Tag Archives: Camp Victory

August 30, 2010 · 11:32 pm

Mid Season Finale: Huge – “Parents Weekend – Part Two”

“Parents Weekend – Part Two”

August 30th, 2010

In case you haven’t been paying attention, Huge has been my show of the summer: the show embodies the potential for programming aimed at teenagers which doesn’t speak down to its audience, mining the complexities of adolescence instead of exaggerating its most dramatic moments. Staying true to its observational camera angles (reminiscent of Friday Night Lights, soon to be part of the ABC Family…family), the show has allowed characters to develop independent of earth-shattering revelations, just as interested in silence as in outbursts or monologues.

I’ve seen some criticism of the show for being too close to various cliches, a criticism which I don’t think is entirely unfair: there is no question that Huge has hewed fairly close to the traditional expectations of summer camp fiction, and there have been moments (see: “Spirit Quest”) which lost the series’ focus on investigating the life-changing moments, both big and small, which have nothing (and everything) to do with the central mission of Camp Victory. However, when the show was at its best, this focus transcended the tropes it has played with, and the show is certainly flirting with my Top 10 for the year thus far.

The second part of “Parents Weekend,” scripted by series co-creator Savannah Dooley, does nothing to change my love for the show, as the episode perfectly sums up the ways in which the nuances and subtleties of these stories defies the predictability of its log lines; it’s a strong end to a damn strong half a season, and all we can hope now is that ABC Family is as interested to see the other half as we are.

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Tagged as ABC Family, Amber, Analysis, Becca, Camp Victory, Dorothy, Entertainment, Episode 10, Finale, George, Gina Torres, Hayley Hasselhoff, Ian, Midseason Finale, Nikki Blonsky, Parents Weekend, Part Two, Paul Dooley, Poppy, Raven Goodwin, Review, Salty, Savannah Dooley, Season 1, Season Finale, Song, Television, The Ghosts, Theme Song, Trent, TV, Will, Winnie Holzman

August 10, 2010 · 12:08 pm

Huge – “Poker Face”

“Poker Face”

August 9th, 2010

After last week’s journey into slightly hokey territory, Huge returns to its roots with an episode that brings weight back to the forefront with the all-important weigh-in.

However, there’s a reason that it isn’t called “Weigh-in”: while “Poker Face” does return to each camper’s anxiety over their weight, it is more interested in how they respond than about how much weight they lost. Even with something this monumental, the show is still more about those small moments where campers confront the challenges which face them every day rather than those big moments where they stand on a scale.

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Tagged as ABC Family, Amber, Analysis, Becca, Camp Victory, Chloe, Dorothy, Entertainment, Episode 7, George, Ian, Love Handles, Piznarski, Poker, Poker Face, Review, Season 1, Shay, Television, Trent, TV, Weigh-in, Weight Loss, Will

August 3, 2010 · 2:09 am

Huge – “Spirit Quest”

“Spirit Quest”

August 2nd, 2010

Thus far, Huge has largely (oy, that was unintentional) stuck to a pretty simple formula: take a basic summer camp activity, and then explore how it would impact ongoing character relationships and identity struggles amongst Camp Victory’s overweight campers. In fact, part of what has made the series so successful is that it resists highly melodramatic scenarios, choosing instead to highlight how normal camp life is integrated into a larger narrative of life itself.

“Spirit Quest” is ostensibly a continuation of this trend, although I think it’s a more problematic example than the past couple of episodes. There is something about spirit quests which invites skepticism, which needs to be handled carefully in order to preserve each character’s individual perspective; however, there is also the temptation to have the campers to actually experience something approaching a spirit vision, which threatens to take the series into hokey territory that it would be better off resisting.

In the end, there are many parts of “Spirit Quest” which end up sitting comfortable in the middle ground, but there are a few moments where they push themselves to the edges of the story and do a slight disservice to a few of their characters.

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Tagged as ABC Family, Alistair, Amber, Analysis, Becca, Camp Victory, Camper, Chloe, Counselor, Donut, Dorothy Rand, Entertainment, Episode 6, George, Mushrooms, Native Americans, Poppy, Review, Season 1, Spirit Name, Spirit Quest, Television, Trent, TV, Wayne, Will

July 27, 2010 · 3:16 am

Huge – “Movie Night”

“Movie Night”

July 26th, 2010

In Huge’s pilot, Becca explains to Will that everyone at Camp Victory is on an level playing field, which was very quickly proven to be a lie as cliques emerged and conflicts arose. However, over time, I think the show has successfully shown how there is a certain equality amongst the campers, as Trent and Ian bond over music or as Will and Amber successfully travel in different circles without forming some sort of Mean Girls-esque feud. While the playing field may not be level, it is also constantly changing, shifting with each week’s event: Becca can be elevated by her role in the LARPing, or where Ian shines on talent night. With everyone facing similar circumstances in one part of their life, their differences become just like any other summer camp, which the series has treated with a very careful hand which is commendable.

However, “Movie Night” addresses head on the fact that there nonetheless exists certain imbalances, both within the series’ narrative (with George and Amber’s “dangerous” romance) and within the series’ structure (in Dorothy’s story arc intersecting with her campers). While one can chalk up the success or failure of some romances to teenage insecurities and misunderstandings, others have barriers which are more substantial, both in terms of how the show avoids falling into cliches and how the writers strike a balance between keeping Dorothy central without turning her life into its own bit of teenage romance.

And if you’re thinking that the perfect way to strike this balance is to introduce a Twilight parody, then you’re embracing how far Huge is willing to push the limits of its own success, here to its benefit.

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Tagged as ABC Family, Amber, Analysis, Andy Reaser, Becca, Camp Victory, Chloe, Dorothy, Episode 5, George, Ghandi, Gina Torres, Hayley Hasselhoff, Ian, Movie Night, Parody, Phantasma, Review, Satire, Season 1, Sex, Television, The Middleman, Trent, TV, Twilight, Will, Wuthering Heights, Zander Eckhouse

July 13, 2010 · 2:37 am

Huge – “Live Action Role Play”

“Live Action Role Play”

July 12th, 2010

“I was myself…sort of.”

It says a lot about the current trajectory of Huge that “Live Action Role Play” is both the most “ABC Family-esque” episode of the series thus far as well as the episode which I think shows the most signs of future growth. After last week’s fairly heavy glimpse into those letters we can’t write, and those anxieties which overcome us without some form of an outlet to express them, this week’s focus on LARPing has considerably less subtlety, playing the exact notes regarding identity and performance which speak to the heart of the show’s central message that you’d expect from such a story.

However, what surprised me about the episode was how this storyline stretched our current definitions of these characters, continuing to develop and complicate existing character relationships while creating some new ones which successfully expand the series’ perspective. Where the show seems to resist notions of what I’d consider to be teen drama formula is how successfully characters move from the periphery to the margins, and how a character introduced in one context can quite successfully float into another – this isn’t to say that the show is radically reinventing itself each week, but rather that it seems comfortable with documenting the flow of life at Camp Victory rather than the moments of dramatic or comic interest within that environment.

This doesn’t mean the show is successful across the board at this stage, but it means that it collects more than enough goodwill over the course of an episode for its occasional cliches to feel earned, and often puts those cliches to good use.

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Tagged as ABC Family, Alastair, Amber, Analysis, Becca, Camp Victory, Chloe, Dorothy Rand, Episode 3, George, Gina Torres, Ian, LARP, LARPing, Live Action Role Play, Nikki Blonsky, Review, Television, Trent, TV, Will