced to sit through episodes of Secret Life of the American Teenager and Pretty Little Liars, so I know ABC Family accepts nothing but the "highest" quality actors. Their actors and actresses have about the same amount of acting knowhow as I do—none. The comedic scenes are ruined by the actor's lack of timing, the joyful scenes seem fake with their plastered on smiles and school girl giggling, and the dramatic scenes are just about as believable as the surprised look on a kids face when he unwraps a brand new pair of socks for Christmas. And I haven't even gotten to the gymnastics part of the review yet.
You'd think that with the show centering on the lives of four Olympic hopefuls, the producers would aim to create a program that real gymnasts could get behind and appreciate. ABC Family and the creators of Make It or Break It accomplished exactly the opposite of that. Great job, ABC. It was impossible to just sit back and enjoy the show without being constantly distracted by all the inaccuracies around the sport of gymnastics. It was immediately clear that the producers don't have a clue what real gymnastics is like.
One huge problem I had with the show right off the bat was the content of the gymnast's competitive routines. The pilot episode of the show, a crucial time for the viewer to judge a show on it's believability, features nationally ranked, elite gymnasts competing compulsory level skills. The second I saw the "best beam routine in the country" end with a cartwheel back tuck dismount, I lost any remaining respect I had for the whole show. Imagine Olympic All Around gold medalist Nastia Liukin, concentrating on her dismount, taking a long, deep breath, pounding down the beam, propelling herself into the air, pulling off a 2.5 twisting back layout, sticking the landing, and making the whole thing look easy. That's the kind of dismount I want to see. Not just a cartwheel back tuck.
That wasn't all they got wrong either. Episode after episode, they had parents allowed on the competitive floor, gymnasts conspiring against each other, girls scaring away an urban gang with cartwheels, scratched routines being performed, and a whole lot of other craziness. They even had a gymnast make herself puke up her breakfast because it was "too fattening". Excuse me, what? That was the last straw for me. I barely made it half way through the season before I was too disgusted to continue. No longer would I put myself through that torture.
