Rollergirls

[An] exciting, interesting series.

A "heightened reality" show, one might call it, but one which makes its subject palpable and which, because it is made with care, lets you care too. It's the more artful portrait, paradoxically, that paints the truer picture.

Not like anything else on TV.

''Rollergirls" is a colorful piece of reality TV.

The show comes with a built-in demographic: viewers who enjoy sweaty, scantily clad women waging war on roller skates. "Rollergirls" just needs to lure them back from the Internet.

It doesn't help that the producers shape the episodes as if they were little sports movies, peddling cliches about the nervous rookie, the veteran making a comeback or the underdog team. That might work with a real sport, but it's kind of a buzzkill when dealing with a staged one.

It gets nothing right - not the potential sexiness, not the negligible drama and certainly not any solid shot at explaining, much less popularizing, the alleged sport of roller derby.