I try to avoid overwrought pronouncements like “this is the best thing I saw this summer!” or “this is the worst thing I’ve ever seen,” because really, I’d end up saying “this is the worst thing I’ve ever seen” every time a new episode of Real Housewives aired. Inevitably people would start asking, “then why do you keep watching it?” and I’d have to follow myself down into some deep schadenfreude-lined tunnel of misanthropy, and though I am certainly in favor of self-knowledge, there are some things better left unexamined. All of which is to say, I try to avoid statements like that, and yet I feel drawn to give a similarly categorical declaration. Huge is the most surprising thing I saw this summer.

It would be tempting to go farther out onto a limb and say it is also the “best” or “most touching” thing I watched, but any summer with new episodes of Mad Men means “best” is probably taken, and “most touching” makes it sound like Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, which would be very unfair to Huge. So I’ve landed on “surprising,” and feel pretty good about that claim. The premise of the show is that a bunch of kids attend a fat camp, and somehow, it ended up being a thoughtful, character-driven study of teenager-hood, self image, family, relationships, sexuality, popularity, and fitness. Yeah, you’d be surprised, too. (Alas, I fear few of you are, as there were more viewers for Kate Plus 8 than there were viewers of Huge’s season finale on Monday night).

Alistair looking in the mirror

There have been no official announcements, but the general lack of buzz about the show makes me dubious that Huge will get renewed, so I want to make sure to take this opportunity to say: this is what classy, teen-focused TV can look like, and it’s a darn shame there isn’t more of it. Several of its characters managed to be both appealing and believably flawed, including a character named Alistair, whose like I have never before seen on TV but remember clearly from real life. Alistair is the weirdest guy in the bunch, who throws himself almost too fully into another character’s roleplaying game, refuses to shower, and whose sexuality is the subject of much debate and gossip. Indeed, his sexuality seems uncertain even to himself, and by the end of the season, we start to get the sense that it would not be enough for Alistair to call himself “gay” – he may actually be happiest with himself if he weren’t fully male. He is supportive of his friends, an enthusiastic participant in activities and games, and he completely lacks a “not cool enough” radar. I’ve never seen anyone like him on TV, and am impressed that he made it onto air, weirdness and ambiguity intact.

The other thing to say about Huge’s individuality is its style, which comes off as a very different technique than the majority of ABC Family’s stilted, over-scripted, stagey and over-saturated programming. Most of the show takes place outdoors or in relatively rustic cabins, and something about Huge’s setting seems to have leaked over into its cinematography and script. Characters speak to each other with relaxed or anxious or tired or angry voices, but they lack over-dramatic intonations or long, polished speeches. Girls are just as likely to be found giggling with each other about a quiz in a magazine as they are fighting over a boy, and make it through the season with a minimum of backstabbing, cruel gossip, or frenemy building. Unlike Rich at FourFour’s now-famous piece about reality television, the characters on Huge actually are there to make friends, and the genuineness of that is refreshing.

In keeping with that persuasive conversational realism, the show often focuses on small exchanges that take place at dusk in the woods outside of camp, or two girls chatting in the cabin bathroom, or people whispering to each other in the middle of a group activity. No bright lights silhouette people against stark backgrounds, or seek out couples embracing in the semi-dark – it’s a camp, and there isn’t much light outside, and so most of your deep meaningful encounters will take place quietly, and without much illumination. There’s something so poignant about watching people whispering to each other in the woods, perched on rocks or walking with a flashlight along a path, that definitely feels more true to my experiences of camp than the slick, glossy embraces on Pretty Little Liars.

Will and Dr. Rand talk about being overweight

And because Huge is not about just any camp, but about a camp for overweight teenagers, I’d be remiss if I didn’t end with the last episode’s conversation between the camp director and the show’s main character. Wilhemina asks Dr. Rand what she was like when she was fat, and she answers, “I hated myself.” “And now you don’t?” asks Will. “Less,” says Dr. Rand. “And that’s it? That’s the big improvement? You hate yourself less?” “Yes,” she says. If you ever doubted that Huge wasn’t just a fictional version of The Biggest Loser, there’s your proof. I’d love to see you back, Huge, but if not, we’ll always have this summer.

I was quite enthusiastic about the pilot of ABC Family’s Huge, and wanted to check back in with the show now that it’s five episodes into the season. The short version of what I’m about to say: it’s still a great show, and I think it’s gotten even better since the first episode.

The longer version: The first episode centered on a protagonist, which it had to do in order to hook its audience and to give the pilot a satisfying internal arc (protagonist hates Fat Camp, protagonist runs away, protagonist resolves to give camp a try). Since that initial episode, however, the show has placed much more emphasis on the surrounding characters, which has had multiple positive effects. It provides an array of emotional entry-points into the show (maybe you resonate with Amber, maybe you’re into Ian’s emo guitar stylings, maybe you’re caught up in Dr. Rand’s conflicted relationship with her father), but more importantly, it keeps the portrayal of the camp far more balanced than it would have been if Wilhelmina were our primary focus. Her continuing negativity toward what she views as the central, unspoken tenant of Camp Victory (“hate your body”) could easily become the dominant tone of the show, and it would probably have limited the story possibilities and made the show more predictable.

