Hulu's having a rough time right now. The amount of new material that's available on all 37,029 channels is thin enough in early July under any circumstances, and what little is there is delayed and unavailable, sometimes for weeks at a time. Then there's this whole "Hulu Plus" thing which -- in spite of Hulu's half-hearted marketing efforts -- implies that all the really GOOD stuff is now going to be hidden behind a $9.99/month firewall. Pretty difficult sale when you've already acclimated your zillions of audience to unlimited free watching, AND you seem to be offering next to nothing for the $120/year (the same shows only more of them, no really decent original content you can't find elsewhere, no real sense of curating or inter-mediation ... AND you get to keep watching the ads! Yay!).
And now there's LXD.
Look, we have nothing against dance shows. More power to 'em. But if they're all that popular to begin with, why do they have to be disguised as a superhero web series?
Even a fairly careful viewing of the LXD promos on Hulu and the episodes themselves make you think this is a professionally produced (if shallow) knock-off of Heroes or X-Men. This "legion" of "extraordinary young people" finding each other and fighting against an "uprising of evil." Lots of black leather and dangerous looks. And at least two of the jumping jacks in the promo shot (see above) look like they're flying. It's so convincing, in fact, that you don't really know until the last word of the mysterious narrator's opening speech: "A Legion ... of Extraordinary ... Dancers." "What?" you say, and whack the side of your laptop. "Extraordinary What?" And the story that follows: a young boy who suddenly jumps and turns like a demon, a flash-forward to his high school years, where he abruptly blossoms in a rave-level dance-off ... it's dark comic-book stuff, except he's dancing instead of bursting into flame or shooting power-beams out his eyes. All to disguise some really very good, very flashy, dancing. (And there's even a weird and funny cameo by one of the guys from Stars' recently canceled Party Down that's worth the 15-minute investment all by itself.)
Hulu ... don't do this. It already looks like you're pulling a bait-and-switch with Hulu Plus. You're already pawning off old (and often canceled) BBC shows and long-dead off-network series because you can't get much of anything else at the moment. Don't make matters worse by confusing dance fans and disappointing f&sf fans with something like LXD. Puh-leeze.
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