Teens tumble on ‘Make It or Break It’

Squeaky-cleanness is embedded into the milieu of the teen drama “Make It or Break It” (ABC Family, 9 p.m. Mondays), which takes place in Boulder, Colo., at an Olympic-level youth-gymnastics training facility known as the Rock. With hair pulled tight and bodies vacuum-sealed into leotards, the young gymnasts on this show give off the air of guided, purposeful missiles, low on friction.

But just as on its lead-in, the more established “The Secret Life of the American Teenager,” innocence is just a front on “Make It or Break It,” which picks up its first season, on hiatus since August, Monday night.

And there are plenty of other similarities between these programs, both gossipy candy masking as fables of righteousness. Like Amy (Shailene Woodley), the new-mom protagonist of “Secret Life,” Payson Keeler (Ayla Kell), the most promising of the gymnasts on “Make It,” has innocent features, stick-straight hair, and a permanently etched look of resignation.

And like Amy, she bears an unspeakable burden that cleaves her from the comforts of her social circle: in this case, not a pregnancy but a devastating injury. (Before the hiatus, Payson injured her back, effectively ending her career as a gymnast, though not her afterlife as a martyr.) On “Secret Life,” it’s the fantasy of moral certitude that’s deflated; here, it’s the idea that hard work counts the most that takes a beating.

But now, unburdened of its fabulist side, “Make It” is free to indulge a bit. At the end of the last set of episodes, Kaylie Cruz (Josie Loren) won the national championship that should have been Payson’s, but she’s already unraveling under the pressure. Her friendship with Payson is in tatters, a victim of insecurity and jealousy, and her ex-boyfriend Carter (Zachary Burr Abel) has returned to the Rock after a suspension, enough to shock her off the balance beam.

Carter cheated on Kaylie with Lauren (Cassie Scerbo), but their affair never felt scandalous in a sexual way. Rather, it allowed Lauren’s vindictiveness to bloom to full flower, making for the show’s most vivid moments. She’s spectacularly catty, a bona fide villainess in the making; even her shampoo-commercial hair codes viciousness.

Scerbo is a pop star on the side, a former member of the never-made-it Slumber Party Girls, and she always poses as if in a music video, all sassy angles and head tilts. When actually performing gymnastics, all of the actresses look like they’re fulfilling community service obligations, but Scerbo is the most vivid in her resignation.

That would never be the case with Kell’s Payson, were she still able to tumble and vault and whatnot: Her perfection was a necessity. Watching Kaylie during the hometown victory parade, Payson -- wearing cupcake pajamas underneath her body brace -- is numbly gracious: “She looks great, doesn’t she?”

But now that she can’t compete, Payson is almost mute. “I just don’t have much to say,” she tells a friend who visits, and she’s not exaggerating. Later, when her rage about her career-ending injury finally surfaces -- in slow motion, no less -- her father, Mark (Brett Cullen), reassures her frenzied mother, Kim (Peri Gilpin): “She needs to do this! She’s gotta get it all out!”

What she has to do is pierce the falseness of her surroundings, he means. For a few moments, it appears as if the show is ready to implode the idea that competitive sports -- this safe, nurturing space -- is completely positive for young people.

But the Rock is too important, it turns out, and by the end of the episode, Payson, on crutches, is being welcomed back. “Champions,” her coach tells her, “are always welcome here.” Too bad.

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