Huge



Huge is an ABC Family network television series developed by Winnie Holzman, of My So-Called Life fame, with her daughter Savannah Dooley, based on the young-adult novel of the same name by Sasha Paley. The hour-long drama series revolved around seven teens sent to a summer weight-loss camp called Camp Victory. In addition to the usual teen drama it examined issues of body image and societal expectations on weight. Unfortunately, it was canceled in October 2010 after 10 episodes.


 * Adaptation Distillation/Expansion: The TV series takes the basic premise and setting of the book, which is essentially an ad for weight-loss camp, and gives it a body-positive message instead.
 * Adorkable: Ian
 * All Love Is Unrequited: See Love Dodecahedron, below.
 * Alpha Bitch: Chloe
 * Ambiguously Gay: Alistair, to the other kids. He prefers to see people as individuals rather than pay attention to gender, but
 * Asexual: Poppy. Quite possibly the first character on American television to identify as such.
 * Be Yourself: The show is Anvilicious regarding the need to accept your own body and identity.
 * Big Beautiful Woman: Amber, who has the entire male population of the camp (not to mention George, one of the counselors) fawning over her. Unfortunately she can't seem to acknowledge it due to her skewed perception of her weight. In real life her actress is a plus-sized model, not to mention the daughter of the Hoff.
 * Big Eater: The camp attempts to repress such behavior.
 * Bookworm: Becca is seen reading a book at least once every episode. She also writes in her diary in runes.
 * Cloudcuckoolander: Alistair can be seen as this and Poppy has her moments.
 * Cool Old Guy: Dr. Rand's father
 * Deadpan Snarker: Will
 * Different As Night and Day:
 * Drill Sergeant Nasty: Shay
 * Embarrassing First Name:  Piznarski. One has to wonder how 'Piz' is more dignified.
 * Fan Nickname: Rand's father is often called 'Salty Dad'.
 * Fat and Proud: Will. And the entire message of the show is against shaming fat people and being proud of yourself no matter what your weight is.
 * Fat Idiot, Fat Bastard, Fat Slob: Totally averted. If anything the real 'villain' of Huge is the societal idea that being fat makes you a bad person.
 * Hey, It's That Guy!: Salty Dad is played by Paul Dooley, who is all over genre television like a rash. He also played the father in Sixteen Candles.
 * Dr. Rand is Zoe.
 * Carter is Lauren Zizes.
 * Hollywood Darkness: All of the outdoor nighttime scenes look like daytime, only more blue.
 * Hollywood Pudgy: Subverted as many of the campers are genuinely heavyset to obese in size. Even Amber, the thinnest girl at the camp, is still kind of heavy.
 * Love Dodecahedron: Dante likes Chloe, who likes Trent. Will likes Ian, who likes Amber, who likes George, who likes her back, but doesn't think they should pursue a relationship because she's a camper and he's a counselor. All of this makes Poppy grateful that she's asexual.
 * Magical Native American: George is chosen to lead the Spirit Quest because his grandfather was Native American, under the assumption of this trope. However, when George calls his grandfather for advice,
 * Meaningful Rename: Alistair takes the name 'Athena' as his spirit name during the spirit quest. The other boys alternately use it as a term of derision and affection, although he doesn't use it on a regular basis.
 * My Beloved Smother: Danielle's family. However, Danielle doesn't seem to mind and
 * Show Within a Show: "Love Handles", a reality TV show akin to 'Who Wants To Marry a Millionaire''.
 * Shrinking Violet: Becca
 * Straw Feminist: Will
 * Supreme Chef: Dr. Rand's father
 * Transsexualism: Alistair/Athena is implied to be transgender or genderqueer. The season 1 finale starts to explore this storyline more than the previous episodes. Too bad that was the last episode...
 * Vision Quest
 * We Hardly Knew Ye: Caitlin and Danielle were introduced in the first and second episodes, respectively. Both of them seemed like interesting characters, but they were each Put on a Bus by the end of the episode in which they were introduced.
 * You Gotta Have Blue Hair: Will (well, blue streaks anyway.)