Tiny Pretty Things

It’s not great television, but it is a fun ride and you know what you’re getting—and sometimes that’s enough.

You can fast-forward through the dance bits or the narrative bits as taste dictates and probably improve your viewing experience. But I hope the sweat expended by the youngsters in uniformly excellent performances brings them all every kind of success.

It’s consistently inconsistent, purposely tacky and piles cliché upon cliché. It is trash TV. It could be a huge hit. ... The term guilty pleasure seems appropriate here. More guilt than pleasure, though.

Essentially, it suffers from trying to do too much. ... Halfway through the 10 episodes, I simply stopped caring about finding out who pushed Cassie over the edge. Unsurprisingly, the gleaming bright spot of Tiny Pretty Things is the dancing.

Tiny Pretty Things will make you never want to enroll your kids in a ballet class, given how emotionally scarring the art is portrayed to be here. Between that, the cliched characters and the clunky dialogue, you’re better off watching Bunheads over and over instead.

Interspersed dance scenes offer small moments of reprieve and a chance for the cast of trained performers to showcase their skills, but Michael MacLennan’s series seems to prioritize sex appeal above all else, including strong character development, authentic emotion, and a cohesive execution of multiple plot lines.

I didn't read the book so I can't talk about the fidelity of the adaptation. Having clarified this, the real problem with this series is the performances and the inconsistencies in the script. In one scene two characters are friends and the next enemies without explaining why. There are many parallel or subaltern stories that do not get discouraged and end up being superficial. On the other hand, the performances are too stereotyped. From the first scene we understand which character is hiding something and which character is really good. The best performance, without a doubt, is that of Brennan Clost as Shane, the openly gay dancer, who has problems with relationships and cannot detach from a past of frustrations and discrimination. Casimere Jollette as Bette does a good performance despite the inconsistency of her character. I think Tinny Pretty Things is a series with great aspirations but that it falls short.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]