‘The Idol’ Is a Bomb for the Ages: The Winners and Losers of HBO’s Summer Disaster (Commentary)
thewrap.comerotic and shocking, the five-episode collaboration among Levinson, music superstar Tesfaye and Reza Fahim is one of the worst shows ever made.One’s degree of disdain for it, however, might depend on their awareness of its behind-the-scenes backstory.
Anyone going in cold can recognize that Tesfaye, who plays a supposedly irresistible nightclub owner and talent manager, is far less compelling when acting than when performing as The Weeknd.
But his meme-able lack of acting chops does not make you mad, per se. We’re not still burning over Madonna’s performance in “Shanghai Surprise,” after all.
But factor in how Levinson reshot and retooled episodes of “The Idol” already filmed by the talented director Amy Seimetz (“The Girlfriend Experience”) — reportedly at the behest of Tesfaye in an attempt to sex up the joint and sand away more “feminist” edges — and “The Idol” becomes appalling.The dreck that reached our screens suggests overconfidence at best and arrogance and noblesse oblige (“noblessay obligay” in Tedros-ese) at worst.
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