{"id":5909,"date":"2015-02-22T04:10:43","date_gmt":"2015-02-22T09:10:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/?p=5909"},"modified":"2015-02-23T15:23:19","modified_gmt":"2015-02-23T20:23:19","slug":"up-tvs-dancer-and-the-dame-is-a-refreshing-family-friendly-cop-comedy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/2015\/02\/up-tvs-dancer-and-the-dame-is-a-refreshing-family-friendly-cop-comedy.html","title":{"rendered":"UP TV&#8217;s &#8220;Dancer and the Dame&#8221; is a refreshing, family-friendly cop comedy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Here\u2019s today\u2019s dispatch from the crossroads of faith, media and culture.<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>Dancer and the Dame<\/em> airs tonight (2\/22) at 7:00 PM (ET) on UP TV.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"Dancer And The Dame\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/zKjent3fFcs?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>Synopsis (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.uptv.com\/dancerandthed\">from the UP TV website<\/a>): <\/strong>Down-and-out police detective Rick Dancer, struggling with a personal conflict, gives up on life and his job. \u00a0That all ends when he is paired up with an unlikely partner, a police dog Princess, also dealing with post-traumatic stress. The dog helps Dancer make a life changing turnaround. And in response, Dancer does the same for his partner, Princess, as they hunt down the crime lord who killed her partner.<br \/>\n<strong>Stars:<\/strong> Billy Gardell (<em>Mike &amp; Molly<\/em>), Eva LaRue (<em>CSI: Miami<\/em>),\u00a0 David AR White (<em>God&#8217;s Not Dead<\/em>), James Denton (<em>Desperate Housewives<\/em>), Michael Badalucco (<em>The Practice<\/em>), Louis Mustillo (<em>Mike &amp; Molly<\/em>), Quinton Aaron (<em>The Blind Side<\/em>)<\/p>\n<p><strong>Review: <\/strong>A nice change of pace from UP&#8217;s usually female-centric romcoms, <em>Dancer and the Dame<\/em> plays like one of those old TV crime shows where the emphasis was placed on likable heroes, action and humor &#8212; as opposed to anti-heroes, violence and dark subject matter.<\/p>\n<p>Billy Gardell has a Kevin James-like charm and vulnerability as Detective Rick Dancer. Dancer was once a larger-than-life hero cop who lost a step or two after a case he was working on went wrong. As the story begins, he is depressed and has gained a great deal of weight (making him a larger-than-life shadow of his former self).\u00a0 Gardell also has a nice easy chemistry with Eva LaRue who places Nicole, the widow of a murdered cop who is responsible for assigning him his new partner, a female German shepherd K-9 who is herself depressed after failing to save her late partner (James Denton seen in flashbacks) from a gunman&#8217;s bullet. Usual good guy David AR White also makes a surprisingly chilly villain as Kranz, the supposed philanthropist who uses his supposed charitable work as a cover for criminal activity.<\/p>\n<p><em>Dancer and the Dame<\/em>&#8216;s breezy style is old enough to be new again. It&#8217;s both funny and heartwarming to see Dancer and Princess, both of whom have emotional wounds to heal, heal each other while solving a big case. And, without spoiling the ending, I will tell you that you may find yourself with a lump in your throat as you root for the survival of one of the protagonists (you can probably guess which one). With <em>Mike &amp; Molly<\/em> only getting half season orders from CBS these days (probably to accommodate co-star Melissa McCarthy&#8217;s successful film career), I can imagine Gardell (who executive produced) using his downtime to star in additional episodes of <em>Dancer and the Dame. <\/em>It would actually make a fine family-friendly cop series. <strong><em>Dancer and the Dame<\/em> is fun, sweet (in a good way) and Highly Recommended.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><em> Dancer and the Dame<\/em> trivia:<\/strong> James Denton also played a K-9 cop partner in the UP film <em>A Girl&#8217;s Best Friend<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p><em>Encourage one another and build each other up \u2013 <\/em><strong>1 Thessalonians 5:11<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Here\u2019s today\u2019s dispatch from the crossroads of faith, media and culture. Dancer and the Dame airs tonight (2\/22) at 7:00 PM (ET) on UP TV. Synopsis (from the UP TV website): Down-and-out police detective Rick Dancer, struggling with a personal conflict, gives up on life and his job. \u00a0That all ends when he is