Flesh and Bone

The show is too thoughtful to be dismissed as kitschy fun.

It’s intriguing for its setting and some of its stories--although the fine arts world in New York does call to mind the lighter “Mozart in the Jungle” on Amazon--and yet at the same time it’s often predictable in its premium cable-style plotting and pretentiousness, which is where the irritation comes in.... And yet, Flesh and Bone proved highly addictive, encouraging a binge of all its episodes in just a few days.

The best parts of the eight-part limited series are when everyone's on their toes.... Too bad that whenever Flesh and Bone shifts focus from dance, it risks becoming flat-footed. [9-22 Nov 2015, p.12]

For conveying such a rich sense of authenticity alone, for showing us the physical rigors facing those whose goal is to challenge gravity, Flesh and Bone deserves praise. The actors playing dancers are all professional dancers, too, so that the practice scenes are lovely and don’t require much dodgy camerawork. The storytelling, alas, leaves something to be desired.

If the show had demonstrated more confidence in ballet’s ability to transfix audiences and ditched all the rib-sticking melodrama (at an extremely padded 60 minutes, every single episode drags), it could have been something really special.

Walley-Beckett could have easily told a much simpler tale with greater effect--it's not as if ballet drama is such a crowded field that a writer needs a new twist. Instead, she weighs down the real drama with clichés, lurid B plot and lots of absurd nudity.

Flesh and Bone is, from the very start, pretty obviously a bad television show, a pretentiously somber affair punctuated by bursts of camp.