Make It or Break It

ABC Family’s television drama series, Make It or Break It, is a story about the lives of four gymnasts whose goal in life is to make it to the 2012 Olympics.  These four gymnasts are: Payson, Lauren, Kaylie, and Emily.  Each of these girls live very different lives and have problems of their own, but they all have gymnastics in common.

Payson is the most focused and determined athlete at “The Rock”, which is the (fictional) elite gym that they train at.  Because of this reason, she is the best female gymnast in the gym.  Payson had a back injury in the past and after practicing for Nationals, it flared up.  But since she her determination dominates her, she ignores it and keeps training.  When she competes at Nationals, Payson falls and injures her back. This back injury is very serious and she was told that she couldn’t do gymnastics anymore. Payson has to deal with this career changing news and figure out a way to be the same gymnast she was.

Lauren is a two-faced liar and the one that stirs up all the drama between the girls. She does many things to make the other girls hate her. In the beginning of the season, she betrays all of the athletes in the gym because she goes to another gym with their head coach before competition.  This is very bad because without a head coach, the gym and the athletes are a mess.  Also, she stabs Kaylie in the back because she sleeps with Kaylie’s boyfriend, Carter, which they both fight over throughout the first season.  Even though Lauren acts out and hurts many people, she is the most vulnerable character on the show.  The reason for this is because her mother leaves her at a very young age.

Kaylie is the National Champion.  She would not have achieved this if it weren’t for Payson’s back injury, but since she was runner up, she won.  When Kaylie won, everyone thought her luck was the reason why she won and not because she was a good athlete.  This brought the most pressure for Kaylie because she believed that they were right.  Having to live up to the title when everyone thinks you don’t deserve it brings a lot of pressure and this pressure pushes Kaylie to work harder to beat the best athlete in the world on the China team.  Kaylie has to deal her relationship issues with Carter, as well as her parent’s divorce.

Emily is the new comer and the outcast of the show.  Since “The Rock” is an elite gym, it would be very expensive to train there. The reason why she can even train at “The Rock” is because she earns a scholarship from them. Emily has this scholarship because her family is economically challenged and this hurts her gymnastics career in many ways.  First, it is one of the rules at “The Rock” that the athletes aren’t allowed to have jobs.  Second, she has to worry about her family members and if the electric bill has been paid. Finally, if they want to take their career far, as their coach says “you need to eat, breathe, sleep gymnastics”, meaning they can’t have any other distractions. Having this job wears her out and distracts her from her gymnastics career. Emily’s job at the Pizza Shack soon hurts her and is used against her to take her scholarship away. Another issue that she has to deal with is her experience.  She has only trained at the YMCA in a small town in California.  This isn’t enough and doesn’t compare to the other girls who have been training at “The Rock” for most of their lives.  Training at “The Rock” is a big opportunity for her because that’s the only way that she can become a serious and well known athlete.

This TV show is one of my favorites out of the many TV shows that I watch, so I totally recommend that you try the Pilot.  If you just watch one episode, you’ll be hooked like I was. J