YMMV / Bunheads

• Audience-Alienating Premise: A mother bonds with her reluctant daughter-in-law over the death of her son. This sounded like a great premise for a family drama movie, not a comedy series.
• Awesome Music: Usually accompanied by Dance of Awesome
  • Tom Waits' "Picture in a Frame" from Mule Variations.
  • "Making Woopie"
  • The They Might Be Giants version of "Constantinople".
  • Sparks' song "I Predict" used to accompany a dance about Billy Elliot's coal miner father.
  • Again in "Next" so it may becoming a case of just going with something that works.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: The end of "Movie Truck" which, apropos of nothing has Sasha dancing with two dancers. older than her, who have never appeared previously on the show to "Istanbul not Constantinople" by They Might Be Giants, although it might be a Dream Sequence.
  • Word of God has this as a last minute addition when they discovered the script they shot was a few minutes short.
  • Happens again in "I'll be your Meyer Lansky" though there's a bit more context and symbolism involved this time so it may not be as unintentional as the previous instance.
• Crosses the Line Twice: Pretty much anything involving the Ringer.

• Diagnosed by the Audience: Melanie Segal struggles to understand facial expressions and nonverbal communication, suggesting she may be on the autism spectrum.

• Harsher in Hindsight: One of the girls states that their mother has a crush on Matt Lauer. This becomes even worse because in 2017 he was fired from the Today Show for sexual misconduct.
• Jerkass Woobie: Sasha
• Les Yay: Ginny with Melanie and Sasha with Boo.
  • In "Blank Up, It's Time," Sasha describes her and Boo's introduction as a meet-cute.
  • “Boo likes Charlie, Charlie likes Ginny, Melanie says Ginny can’t date Charlie because Boo liked him first, but Ginny thinks since Boo likes Carl, she relinquishes Charlie, who should revert back to the open market, AND ME, I WISH WE WERE ALL LESBIANS.”
  • The amount of Les Yay between Sasha and Michelle in 1x12 is ridiculous, with Sasha constantly ditching her boyfriend to hang out with Michelle and joking about their getting married.
  • "I've been thinking a lot about this, and I think we should have sex - now." "With each other?" Note, Boo doesn't seem particularly opposed to the idea, her reaction is a mixture of confusion and curiousity.
  • There's also a bit between Melanie and Cozette, what with Cozette introducing Melanie to roller derby, a sport mostly dominated by lesbians, and Melanie going to great lengths to keep it a secret with Ginny acting very jealous when she finds out.
• Memetic Mutation: An in-universe example being a remix of the "She maced us!" video.
• Overshadowed by Controversy: Chances are, a viewer with a casual knowledge of the show will more likely remember Amy Sherman-Palladino's dismissive response to Shonda Rhimes as to why there wasn't any diversity included in the cast versus anything else about the show.
• Retroactive Recognition: If you look closely, Kalani Hiliker of Dance Moms appears as a background dancer in the opening dance in "You Wanna See Something?".
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Subverted. Amy Sherman-Palladinos writing style definetely shines through. Not only in looks, but also in terms of wackiness and humor Michelle bares a lot of resemblances towards Lorelai. Granted, it seems like the shows are not meant to have any in-universe connection.
• The Woobie: Boo.