Bad Scott Foley in 'The Big Leap' is the Scott Foley we deserve

When The Big Leap hits TV screens on September 21, we’re all going to see a whole new, bad side of Scott Foley. And after streaming a sneak preview of the show’s first two episodes (which you can do too on CTV), we can honestly confirm that Bad Scott Foley is the Scott Foley we deserve.

What is this show?

Of course, let’s back up a second, shall we? The Big Leap is based on a U.K. reality show called Big Ballet, which aired in 2014. In it, amateur dancers realized their twinkle toe dreams when they put on a performance of Swan Lake. And because everyone loves star power, Olivia Colman (yep, the Queen herself) narrated.

The Big Leap is kind of a like a dramatized version of the making of that show (although not based on real events). The series follows a group of former dancers (or dance enthusiasts) who are seeking their second chance in life. So they audition for this show and the chance to put on (you guessed it!) Swan Lake.

There’s the single mom who gave up her dance dreams when she got pregnant (Simone Recasner), the guy trying to win back his wife (Jon Rudnitsky), a woman grappling with her marriage and self-worth as she ages (Teri Polo) and a former executive who has a new lease on life following a battle with cancer (Piper Perabo), among others.

There’s also a duo of judges (played by Mallory Jansen and Kevin Daniels), and at the head of it all is Scott Foley, who plays the show's executive producer Nick Blackburn.

Ah yes, so tell me more about Bad Scott Foley, please.

Basically, Nick Blackburn is a few notches down from his Scandal character, Jake Ballard. Though Nick isn’t killing people (so far, as far as we know), he is all about exploiting the people on his reality show in order to make salacious TV. And from the looks of things, he doesn’t really care who he hurts in his mission to do that.

“Because Scott has played so many likeable, let's say loveable, characters over the years and because he is innately such a good person, we have discovered in the cuts that he can say the most awful things and you still love him, and that's an incredible weapon to have within the cast,” said real-life executive producer Jason Winer during a Television Critics Association panel.

That means you have to get Noel from Felicity out of your head because Nick is the kind of guy who bullies his assistants in one sentence and praises them the next, keeping everyone on their toes. Just when you think he’s having a moment of humility he snaps it off and you wonder how you started rooting for him, even just for a second. In other words, it’s a really fun take.

“I had a reckoning the other day where I realized, at least in my own mind, that Nick is sort of like the Darth Vader in the making of this show,” Foley added during the panel. “He's separate. He's always—not the evil guy, but his intentions are not necessarily the best. Although, Vader, of course, was the evil guy, we know,” he continued.

“He's the person who makes sure the show is what people want to watch, regardless of the ethics. And I think for me it's such an interesting character to play.”

Nice Star Wars reference, Scott. So why will we feel for this guy?

Maybe you will, maybe you won’t, but he’s definitely a dude with a backstory, which begins to unravel in episode two. Until then, you may feel for Foley IRL, because he was experiencing some genuine FOMO while working on the show.

“Everybody was talking about the bonding they do at their dance rehearsals in the studio, and they all get together and it was a real great way for all of them to get to know one another,” Foley said. “If I'm being honest, I felt a little left out that I don't do the dancing.”

His character is certainly a task master when it comes to the dancing though. In fact, he and the judges put so much pressure on the fictional cast that we’re not even shocked to learn that there were already suspected injuries while filming the pilot. In speaking with Teri Polo and Piper Perabo in advance of the premiere, we learned that it was pretty common to see heat packs on set.

“On the pilot, I thought I blew out my knee and had to go to the hospital and get MRIs and all this stuff,” Polo, who grew up dancing ballet, revealed. “And it turned out to be arthritis. So that tells you like, I was embarrassed!”

“If we make it through the whole season with no injury, I'm going to be just so proud of everyone,” Perabo added. “It's one thing in rehearsal when you're working because you warm up, and then you dance for a whole rehearsal, and then you cool down. But when you're doing it for film, sometimes there could be a large pause and you cool down again.”

“The amount of Epsom salts and Aleve and ointments… and heat pads! I see heat pads a lot on set and it is quite extraordinary,” chimed in Polo.

Epsom salts and Bad Scott Foley? I’m in. When can I watch?

Catch the first two episodes now, available for streaming on CTV.ca and on the CTV app. Otherwise The Big Leap debuts Tuesday, September 21 at 10 p.m. ET/PT before settling into its Mondays at 9 p.m. ET/PT timeslot, beginning Sept. 27. 

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