# Make It or Break It
**Make It or Break It** is an American teen drama television series about elite gymnasts that ran on ABC Family (later Freeform) from June 22, 2009 to May 14, 2012.[1](https://d23.com/a-to-z/make-it-or-break-it-television/) Created by Holly Sorensen, it follows a group of teenage Olympic hopefuls training at the Rocky Mountain Gymnastics Training Center, known as the Rock, in [Boulder, Colorado](https://www.edgepedia.org/boulder-colorado), as they chase places on the United States team for the 2012 Olympic Games.[1](https://d23.com/a-to-z/make-it-or-break-it-television/) • [2](https://abc.com/show/b7e2c71d-6fba-418f-aaa3-e6ca7f44c340/about-the-show)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Original run | June 22, 2009 to May 14, 2012, on ABC Family[1](https://d23.com/a-to-z/make-it-or-break-it-television/) |
| Format | 3 seasons: 20, 20, and 8 episodes; 45-minute episodes; rated TV-14[3](https://www.justwatch.com/us/tv-show/make-it-or-break-it) |
| Creator | Holly Sorensen[4](https://tv.apple.com/us/show/make-it-or-break-it/umc.cmc.50kyej9jn9q2y4w11esnq8cl0) |
| Setting | The Rock, an Olympic-level youth-gymnastics training facility in Boulder, Colorado[5](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2010-jan-03-la-ca-monitor3-2010jan03-story.html) |
| Main cast | Chelsea Hobbs (Emily Kmetko), Ayla Kell (Payson Keeler), Josie Loren (Kaylie Cruz), Cassie Scerbo (Lauren Tanner), Candace Cameron Bure (Summer), Zachary Burr Abel (Carter Anderson)[1](https://d23.com/a-to-z/make-it-or-break-it-television/) |
| Season 3 ratings | Averaged 1.4 million total viewers, about half of what season 1 drew[6](https://www.thewrap.com/make-it-or-break-it-canceled-abc-family-37526/) |
| Season 1 Metascore | 64 ("Generally Favorable"), with four positive, one mixed, and one negative review[7](https://www.metacritic.com/tv/make-it-or-break-it/critic-reviews/?season=season-1) |
## Premise
The series centers on four female athletes with real, tangible goals rather than open-ended teen problems. When gymnastics newcomer Emily Kmetko ([Chelsea Hobbs](https://www.edgepedia.org/chelsea-hobbs)) is invited to train at the Rock alongside some of the country's most promising athletes, the team's three stars, Payson Keeler (Ayla Kell), Kaylie Cruz ([Josie Loren](https://www.edgepedia.org/josie-loren)), and Lauren Tanner ([Cassie Scerbo](https://www.edgepedia.org/cassie-scerbo)), treat her arrival as a threat to their dominance.[8](https://www.commonsensemedia.org/tv-reviews/make-it-or-break-it) The characters share one objective: defeating the country's best gymnast, Kelly Parker, at national championships and being selected for the 2012 United States Olympic team.[9](https://idus.us.es/bitstreams/82f827a4-2cd7-4ef3-9d36-31be39462f3f/download)
The Rock itself sits inside a web of money and parental politics. Lauren's father is the primary financial supporter of the gym, a fact that shapes her standing there, and when Lauren loses an important competition her wealthy father bribes and blackmails his daughter's way onto a rival squad.[10](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-jun-22-et-makeit22-story.html) • [8](https://www.commonsensemedia.org/tv-reviews/make-it-or-break-it) Early episodes include a coach who defects to a rival club, a cortisone shot given between events, and a scholarship gymnast who works in a pizza restaurant while her mother brags about designer knockoffs, plot elements the Los Angeles Times recited to capture the show's busy structure.[11](https://www.latimes.com/archives/blogs/sports-now/story/2009-07-29/gymnastics-tv-show-so-corny-its-watchable)
## Cast and characters
The central ensemble pairs four gymnasts with the adults around them:
- Chelsea Hobbs as Emily Kmetko, the scholarship athlete from a low-income family[3](https://www.justwatch.com/us/tv-show/make-it-or-break-it)
- Ayla Kell as Payson Keeler, the Rock's top-ranked and driven gymnast[10](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-jun-22-et-makeit22-story.html)
- Josie Loren as Kaylie Cruz, a star gymnast distracted by romance[10](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-jun-22-et-makeit22-story.html)
- Cassie Scerbo as Lauren Tanner, the show's competitive antagonist[3](https://www.justwatch.com/us/tv-show/make-it-or-break-it)
- Zachary Burr Abel as Carter Anderson[1](https://d23.com/a-to-z/make-it-or-break-it-television/)
- [Neil Jackson](https://www.edgepedia.org/neil-jackson) as Sasha Beloff, the Rock's coach with a Russian accent and Olympic medals[3](https://www.justwatch.com/us/tv-show/make-it-or-break-it) • [11](https://www.latimes.com/archives/blogs/sports-now/story/2009-07-29/gymnastics-tv-show-so-corny-its-watchable)
- [Candace Cameron Bure](https://www.edgepedia.org/candace-cameron-bure) as Summer, Peri Gilpin as Kim Keeler, and Susan Ward as Chloe Kmetko among the parents[3](https://www.justwatch.com/us/tv-show/make-it-or-break-it)
A season-one injury to Payson, described by the Los Angeles Times as devastating enough to end her career as a gymnast, became one of the show's defining early arcs, and Kaylie went on to win the national championship that had been expected to be Payson's.[5](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2010-jan-03-la-ca-monitor3-2010jan03-story.html)
## Production and cancellation
The series was produced by ABC Family and ran for three seasons totaling 48 episodes.[1](https://d23.com/a-to-z/make-it-or-break-it-television/) • [3](https://www.justwatch.com/us/tv-show/make-it-or-break-it) It was paired in scheduling with *The Secret Life of the American Teenager*, another ABC Family drama whose mix of innocence and melodrama critics compared to the gymnasts' squeaky-clean surface.[5](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2010-jan-03-la-ca-monitor3-2010jan03-story.html)
