truTV Unveils Captivating Artform in Fake Off

Next Monday, truTV debuts a new competition that could bill itself as "So You Think You Can Interpretive Dance?" Except that wouldn't truly cover all the bases of the art form known as "Faking." This demonstrates to me just how far off the Cool Meter I've fallen in my dotage, as I had never heard of such a thing before. Apparently, faking is "a mix of theater, acrobatics, black light and illusion." It's kind of like Cirque du Soleil, but more street.

The gist of the show is this: different teams are given a theme, which they then have a limited time to put together a routine and fake the theme. It's a little unfair, as the teams are not all given the same theme, so they don't exactly compete on the same level field. One team (Body Poets) is given the theme of Video Games, while another team (Wilderbe) gets "The Titanic." The judges -- Michael Curry, Rozonda "Chilli" Thomas, and Harry Shum Jr. -- each give the teams a numeric score after each performance, but the rankings aren't final until the ens of the show when the audience gets to add their weighted score as corporate "fourth judge."

Fake Off: Dance team Archedream turns Breaking Bad into a dance routine.

In addition to Body Poets and Wilderbe, the debut episode of this series also includes dance companies Archedream, Inspirati and Push Physical Theater, all of whom put on some rather outstanding visual illusions in their performances.

If you haven't quite wrapped your mind around the concept of faking, or you just don't like dance competitions, I'd still recommend you check this out. It's something unique on the landscape of competitive shows, and you may just find yourself growing an appreciation for a whole new art form.