New Fox dance drama 'The Big Leap' set in Detroit, gives underdog characters second chance

In the premiere episode of "The Big Leap," a laid-off Motor City autoworker (Jon Rudnitsky), now juggling several jobs to survive, is eavesdropping on his ride-share passengers.

"They dropped me in Detroit three days ago to save this stupid dance show," gripes one of them, a jaded TV producer (Scott Foley) desperate to salvage his own career.

To clarify, Foley's character is bad-mouthing the show-within-a-show, not the actual series that launches at 9 p.m. Monday on Fox. "The Big Leap" is a scripted dramedy about a reality show that gives amateur dancers the challenge of a lifetime: learning the choreography to the classic ballet "Swan Lake" and then performing it on TV.

In real life, Foley, whose credits include hits like "Grey's Anatomy" and "Scandal," thinks the new series has a shot at connecting with audiences in 2021, a year that has retained the stress levels of 2020. 

The action unfolds in "a hopeful world and I think that’s one we all aspire to,” he says.

Already, "The Big Leap" is generating major hopes for the Fox network. It has been called one of the fall season's "can't-miss new dramas" by Entertainment Weekly. And back in April, Fox executives greeted the pilot with an enthusiasm that "has been compared to the reaction at the network to the 'Glee' pilot more than a decade ago," reported Deadline.

Liz Heldens, the creator and executive producer of "The Big Leap, is fine with the comparison.

"We’re dealing with some real issues, but I always thought: 'Well, the show itself is going to be in a good mood. ... That’s how I always felt watching ‘Glee,’" says Heldens. "You had a feeling that everything was going to be OK, and there was a buoyancy to that show."

Now the big question is: Are TV viewers ready for "The Big Leap"? Well, they certainly can relate to the problems faced by the lead characters, which range from unemployment and crumbling marriages to ageism and self-destructive behaviors.

Yet the show treats these likable underdogs, who are seeking a second chance at their dreams, with notable kindness and humor. 

"I think the best way to describe it would be a feel-good comedy with heart, but then you could also say a feel-good drama," says actor Kevin Daniels, who plays the elegant host of the reality show.

The journey of "The Big Leap" began around 2015. Inspired by a British reality show about amateurs tackling a production of "Swan Lake," Heldens envisioned a fictional version that would explore the personal lives of the contestants.

"”I just thought that was the best idea," she says by phone. "It seemed like a really good container to tell stories about people who were kind of down on their luck or had been punched in the face, one way or another, by life.”

The project, which eventually landed at Fox, always was meant to be set in Detroit, a great American city on a similar comeback journey, according to Heldens.

"That was always a big selling point," she says.

Filming is done in Chicago. Although the Detroit setting isn't important enough to feel like a co-star (as it was in several shows made here, like "Detroiters" and "Detroit 1-8-7"), the characters' story lines are peppered with local details. They include: 

• Gabby (played by newcomer Simone Recasner), a dance champion in high school, whose college plans were sidelined by a teen pregnancy and who feels insecure as a woman with curves.
• Justin (Raymond Cham Jr), Gabby's gay best friend whose hip-hop dance skills may or may not mesh with the demands of ballet.
• Reggie (Ser’Darius Blain), a tight end for the Detroit Lions who has been suspended for driving under the influence. He is recruited for the show for his star power, especially after a video of him spotted naked and tipsy in public goes viral.
• Julia (Teri Polo), a suburban mom and former ballet dancer who is trying to become a social media influencer with a message — "aging is a wonderful, wonderful journey" — that she barely believes herself.
• Paula (Piper Perabo), a vice president of restructuring for an auto company who also is a cancer survivor.
• Mike (Jon Rudnitsky), a blue-collar guy who is struggling to win back his wife and complains that "the auto industry shipped my job to Mexico and there was a global pandemic."

The essential backstage characters include Foley as Nick, whose previous reality show was a huge flop and who'll do just about anything in order to get compelling footage, including filming surreptitiously.

"You go, disenfranchised white male!," says Nick as his cameras capture Mike in a candid moment.

In another scene, after Gabby talks her way into coaching Reggie, Nick says: "That's plucky as hell, and look at her! ... I don't know whether she's Black or white or what. You know what she looks like to me? She looks like America, and America needs a win."