Will, Ian, Becca and Chloe on Huge

Instead, we get a variety of reactions to the camp: girls who desperately want to be thin in a way that probably isn’t healthy for their self-esteem, guys who want to be athletic, several people who worry about what it will be like to have new bodies, and a few who want to lose weight, but find it so difficult that they still break the camp rules. In the most recent episode, the staff meeting announcements begin with a notice from Dr. Rand about some kids who go to the nurse saying that they have a sore throat – the nurse gives them salt to gargle, and they then use it to put more salt on their food. It’s details like that anecdote, and frequent casual discussions about childhood teasing, thigh chafing, and which bras to wear to Movie Night, that makes the camp appear grounded, plausible, and potentially positive.

Because I’m me, I’m also drawn to the subtle nerdy undercurrent that has flavored a few recent episodes. In one, Becca creates a fast, complex fantasy world based on several camp locations and tries to recruit people to LARP with her (Live Action Role Play). I was astonished to then watch an entire episode of a mainstream television show in which the term LARPing is explained just once and then used frequently in nonchalant conversation. Even better, Huge has established a well-written, gently teasing Twilight analogue inside the show. It’s a book and movie called Phantasma about a girl who falls in love with a ghost: (An explanation from Chloe, a camper: “This girl comes to this new town, right, and she keeps seeing this guy everywhere, like, he keeps appearing and then reappearing and appearing and then reappearing, ‘cause he basically is everywhere, ‘cause he’s like a ghost. It’s romantic.”) in the world of the show, even the actors of Phantasma have familiarly fascinating love lives. The girls study photos of the two lead actors in magazines, dissect their body language, and thrill when the director chooses Phantasma for Movie Night. They even play a several scenes from the movie so that we can hear the dialogue while the campers carry out all of their anticipated social entanglements. The sample Phantasma dialogue is just so good, and you’ll have to imagine it complete with a melancholy piano score:

A scene from Phantasma

“I would do anything for you Callie. I even swore to protect you from the Ghost Tribunal. But now I realize that the best way to protect you…is to stay away from you.”

“You can’t mean that. If you loved me, then you’ll stay with me. No matter what.”

“I waited 300 years to find true love. Before you came, I had no hope that I would ever feel anything again. You changed me, Callie. And I need you to know that. Before I go.”

“Go?! Where?!”

It’s odd to say this about a show like Huge that seems to draw with broad strokes, but it’s in the details like LARPing and salt theft and Phantasma that the show really works. On that note, I’ll leave you with a little more Phantasma dialogue:

“Are you still afraid?”

“Yes, I’m afraid…of how badly I want you.”

You could have knocked me over with a feather, but ABC Family’s new show Huge is actually sort of interesting.

The premise sounds like one of those shows that seems like it could be worth watching in theory, but also seems like it would be almost impossible to pull off. The setting of Huge is a fat camp, and the pilot begins on the first day, with all the campers gathered together in bathing suits, waiting to get their “before” pictures taken. We meet our protagonist, a rebellious punk-rocker type with purple streaks in her dark hair and a subversive streak a mile wide – her name is Wilhelmina, but she prefers Will. The hierarchy is quickly established, and we have no trouble identifying the socially awkward, the geeks, the popular guys, and the group of cute mean girls who everyone else quickly identifies as not quite fat enough to be attending fat camp. We admire Will’s spunk as she complies with an order to take off her concealing tshirt by doing so while singing and sashaying to striptease music. We recognize that the hottest, thinnest girl, Amber, is also incredibly self-doubting, and we feel for her. After chuckling at Will’s black market candy business, we shake our head with concern as she decides to run away and then sigh with relief when she returns, as she inevitably must. It is, after all, the first episode of a show about fat camp.

The thing is that all those emotional twists and turns are reasonably easy to describe, but far trickier to navigate on screen. How does one go about crafting a camp director character who can be seen as cruelly authoritarian but ultimately dedicated to the task of bettering kids’ health? How do you maintain an environment that is a ridiculous, embarrassing torture chamber run by Big Brother’s thinner sibling while also building that environment as a supportive, well-meaning and potentially helpful place? The prom queen who’s actually sad isn’t that hard to create, but how does one establish sympathy for a protagonist whose defining characteristic is admirable rebellion and then undermine our acceptance of her rebellion in just the first episode?

Will's black market candy business

The answer is: I’m not fully sure, but Huge does it remarkably well. Perhaps the pilot’s biggest victory is making the camp immediately problematic rather than banking on its pure evil or easy source of hope. Each character has a slightly different reaction to the place, and every reaction is valid. Will feels as though it is demanding that she hate her own body, Amber and others see it as a road to achieving their “thin-spiration,” and for some, camp is obviously a source of therapy that happens to also make them exercise. For at least one girl, fat camp triggers her many other insecurities and she is sent home for dangerous binging and purging.

It’s a credit to the show that my favorite moment from the pilot was the title moment, the scene when Amber actually says the word “huge.” She is not referring to herself or the other campers, or even in any reference to body size whatsoever. After flirting with a boy, one of the other campers explains that at a place like this, the playing fields are more level than at home, and that realistically, she could hook up with any guy she wanted at camp. After a shocked silence, Amber whispers excitedly, “this is huge!”

Amber

Usually when these moments roll around, they are winking metafictional bits of self-awareness, and almost always come off as either self-mocking, parody, or just flat-footed. This felt more like a show gently chiding its audience for assuming too quickly that it’s just a show about overweight kids. It’s a show about teenagers with social lives, and it’s about how hard it has been for them to be normal teenagers.