Making a rebound
Racy basketball dancers series ‘Hit the Floor’ will now air on BET
It seems unfair — or maybe just premature — to be analyzing “Hit the Floor.” This is a show remaking itself. The racy serial about the fictional basketball team, the Los Angeles Devils, and their cheerleaders, the Devil Girls, created, directed, produced and written by Boston native James LaRosa, ran for three seasons on VH1. It was perhaps the only prime-time show to toss its gay characters in situations as torrid as the ones for its heterosexuals.
After its three-season run, VH1 gave the series a special in 2016 to wrap its stories. It played like a fitting series finale.
But nothing dies on television, and it is far more lucrative to bring back an established property than launch a new one, especially if you are a basic cable channel with not much original scripted programming on the bench.
So almost two years after “Hit” bounced off the airwaves, it has rebounded to BET — but with some key cast defections.
LaRosa has a formidable challenge: reigniting the show, resolving some fan-shipped relationships, introducing new characters and presenting a threat drawn from the show’s history.
This is but an eight-episode season, so “Hit” hustles.
Spoiler alert: Even a couple of those fan favorites who returned for the revival make their exits in surprising ways over the first two episodes BET made available for review.
Pax (Cort King) is a new rookie baller who is living a lifestyle he cannot afford and finds an unorthodox way to fund his passions.
London (Teyana Taylor, “Star”) is a choreographer and dancer embroiled in a scandalous affair with a megachurch preacher that went viral and fears joining the Devil Girls will be more of the spotlight she loathes.
“Shame is overrated,” Kyle (Katherine Bailess) tells her.
Jamie (Kyndall Ferguson) is determined to become a star. Living out of a car makes you hungry.
Noah (Kristian Kordula, who has spent the last season of “Tyler Perry’s The Haves and the Have Nots” begging to take off another man’s shoes and must be relieved to be anywhere else) is a cocky reporter who catches Jude’s (Brent Antonello) eye.
“Do you ever stop?” Jude wonders.
“Not even when I hear the safe word,” Noah says, smiling.
Derek’s (McKinley Freeman) reason for returning to L.A. without Ahsha has complications that ripple out for her father, Pete (Dean Cain).
BET has a long list of embargoed spoilers, but we can talk about the superficial. The show still takes breaks for crazy choreography that shows off the female cast. The game scenes look more realistic than they ever have. Jude is finally dressed in suits that fit him, which might be a small miracle.
“You can’t lose if you change the game,” Jelena (Logan Browning) says next week. That could be the motto for “Hit the Floor’s” rebirth.