ABC Family’s “Huge” may surprise you
Don't let that embarrassed look fool you. Nikki Blonsky plays it fierce in "Huge."
As promised, I tuned into Monday night’s series premiere of “Huge.” And despite all my powers of positive thinking (It’s written by Winnie Holzman! It stars a Golden Globe-nominated actress! It couldn’t be worse than anything else aired on ABC Family!), I was skeptical.
I mean, seriously? Overweight teenagers don’t feel ostracized enough? Now they need to be specifically segregated in a prime-time melodrama that could potentially incite audiences to laugh at, not with, the central characters?
Okay, so maybe my snap judgments shouldn’t come from a place jaded by years of destructive media consumption.
“Huge” isn’t necessarily what I thought it would be. Sure, it centers on the lives of teens and staffers at a weight-loss camp. And yes, the opening scene does involve Nikki Blonsky in a grandiose burlesque, revealing her (gasp!) cellulite in all its swimsuit-clad glory. But whatever fears I had of the show poking fun at the plus-size characters were essentially eliminated by the end of the hour. Continue reading
ABC Family premieres weight-loss comedy/drama “Huge” next week
Nikki Blonsky stars in ABC Family's "Huge"
ABC Family will surely be stirring up controversy next week (this is nothing new to the network; have you seen “The Secret Life of the American Teenager“?!) when it premieres the new comedy/drama “Huge” starring Hairspray‘s Nikki Blonsky.
The show centers on Blonsky’s character, Willamena, a rebellious teen banished to weight-loss camp by her parents.
Based on Sasha Paley’s book of the same name, “Huge” follows the lives of the campers and staff as they (according to the official ABC web site), “look beneath the surface to discover their true selves and the truth about each other.”
Though my schmaltz detector tends to go off any time a show explores teens exploring themselves (in the spiritual sense, not in the American Pie sense), “Huge” has some great things going for it.