Abby Lee Miller | Channel Guide Magazine

Abby’s Ultimate Dance Competition finale: Brianna wins!

December 11, 2012 | By Lori Acken
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We’ve reached the end of the road Abby’s Ultimate Dance Competition fans. The final curtain. And Abby’s determined to send the best dancer possible to the Joffrey Ballet School on the wings of her good reputation and name. How determined? This determined: Determined. We start with Mads calling dad to report the good news of her place in the final three and to check in on Grandma. Coreen tells us that Madison has been in dance since the age of 3 and competing since age 6. The duo are hoping for victory so Joffrey can be a stepping stone to Madison’s [...]

Abby’s Ultimate Dance Competition recap: Cirque du No Way!

December 4, 2012 | By Lori Acken
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And we’re down to the final four on this week’s Abby’s Ultimate Dance Competition! Abby even knows who she’d pick for a winner — a dancer with Amanda’s feet, Brianna’s strength, Asia’s face and Madison’s leaps and turns. But given that no such creature exists, let’s get on with the competition. This week, the challenge is balance. The theme is The Circus. And the product placement is Paramount’s only-in-theaters 3D movie experience Cirque du Soleil’s World’s Away — which the girls are going to be the very first people to get a peek at. But this isn’t just a special treat for [...]

Dance Moms Season 3 first look!

November 28, 2012 | By Lori Acken
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All kinds of good news, Dance Moms fans! Season 3 looms near! During last night’s episode of Abby’s Ultimate Dance Competition, viewers were treated to this hilarious Flashdance-inspired “video” teaser for the new season, which premieres Tuesday, January 1 at 9/8CT. The clip also served to soothe the frayed nerves of series faithful worried that some of the original moms had jumped ship — most specifically Kelly Hyland. And though all of the little dancers were disguised in matching Jennifer-Beals-do wigs, making it hard to say for sure, it does appear that Maddie, Chloe, Mackenzie, Nia, Paige, Brooke and Kendall [...]

Abby’s Ultimate Dance Competition recap: Flexible’s Pending

November 27, 2012 | By Lori Acken
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Well, Abby’s Ultimate Dance Competition faithful, we have just two episodes left until the Dec. 11 season finale and five dancers remain — Brianna, Amanda, Asia, Madison and Jordyn. Anyone care to make an early prediction? Will face vanquish form all the way to the end? Will Robin finally realize that we’re not actually casting the Pussycat Dolls junior troupe? Let’s find out what happens tonight. We start out with everyone expressing relief at being in the Top 5 and the realization that it will only get tougher from here. Coreen reiterates her shock at Hadley’s ouster over Asia’s. Kristie says Asia overheard Madison [...]

“Dance Moms” recap: French Diss

August 8, 2012 | By Lori Acken
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Or … “The one in which I find out what that ‘Alouette’ song I learned in Girl Scouts really means.” But first, did everyone come through two weeks with no new Dance Moms okay? Everybody good? Catch a little Olympics action? Or … whatever else they air on Tuesday nights? And now we’re back, but Paige and Kelly aren’t. Turns out, they’re at the doctor for the foot Paige crunched backstage at last episode’s competition in Lancaster. Abby uses this information as a teaching moment: The girls have to understand that their bodies are their instruments. Or Abby’s instruments, anyway. Little talented tools [...]

“Dance Moms” star Abby Lee Miller gets new Lifetime dance-competition show

August 6, 2012 | By Lori Acken
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Dance Moms fans, if you’re wondering what you’re going to do when Season 2 wraps up this fall, Lifetime just provided the answer. And it’s a doozy. The network has picked up a 10-episode run of Abby’s Ultimate Dance Competition, in which our favorite dance-teaching diva Abby Lee Miller will join Pussycat Dolls founder Robin Antin and dancer/choreographer Richard Jackson in choosing one of the country’s most talented young dancers to receive a $100,000 cash prize and a scholarship to the Young Dancer Program at the Joffrey Ballet School in New York. (Yes, my fellow Chloe Lukasiak fans, I know what you’re thinking, because I’m thinking [...]

“Dance Moms” recap: Abby’s Rants-A-Thon

July 4, 2012 | By Lori Acken
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Aw, c’mon, man! I thought I was getting one — just one — episode where we could all sit back and revel in the talent of our favorite little dancers before we wade back into the well-dressed sturm und drang of life at ALDC. I thought tonight’s Dance Moms Drinkie Word could be “Hooray!” But nooooo! We get an hour of Abby bitchin’ away with no moms to call her on it. Still, I must admit I thoroughly enjoyed the little trip down Memories-of-Abby’s-Hairbands Lane. And whether the high priestess of dance liked them or not, it was lovely to [...]

“Dance Moms” recap: You’re (Un)dead to Me!

June 13, 2012 | By Lori Acken
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So, Dance Moms Nation, did everyone go out and buy themselves a bike-a-tard to futz with since we hung out last? No? Me either. I wanted to, but apparently bike-a-tards are not appropriate office attire, even when all you do is write about TV. Even if you dress it up with a jacket and some pumps. Um, if any of you try that, could you please take a picture and Tweet it to me? @ChannelGuideLLA On with the episode. Abby is clearly not over the general disaster that was last week’s trip to Cali because she gets on the girls [...]

“Dance Moms” star Christi Lukasiak talks Chloe, Joffrey and the show’s new season!

June 1, 2012 | By Lori Acken
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The last time I spoke with Dance Moms’ Christi Lukasiak, the show’s second season was soon to premiere — and Lukasiak was still trying to wrap her head around her near-overnight transition from devoted mom perpetually trapped in a tyrant’s dance studio to devoted mom perpetually trapped in a tyrant’s dance studio on TV’s most talked-about train wreck. My research entailed being an earnestly devoted viewer of the show. • Read Channel Guide‘s first interview with Christi Lukasiak Six months later, on the cusp of the season’s summer premiere, Lukasiak, her comrades in the parents loft at Pittsburgh’s Abby Lee Dance Company, and [...]

“Dance Moms” diva Abby Lee Miller to guest on “Drop Dead Diva”

May 9, 2012 | By Lori Acken
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Wonder what Abby Lee Miller does with her downtime when she’s not filming Dance Moms or terrorizing kiddies at her Pittsburgh dance studio? She’s prepping to get her thespian on in another Lifetime show! The network is reporting that Miller will make her official acting debut in an officially scripted series — well sort of — when she plays herself in an episode of its popular dramedy Drop Dead Diva. * UPDATE: Abby Lee will appear on Drop Dead Diva August 12! Miller has been tapped to serve as an expert witness in a case in which attorney Jane Bingum (Brooke [...]