We were promised the year’s most shocking show. Instead we get a painfully tedious TV non-event, featuring a performance from the Weeknd that should be tried at The Hague
Getting rid of sex scenes is a debate that rears its ugly head among film and TV fans time and time again. The arguments against on-screen sex and nudity are a many-headed hydra of puritanism: they are unnecessary, they rarely serve the plot and making acting co-workers recreate intimacy is fundamentally icky. My position has always been that sex is part of life – and art should be able to depict all of life’s foibles. Until, that is, I started watching The Idol, which makes it hard not to join the ranks of this new wave of prudes. After all, if sex on screen can facilitate a show this terrible, maybe it’s worth embracing televisual celibacy.
It is not just that The Idol is one of the worst programmes ever made – it’s also possibly the most squandered opportunity ever. Giant budget aside, post-Britney Spears, Kesha and Amy Winehouse, it’s high time to satirise pop starlet tragedies – and with this production featuring Hank Azaria, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Hari Nef and Rachel Sennott, it had more than enough talent to do so. Instead, we get the limp, glazed-over, chain-smoking nothingness of Lily-Rose Depp and a performance from Abel “The Weeknd” Tesfaye that should be tried at The Hague. After all the sex, nudity, swearing and scandal surrounding The Idol, we were braced to be shocked. We were braced to be appalled. But nothing can prepare you to be so incredibly bored.
