Hellcats

Despite this silly and derivative setup, the pilot is actually a lot of fun. The performances are uniformly good and there are moments of promising depth to balance all the peppy hair-swinging, abs-flexing dance numbers.

For all its formulaic predictability, though, this show has an acerbic self-awareness that may defuse the cynicism you may bring to it.

It takes us to the South and to a class-conscious frame of mind and then introduces a web of complicated relationships that the eye recognizes as cross-racial but the dialogue does not. For now, it seems that this is a tale of collegiate self-discovery and hand-spring liberation that just happens to be set in the post-racial America I keep hearing about it.

Played partly tongue in cheek, the show's premiere isn't quite unabashedly trashy enough to completely qualify as a guilty pleasure, but one can see it developing into that.

With all due respect to cheerleaders, and, um, hellcats, I'm a dog person myself. So when I say I didn't actually hate Hellcats, it means something. If nothing else, I'm in awe of the athleticism.

Mostly I winced: at the irritatingly arch dialogue; at the hoochielicious every-other-scene dance routines; at Michalka's acting range, which seems to have just two settings--smug and self-righteous.

Hellcats is basically a soft-porn music video for teenagers.