paired&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":225,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7150,13,16,24,31],"tags":[35,7956,7958,7957,5223,7960,7962,7959,7961,7963,7964],"class_list":["post-5909","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-animals","category-family-matters","category-humor","category-movies","category-television","tag-1-thessalonians-511","tag-billy-gardell-mike-molly","tag-david-ar-white-gods-not-dead","tag-eva-larue-csi-miami","tag-james-denton-desperate-housewives","tag-louis-mustillo-mike-molly","tag-melissa-mccarthy","tag-michael-badalucco-the-practice","tag-quinton-aaron-the-blind-side","tag-up-film-a-girls-best-friend","tag-up-tvs-dancer-and-the-dame"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>UP TV&#039;s &quot;Dancer and the Dame&quot; is a refreshing, family-friendly cop comedy<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/2015\/02\/up-tvs-dancer-and-the-dame-is-a-refreshing-family-friendly-cop-comedy.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"UP TV&#039;s &quot;Dancer and the Dame&quot; is a refreshing, family-friendly cop comedy\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Here\u2019s today\u2019s dispatch from the crossroads of faith, media and culture. Dancer and the Dame airs tonight (2\/22) at 7:00 PM (ET) on UP TV. Synopsis (from the UP TV website): Down-and-out police detective Rick Dancer, struggling with a personal conflict, gives up on life and his job. \u00a0That all ends when he is paired&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/2015\/02\/up-tvs-dancer-and-the-dame-is-a-refreshing-family-friendly-cop-comedy.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Faith, Media &amp; Culture\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-02-22T09:10:43+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2015-02-23T20:23:19+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"John W. Kennedy\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"UP TV's \"Dancer and the Dame\" is a refreshing, family-friendly cop comedy","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/2015\/02\/up-tvs-dancer-and-the-dame-is-a-refreshing-family-friendly-cop-comedy.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"UP TV's \"Dancer and the Dame\" is a refreshing, family-friendly cop comedy","og_description":"Here\u2019s today\u2019s dispatch from the crossroads of faith, media and culture. Dancer and the Dame airs tonight (2\/22) at 7:00 PM (ET) on UP TV. Synopsis (from the UP TV website): Down-and-out police detective Rick Dancer, struggling with a personal conflict, gives up on life and his job. \u00a0That all ends when he is paired&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/2015\/02\/up-tvs-dancer-and-the-dame-is-a-refreshing-family-friendly-cop-comedy.html","og_site_name":"Faith, Media &amp; Culture","article_published_time":"2015-02-22T09:10:43+00:00","article_modified_time":"2015-02-23T20:23:19+00:00","author":"John W. 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Kennedy","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/#\/schema\/person\/e5d5ef9caeb6b01bcbf08ca6de6591c2","name":"John W. Kennedy","description":"John W. Kennedy is the founder and Dir. of Development of The Creative Universe Entertainment\u2122, a media consultation and development company focusing on the creation, development and support of high-quality mainstream entertainment that upholds positive timeless values, including trust in God. Current projects include \"Bryant Park\" (an uplifting romantic-comedy) and \"Photo Finish\" (an award-winning sci-fi TV pilot). He has written over 100 children's novels based on episodes of the Cartoon Network series \"Ben 10\", \"Ben 10: Alien Force\", \"Ben 10: Ultimate Alien\", \"Ben 10: Omniverse\" and \"Generator Rex\" among others. He also writes Beliefnet\u2019s \"Faith, Media &amp; Culture\" blog. Previously, he has produced successful news and talk programming for CNN, Fox News, Pax TV and SiriusXM. Specialties: Script Writing, Movie\/TV Novelizations &amp; Adaptations, TV Content Creation and Development, Creative Consultation, Producing and Booking News and Talk shows. He can be reached for writing, producing and consulting services at 516-640-1182.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/author\/jkennedy"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5909","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/225"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5909"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5909\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5914,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5909\/revisions\/5914"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5909"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5909"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5909"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}