**Cancellation.** ABC Family ended the series in April 2012, with the final episode airing May 14. Declining ratings drove the decision: season 3 averaged 1.4 million total viewers, roughly half of season 1's audience, and the shortened third season received only eight episodes against 20 for each of the first two.[6](https://www.thewrap.com/make-it-or-break-it-canceled-abc-family-37526/) Executive producer Holly Sorensen said publicly that she hoped the series, which followed the gymnasts toward the 2012 Olympics, could conclude with a television movie, writing that giving the show its natural end was "really a network call."[6](https://www.thewrap.com/make-it-or-break-it-canceled-abc-family-37526/) No such movie was made, and the series ends before its characters reach the Olympic Games.[6](https://www.thewrap.com/make-it-or-break-it-canceled-abc-family-37526/)
## Reception
Critics gave season 1 a Metacritic Metascore of 64. Reviews split along a consistent line: the Los Angeles Times found the show prepared to take on "the crucial undercurrents that move so many lives well into adulthood," while the Boston Globe called it unconvincing as a portal into the sport's subculture and hollow as teenage commentary.[7](https://www.metacritic.com/tv/make-it-or-break-it/critic-reviews/?season=season-1) [Entertainment Weekly](https://www.edgepedia.org/entertainment-weekly) called it "silly, melodramatic fun" likely to score with the fanatical Shawn Johnson set.[7](https://www.metacritic.com/tv/make-it-or-break-it/critic-reviews/?season=season-1)
Common Sense Media rates the show for ages 14 and up, noting intermittent strong language and sexual content (teens kiss and sleep together, though no sex is shown), a snobby main character whose father buys her way onto another team, and positive messages about competition that are frequently overshadowed by soap-opera plotting.[8](https://www.commonsensemedia.org/tv-reviews/make-it-or-break-it)
## Gymnastics portrayal and legacy
The show kept gymnastics at its center rather than as background: most of the story takes place at the gym, and its stunt doubles were real gymnasts performing real skills, which impressed general audiences even where trained eyes found shortcuts.[12](https://collegegymnews.com/2020/05/13/make-it-or-break-it-down-an-interview-with-jennifer-iacopelli/) An academic account of gymnastics-themed television lists the series as an ABC Family production inspired by the 2006 teen comedy film *[Stick It](https://www.edgepedia.org/stick-it)*.[13](https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/43096233.pdf)
**Lasting influence.** The author Jennifer Iacopelli has described a direct line from watching the series, to writing more than half a million words of fanfiction about it, to researching the sport well enough to cover the 2016 Rio Games as an analyst and write her gymnastics novel *Break the Fall*. She has said the show's lack of closure, ending without an Olympic conclusion, was one reason she wrote a gymnastics story with an ending.[12](https://collegegymnews.com/2020/05/13/make-it-or-break-it-down-an-interview-with-jennifer-iacopelli/) The series remains available in the United States on Amazon Prime Video, Hulu, and fuboTV, and for purchase on Amazon Video and the Apple TV Store.[3](https://www.justwatch.com/us/tv-show/make-it-or-break-it)
## References
1. [Make It or Break It (television), D23 (Disney Archives)](https://d23.com/a-to-z/make-it-or-break-it-television/)
2. [About Make It Or Break It TV Show, ABC](https://abc.com/show/b7e2c71d-6fba-418f-aaa3-e6ca7f44c340/about-the-show)
3. [Make It or Break It, JustWatch](https://www.justwatch.com/us/tv-show/make-it-or-break-it)
4. [Make it or Break it, Apple TV](https://tv.apple.com/us/show/make-it-or-break-it/umc.cmc.50kyej9jn9q2y4w11esnq8cl0)
5. [Teens tumble on 'Make It or Break It', Los Angeles Times (January 3, 2010)](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2010-jan-03-la-ca-monitor3-2010jan03-story.html)
6. ['Make It or Break It' Canceled by ABC Family, TheWrap (April 26, 2012)](https://www.thewrap.com/make-it-or-break-it-canceled-abc-family-37526/)
7. [Make It or Break It Season 1 critic reviews, Metacritic](https://www.metacritic.com/tv/make-it-or-break-it/critic-reviews/?season=season-1)
8. [Make It or Break It Parents' Guide & TV Review, Common Sense Media](https://www.commonsensemedia.org/tv-reviews/make-it-or-break-it)
9. [La ficción televisiva en las series de temática deportiva, Universidad de Sevilla](https://idus.us.es/bitstreams/82f827a4-2cd7-4ef3-9d36-31be39462f3f/download)
10. [Gymnastics show finds nice balance, Los Angeles Times (June 22, 2009)](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-jun-22-et-makeit22-story.html)
11. [Gymnastics TV show, so corny it's watchable, Los Angeles Times (July 29, 2009)](https://www.latimes.com/archives/blogs/sports-now/story/2009-07-29/gymnastics-tv-show-so-corny-its-watchable)
12. [Make It or Break It Down: An Interview With Jennifer Iacopelli, College Gym News (May 13, 2020)](https://collegegymnews.com/2020/05/13/make-it-or-break-it-down-an-interview-with-jennifer-iacopelli/)
13. [Developing 'Gymnastics-based Practices': Histories, Lineages, and Continuities](https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/43096233.pdf)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Series and fictional screen worlds › Scripted television and comedy series › Genre and subject-scripted series › Teen and high school drama series › American teen drama series*
*Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*
License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license