Olivia Newton-John

This TV special features Delta Goodrem in the title role. I confess I was not familiar with her until I watched this show. She is a beautiful, talented actress/singer, but she is not Olivia Newton-John, so the decision to record Ms. Goodrem's versions of ON-J's hits for this special left me wanting. I must admit there were moments when her voice did invoke the tones of Olivia's instrument, but at other times I missed the vulnerable and emotional nature of that original voice.

It's an ambitious undertaking to cover Olivia's less-than-storybook life in two hours, so this biopic hit the highlights of her life rather quickly. Since her life is well-documented, there are no surprises and no untold story. But the narrative is serviceable, with only a couple of glaring omissions.

Those unfamiliar with Olivia's career and life will probably find this story disjointed. Those who witnessed her successes and her trials via the media might wish for revelations not found in this special.

They literally crammed everything they possibly could into this biopic. They just jump from moment to moment in her career, each moments gets all of 2 minutes before they jump to the next one, and you get no real sense of who she is, how she became show she is, how all of this affected her. I would have much rather had a Netflix 10 episode series where you could really dig deep into Olivia. Really disappointing. She deserves so much better.

Only kept watching out of love for Olivia. Many of the characters were not introduced, and the viewer is left trying to figure out who they are. Hoped for so much more.

I actually think Delta did a decent job as Olivia, with the acting and the songs. My main problem is that they didn't really age her too well in the later parts, she pretty much looks 29 the whole way through. Also felt like the ending was abrupt and didn't go deeply enough into some parts. I'm not especially an Olivia fan, though I grew up on Grease and Xanadu, I didn't really know a great deal about her private life. Still don't really, this packs in a lot over 2 hours. I would recommend it to fans of Delta or tv bio pics in general. Maybe a die hard Olivia fan would be annoyed she had no input into this, which is maybe why it's vague in parts.

The woman who played young Olivia was great and looked the part. Very pretty. Whoever the one was who took over as grown Olivia was just not attractive enough to be believable in the role. Olivia was gorgeous, this one, not so much.