Scott Foley plays the reality TV director who gets the contestants to pour their hearts out. “The Big Leap” (premiering Monday) is inspired by the British documentary series “Big Ballet,” in which a famed theater director and a prima ballerina worked with a troupe of amateur dancers to mount a production of “Swan Lake.” In the show-within-a-show format here, Kevin Daniels plays Wayne Fontaine, a former dancer and the host of the program Mallory Jansen is Monica Sullivan, a tart-tonged former ballerina and choreographer, and Scott Foley is Nick Blackburn, the temperamental and jaded reality show director who is an expert at manipulating contestants to pour their hearts out - with the cameras rolling, of course. Set in Detroit but filmed at the Cinespace Chicago Film Studios and the Rialto Theater in Joliet, this is a fun, breezy, dance-centric drama/comedy about a group of misfits who are stumbling their way through life and for various reasons jump at the chance to audition for a reality TV show in the hopes one big break can change everything - and yep, that’s kind of dopey, but also not beyond the realm of possibility, seeing as how there are approximately 5 million reality/competition shows these days. If you check your cynicism at the door and allow yourself to be swept up in the broad comedy, the crisp writing and the wonderful performances from an eminently likable cast, “The Big Leap” can become appointment viewing.

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