In the host chairs are Daniels as Wayne, an empathetic former dancer who came up with the show's concept and who bonds with a nervous Julia in the second episode, and Mallory Jansen as Monica, a verbally abusive choreographer who throws a chair at one of the contestants in a heated moment. 

"Oh my God, I love her so much!," says Nick afterward.

More:Jeff Daniels on his 'American Rust' character: 'There are guys like him all over Michigan'

Heldens, whose previous credits include "Friday Night Lights" and "The Orville," says "The Big Leap" received the go-ahead for a pilot in early 2020.

"We were in Chicago on the ground getting ready to shoot, then that week happened ... (when) Tom Hanks got coronavirus and the NBA shut down. I’m going to remember it for the rest of my life," she recalls.

"Every morning, Jason Winer (the director) ... and I would look at each other and be like: 'Are we going to shoot? What’s happening?' ... That whole week was like this growing, terrible feeling of dread. Not only were we not going to shoot, but the country was really in trouble.”

Work resumed in winter 2020 until it was paused again by a positive COVID-19 test. But the network liked what it saw from several days of shooting that had been completed. Filming resumed in February on a few unfinished scenes. 

If there was a silver lining to the yearlong process of making the pilot, Heldens says it was the time it allowed to really think over the scenes and tweak the show's themes. 

Some of the obstacles wound up improving the action. For instance, a bowling alley dance scene with Gabby and Justin originally was supposed to happen inside a Home Depot, but "no national chain would let us shoot in there." The substitute location proved even better than what was planned.

"Something about watching Ray Cham run across those lanes just makes me so happy," says Heldens.

One of the strongest elements to emerge was the chemistry between Gabby, who isn't confident about her sex appeal, and Reggie, the NFL player usually surrounded by women.

”I’ve had a lot of fun with the Reggie character, actually," says Blain, who played athletes in "Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle," and "Survivor's Remorse" on Starz. 

"He’s one of those guys whose whole life, he’s always been sort of a spectacle, being an athlete. He’s kind of a larger-than-life party boy. But honestly, behind all of that, he happens to have a heart of gold. His relationship with Gabby, as it forms, is bringing that side of him out more.”

The Indianapolis Colts and Pittsburgh Steelers fan says that his favorite wide receiver ever is a Lion, Calvin (Megatron) Johnson. Blain hasn't heard from anyone associated with his on-screen team, but says it would be "really cool" if he did.

"I don't think anybody knows anything about the show yet. Maybe as the show develops and gets more popular, we’ll get some Lions shout-outs." 

As for filming that viral clip when Reggie is apparently in the buff, Blain laughs and says: "That didn’t take too long, but it was nerve-wracking. ... Our director, he shot that on his cell phone in about 15 minutes.”

While the show references the COVID-19 pandemic as something the characters are emerging from, it won't be dealing with the subject as an ongoing concern.

"”The show addresses, to a certain degree, what we’ve been through. We mention it. We mention the need for hope and the sort of despair that we’ve all felt," says Foley. "But it also takes us away from that and takes us to a world where we want to live."

Foley definitely isn't disappointed that his character, Nick, is not involved in any actual dancing.

"I talked to the executive producer the other day, and she said at the top of their list in the writers room is a note that says, "Scott Foley must dance.” I am fighting that tooth and nail!,” he says with a laugh.

Heldens says "The Big Leap" is currently in production in Chicago. Shooting on all 11 episodes is expected to wrap near the end of October. She credits Winer with the deft handling of the show-within-a show format and says "every actor in this cast is fantastic."

One more thing. There are no scheduled eliminations in the reality show depicted in "The Big Leap," no weekly goodbye to a character that we may come to like. Daniels, who's had recurring roles on "Atypical" and Modern Family," describes this as a show about finding unity among differences, something that would be hopeful for our divided country.

"How are you going to do a production of 'Swan Lake' with a cast of disparate dancers who have varying dance abilities and few classical training elements? How do you make something entertaining and enjoyable without a train wreck?"

You can't do it unless you figure out how to work as a team, a premise that Daniels loves. "It’s like, we can only face all of our problems together.”

Contact Detroit Free Press pop culture critic Julie Hinds at jhinds@freepress.com.

'The Big Leap'

Series premiere

9 p.m. Monday nationally; 11:30 p.m. on Fox 2 Detroit after Lions game

Fox