Rollin’ Through the Decades

I do not tend to watch reality television. Honestly, it just does nothing for me. While I can sometimes get into certain shows, like Queer Eye for a few seasons, or various skill-based competition shows like Project Runway, Top Chef, or So You Think You Can Dance, I tend to get bored of them easily after a little while, growing increasingly tired of the formula and artifice of it all. If I’m gonna watch something fake and over produced I may as well watch a fictional story instead of the “reality” that.

The reality shows I do watch tend to have a hook I can get into. I like design, I like cooking and food, and I like dance (having taken a few classes way back in the day). Skating is also on my list, as I’ve always loved just strapping wheels onto my feet and hitting the asphalt. For a while there I even did roller derby, skating with a team for a year and a half before life got in the way and I had to prioritize other things. I still love to strap skates on, and when I can (and there’s one nearby) I enjoy hitting a rink and grooving out to some music while I roll.

Hanging out in skate rinks, you develop an appreciation for the music, the dance, and the vibe. It’s a lot of fun to just groove to the beats and see the skilled skaters really get into it. Skate rink dancing is its own thing, and watching a group of people find that beat and show their moves can be quite enjoyable. That’s the pleasure and thrill that could be had from a show like Roller Jam, a MAX original that finished up its run just a few weeks ago (and not to be confused with the 1990s show all about roller derby, also called Roller Jam). You get to see professionals really getting into it in a competitive setting, making their moves and feeling their grooves.

Or, at least, that would be the way the show should work. Instead, the show gets pretty wrapped up in the beats and formula of reality television competition, focusing too much on building storylines and competitive spirit and not giving us enough of what we’re actually there for: the rolling and the dance. For a show all about roller skating and dance, it feels like Roller Jam doesn’t quite understand what it has or how it could present the dancing sport. Which is a pity because these skaters are really good and if they could just be allowed to show their stuff in a format that really framed them properly, it could be a showstopper.

Max’s Roller Jam (as opposed to actual jam made with a rolling pin) featured 10 teams of skaters from across the U.S., picked to compete in this competition in hour-long episodes. Each team, once a week, gets to do one short choreographed, rolling dance (about two minutes, give or take, of time in the spotlight) and afterwards the judges discuss how they did, what they should work on, and then score the teams. Scores are revealed at the end of the episode, with the lowest scoring teams (usually two of them, although in one instance it was four) all forced to dance it out in the “Elimiskate”, where one member of each team gets 20 seconds to perform as hard as they can. Whoever leaves it all out on the rink the hardest wins, and the other team (or teams) goes home.

If you’ve watched a reality competition like American Idol (which I haven’t) or So You Think You Can Dance (which I have), then this basic format should feel familiar. There are some differences, of course. The episodes are shorter, so each team only gets to perform once, instead of the usual two songs most performers get to work with, especially deep in a competition. This means that the teams all have to do it right the first team, each time, or they could risk getting eliminated. It’s a lot of pressure and you end up feeling bad for the teams because they only get this one shot and then they’re out.

I actually feel like it really sucks for them because it was also a compressed amount of time this whole thing was shot during. It’s pretty clear that the teams went from one day to the next, then the next, coming up with a new routine each time to perform. The way they talk about the competition, they’re clearly bouncing from day to day, even though the show itself was aired week by week. More time would have let the skaters internalize the lessons they were learning from the judges and find more time to work on their routines. Of course, more time would have meant higher production costs, and I’m sure that was something Max was trying to avoid.

We also didn’t get to see their audition process, which would have given us (and the skaters) even more time to practice, get in the zone, and learn. You can watch the growth of singers, dancers, chefs, designers, and more as they work their way through competitions. The compressed time frame here, though, with only a few days of actual competition and without the longer audition process, means we only catch a small glimmer of their potential. It’s hard to get attached to a team of skaters when we see so little of them.

So I think that, assuming this show gets a second season, it needs to give the skaters more time to skate. Longer production time for the episodes, of course, but also longer episodes. Once we start paring back the teams they should get the opportunity to dance twice an episode. And maybe even more times in a week. We need to see them more just so we can see them learn, see them grow, and get attached to them. It’s hard in this tight format to get all that.

Because of that compressed time frame there’s also no voting from the audience. While voting isn’t always part of competition shows (Project Runway, Top Chef, and their ilk have the judges handle everything), the kinds of shows that Roller Jam is emulating (American Idol and So You Think You Can Dance) build audience participation, through voting, into the structure. This gets people attached to performers they like, but it also adds a real time element to the proceedings. You can’t film all the episodes in advance if the audience had to vote, week to week, to kick someone off.

Again, it’s about timing. More time allows people to grow in the competition, but it also allows for the audience to get invested. Roller Jam doesn’t do any of this and I do feel like it made for a weaker show. It really wants to be, in effect, a dance competition, but with skates, and it makes all the moves to be that kind of show… except it ditches the parts of the format that were inconvenient to a fast turnaround when the show was built for streaming. The network wanted to have their cake and eat it too, and that backfired.

The biggest flaw with the show, though, is that the producers weren’t very clear on the kind of skating that was being showcased. The teams of performers broke down into two clear groups: club skaters and skater performers. The club skaters are the kinds of people that show up at the local rink and groove out to the music. They use the floor, do tightly choreographed group sequences, and work together as a unit. The skate performers are basically ice skaters without the ice. Their focus is on spins and leaps and lifts, very technical and difficult tricks. The two sides are very different, and we end up with various teams doing their thing, but with one group at a serious disadvantage.

To be clear, the judges wanted to focus on the club-style dance for this skate competition. One of the two main judges, Terrell Ferguson, is a roller skating legend and he focused on the club elements of the group numbers. Johnny Weir is an ice skating legend, which you would think would bring balance to the competition, but while he also loved to see the lifts and spins and tricks, he let Ferguson take the lead when it came to guiding the judging. It was clear which side was more valuable in this competition, and the teams that were focused more on ice skating-style tricks than club dance were at a major disadvantage.

And, really, the judging in general didn’t feel all that interesting or informative. The problem with a lot of these shows, which Roller Jam emulates, is that the judges tend to gush over all the flashy stuff and say how much they just love the style and the look of the performers, but nothing about what they say is all that interesting or useful. It’s not as bad as the yelling and screaming over the performances you sometimes would get on So You Think You Can Dance, but it’s still not great. I could have done with shorter, more focused judging that actually was informative, and less time spent on feel-good praise.

Really, overall, the balance of the show is just off. There are parts I really like, such as the performances, the look of the production, and the music choices (with each episode focused on a different decade). But a lot of the production and the editing for the show feels rushed, like the team wasn’t sure how to do a show like this with such a tight production window and make it stick. If this show gets a second season the rush, rush, rush of the production needs to be trimmed back.

But I do think it’s worthy of a second season. This is a different kind of performance competition from what we normally get on television, and it’s refreshing to see. Skating is fun, and if this inspires more people to take it up, to hit the local rinks, and have fun, then I think that’s great. The core of the show highlights skating and makes it look awesome. I want this on TV. We just need the rest of the show around it to come together better.