Bravo's 'Work Out' sweats out Season 3
THE MONITOR
Jackie Warner, Sky Sport and Skylab are back but not much is new.
FULL disclosure: I work out at Sky Sport & Spa, the high-end Beverly Hills gym featured in Bravo's docu-soap "Work Out." When I signed up, I had never seen the show; I picked my trainer, Agostina, because of her aspirational abs.
As it turns out, Agostina is one of the new trainers on the third season of "Work Out" (10 p.m. Tuesdays), which started last week. So out of curiosity, I downloaded the first and second seasons and watched the show at lunch as I ate my cottage cheese.
Those episodes spotlighted Sky Sport's Sapphic owner, Jackie Warner (the star of "Work Out"), as a businesswoman in conflict with her mother, who cannot accept her daughter's sexuality; and as a single woman facing a hard choice, at 37, whether to freeze her eggs so she can still have a child later in life. There's also some fun stuff about hot lesbians sweating in clubs and making out. (According to a recent New York Times article, those particular scenes have won Jackie legions of female fans who identify as straight.)
Sadly, in Season 3, the drama that's supposed to pump iron into the new episodes has run out of steam. What we're watching feels like same old same old, as if the only story lines and conflicts the producers could find were already on the cutting-room floor.
Jackie still rules over her ragtag crew of genetically perfect fitness trainers. There's Rebecca, on the rebound from her Season 2 relationship with Jackie and still mistaking attention for affection; Erika and her killer bee-stung lips; and good ol' boy Peeler, still talking the talk behind Jackie's back (If the two shared a cell in a prison movie, you can bet Jackie'd have the top bunk).
New trainers include Greg, a male fitness model with a body made for TiVo; Renessa -- proof somebody opened a gym in Whoville; JD, a massage therapist-turned-trainer; and Agostina, an Argentine transplant with enough sense to stand back and let the Americans look stupid.
On the personal side, Jackie has a new girlfriend in live-in love Brianna. If anyone out there misses Mimi-the-crazy-ex, it's clear that Jackie -- who looks like she could play Scarlett Johansson's hard-edged (older) sister -- traded up.
A touching tribute
AT the office, Jackie spends a lot of screen time planning a fundraiser to support the Doug Blasdell Foundation, named for one of the show's trainers. Blasdell's unexpected death during Season 2 injected an undeniable sense of community among the Sky Sport trainers and added sincere emotion to the episodes.
