You better rock

Not many networks change their sexual orientation, especially as flamboyantly as Bravo. Once a home for documentaries and the performing arts, the cable channel got bi-curious after the turn of the century. Just a few short years later, Bravo was the gayest thing this side of Logo, thanks to programming like Queer Eye, Workout, Project Runway, and a new Kathy Griffin comedy special every full moon. Don't think for a moment that Bravo will let our TV queer quotient diminish with the finale of season four of Project Runway. The network has a new reality show debuting tonight, and it's fiercer than a hot tranny mess.

Step It Up and Dance pits 12 professional dancers against each other in a competition for $100,000. That's 12 people in leotards alternately flirting with and bitching at each other! It's reality TV gold, and we're just surprised no one came up with this particular concept before. Like Project Runway, Step It Up offers the opportunity to watch creative professionals at work, here mentored by Tony winning choreographer Jerry Mitchell (Hairspray, La Cage Aux Folles.) It also offers the campy spectacle of 12 big personalities bumping against each other, while Elizabeth Berkley (survivor of Showgirls) tries to look like she deserves a paycheck as she introduces C-list celebrity guest judges. The gays are well represented amongst the cast, as you might imagine. (So is Massachusetts; contestant Adriana hails from Shrewsbury.)

With legitimate talents, impressive guest choreographers, plus ample last-minute surprises, crying jags, and flamers throwing shade, this show is perfectly poised between fabulous and tragic. In other words, it's just what reality TV should be, and we'll be tuning in every night. Step It Up and Dance debuts tonight at 11 p.m. on Thursday, April 3rd on Bravo.

info: www.bravotv.com