TV Review - Legendary (Pride Month)

Paris Is Burning (1991) introduced most people to "Ball culture" or what's called "ballroom." It's underground events in cities like New York where Black or Latino people in the LGBTQ community gather to do fashion, runway modeling, dancing and lip-syncing. Often, they do so in groups, known as Houses. Those houses are led by people referred to as "mother" or "father" despite having no biological relation. It's all about people from the LGBTQ community coming together for makeshift families. Usually, there is a Master of Ceremonies or MC who announces the categories or themes that the houses have to follow. There's also a panel of judges who decides which house has the best modeling or dancing and then gives the house that wins a trophy or prize. Another film about Ball culture wouldn't pop up for another 20 years when Sheldon Larry's Leave It on the Floor (2012) was released. Yes, Madonna did a lot to popularize Ball culture, but Ball culture really hit the mainstream with the success of FX's Pose (2018).

It then makes sense that a show like this would be green-lit. This is a reality competition series that is in the vein of the Emmy-winning RuPaul's Drag Race (2009) and the Emmy-nominated Dancing With the Stars (2005). The difference and the difficulty with this series is that it's juggling way more contestants and people than either of those aforementioned programs. RuPaul's Drag Race will generally start with about a dozen contestants. Dancing With the Stars generally has a dozen couples, which ends up being 24 contestants overall. This series has eight houses. Each house has about five people. That's a total of 40 contestants. Dancing With the Stars has gotten to a point where it runs for about 11 episodes. This series will only have 9. Therefore, this series has more people to explore but in less time.

The show opens with Dashaun Wesley who is the MC that hosts and moderates the show, introducing the balls and the houses. Wesley might be familiar to those who are fans of Pose, as he is featured in Season 2 of that series. Wesley is a life-long dancer who even appeared in Magic Mike XXL (2015). Once Wesley announces the category and the house, the show goes to scenes of each particular house preparing and practicing. The show provides them with a professional stylist and costume designer named Johnny Wujek. The show also provides them with a professional choreographer named Tanisha Scott, even though most houses don't need it. We then see them walking the runway.

There are four main judges. The first is Jameela Jamil where after surviving a car accident, she rose to become a model and fashionista. She also worked as a TV presenter in the UK. Most people probably know her as the character of Tahani in NBC's The Good Place. The other judges include Megan Thee Stallion, the female rapper from Texas, Law Roach, the openly gay stylist, and Leiomy Maldonado, the Afro-Latina transgender dancer who is known as the "Wonder Woman of Vogue." Maldonado is well known in the ballroom scene. She even worked on Pose too, both in front of and behind the camera.

They know their stuff. I certainly could never be a judge. This show does have guest judges who also know their stuff. The best of whom is in Episode 3 with Dominique Jackson, one of the lead characters in Pose and a legend in the ballroom scene. Seeing her in this series proves though that her character in Pose isn't a character very different from who she is in real life. However, being an expert, she can see things that I can't. If it were up to me, all of the houses would win because all the dances look very well choreographed and strongly performed. As one judge says, it's clear that the kind of dancing and walking has inspired and influenced all mainstream dance and culture. It's clear in the styles of artists like Janet Jackson's "Rhythm Nation" all the way through to Beyoncé's "Single Ladies." Ball culture has been the root to so much.

Of the eight houses, there's plenty to explore. Going in the order that they're introduced in the first episode, there's House of Escada, which is run by a black, gay man named London. House of Ebony is run by a white, straight woman named Isla Cheadle. House of Ninja is run by another female cisgender woman and immigrant named Dolores. House of Gucci is run by a black bodybuilder named Jarrell. House of West is run by the youngest leader, a black gay man named King James. House of St. Laurent is run by a black transgender woman named Michell'e. House of Lanvin is run a trans-woman named Eyricka. Finally, House of Balmain is run by a black gay man named Jamari.

This series focuses a lot on process. We get a lot of them picking out what their outfits will be. We get them trying to work out the choreography. We get testimonials where each of the five members or so will sit together and talk about who they are as a group and themselves. Other than seeing the costumes and choreography in the actual performance, these testimonials are the most enlightening. At times, the testimonials get very emotional, as the contestants reveal stories of homophobia and trans-phobia. The problem though is that those stories aren't fleshed out. They're not investigated thoroughly or enough to make us really connect to them. The testimonials are great, but they're ultimately rushed.

Ironically, one of the contestants says that there is a distinction between their everyday life and their ballroom life. What this series gives us are the contestants' ballroom lives and not really their everyday lives. For example, Isla Cheadle is the mother for the House of Ebony. She mentions that she's straight and is married to a man, as well as having a 2-year-old son. Yet, we don't get any more about her personal life. I get that her relationship with her house members is more important, but even those relationships aren't fleshed out. For example, one member in the House of Ebony who is one of the standouts is a young gay man named Shorty. Yet, we don't get how Isla and Shorty met, how long he's been in the house, where they live, how they pay bills or anything substantial.

Based on the testimonials, we get a sense of the various personalities. All of them are engaging and colorful. They occasionally live up to the refrain, "We're not going to be shady, just fierce!" The least in that regard is the House of Ninja. We don't get much personality from them other than the general, female Asian stereotype. Maybe the producers aren't that interested in them because they are all cisgender women and thus wouldn't have stories rooted in the LGBTQ experience. Getting to know them better or in a deeper way would still be preferred. Arguably though, their physical performances are some of the best. A better series that does feature LGBTQ people, fleshing out their everyday lives, is Netflix's Cheer. I would probably recommend that show over this one, but this series is so entertaining if simply for the group performances.

I will say that one episode features a ball that is themed "Wild Wild West." I thought for sure that the guest judge for that episode was going to be Lil Nas X. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case. If this series comes back for a second season, Lil Nas X should be considered in that regard. Another obvious big name for a guest judge should be Madonna or RuPaul.

Rated TV-MA.

Running Time: 1 hr. / 9 eps.

Available on HBO Max.