The Idol

This only gets 3 stars from me because it's clear that Lily-Rose is doing the best she can with what she was given. But my goodness, this was a painful watch. Abel Tesfaye was severely misscast which makes this awkward, since the entire thing was his idea. Levinson's vision feels contrived, lacking every bit of that magic he created with Season 1 of Euphoria. The show just misses the mark, relying on nothing but nudity and shock value. The dialogue is vapid, the story is misguided. Points for lighting and camera work but that's about it. There are better shows to watch out there. This one isn't worth your time.

This gives me high school play vibes with lots of nudity, sex and shock value with absolutely no content. I think they thought they will just add a lot of famous last names to the mix and that will do it, but this is really bad. The plot is incredibly not interesting, the actors have very little to work with so no wonder that they come out as doing a bad job. But I don't know if any actor would save it. I was tired after 10 minutes, but I thought I would give it a benefit of a doubt. At 20 minutes something inside of me was breaking. It's clear now that Sam Levinson cares only about aesthetics which is not my kind of tea anyway and not much about content. The dialogs are like an AI idea of what a human dialog should be. This is really embarrassing for everyone involved.

Ok so it looks good and Lily-Rose Depp is fine in her starring role, but other than that you have to wonder what is the point. What could have been an intriguing examination of how the entertainment business gobbles up and exploits young women becomes just another ugly example of creepy exploitation. Read the Rolling Stone expose to understand how it completely pivoted from its initial premise and got Euphoria-ised by Sam Levinson. What a disappointment. A funny review in the UK Telegraph about Idol, said Levison makes Showgirls look like a masterpiece. No wonder it was decried at Cannes as "luxury sleaze." Two thumbs down.

I'm shocked at the number of reviewers claiming this show reflects real life. This was like watching a large budget porno. It was so unnecessarily saturated in sex, I found a coherent story hard to tease out of the sleaze. I simply couldn't keep watching it. In retrospect, my final impression of the show reminded me of a line from the old movie, Butterflies Are Free, when Mrs. Baker declaims degeneracy, obscenity and nudity as a part of life, "I know [it's real life], Mr. Santori. So is diarrhea, but I wouldn't classify it as entertainment." If this show is like real life, you can keep it. I need some fresh air.

Don't bother with this show, listen to the neg reviews it's really bad. There is no depth to any of the characters, even the decent veteran actors couldn't help that script. LRD is beautiful but the character is so poorly written im not sure even with her dads talent she could have done any better.

The Weekend was as bad in this as he is good at music.

The coolness was really lame and contrived like it was written by high school students with a big budget to make a series as an elevated school project.

I won't persevere and if you are reading this trust me when I say don't bother. Maybe for 5 mins if you are curious.