The Idol is one of the most buzzed-about series in years, but is it any good? Reviewers Zanna Gillespie and Greg Bruce give their verdicts.
SHE SAW
When Euphoria apparently exposed the truth about the present-day high school experience - widespread class-A drug use and hyper-sexuality - we were shocked, terrified and sucked into a lie that the data doesn’t support. Who are these sexually empowered high schoolers who confidently solicit sex from apps and sell fetish content online? Sure, they exist, but all at the one school? All that good-looking? It isn’t reality. It’s a fantasy high school that creator Sam Levinson imagined and he did it well. It’s a good show - far-fetched but good - anchored by a central character, a stand-in for Levinson, struggling with drug addiction. Now, with The Idol, Levinson has done it again - created another fantasy world: the imagined life of a pop star, Jocelyn, played by Lily-Rose Depp and it’s completely unravelling my perception of Euphoria.
The episode opens on a photo shoot of Jocelyn, in which she exposes her breasts. An intimacy co-ordinator intervenes to say that the nudity clause in the contract states that she won’t reveal full breast. A back-and-forth ensues: Jocelyn and her team butt up against the male intimacy co-ordinator because she WANTS to show her breasts - why can’t she? Eventually the intimacy co-ordinator gets locked in a bathroom and Jocelyn is freed from her oppressor.
Later, the pop star joins her dancers for a rehearsal on the patio wearing an impractical black string something, little more than pasties. I’ve attended many dance rehearsals and I’ve seen enough pop star music documentaries to know that no one, absolutely no one, is wearing less than track pants and a crop top to a dance rehearsal. It was supposed to be hot but all I could think about was whether Depp was truly comfortable, semi-naked, surrounded by hundreds of fully clothed cast and crew, take after take after take.