‘The Idol’ Proves That Not All Controversy Makes for Good TV

Coleman Spilde

May 30, 2023 at 4:04 a.m.·5 min read

There are roughly 47,000—oh, wait, a new Netflix Original just dropped; make that 47,001—TV shows and movies coming out each week. At Obsessed, we consider it our social duty to help you see the best and skip the rest.

We’ve already got a variety of in-depth, exclusive coverage on all of your streaming favorites and new releases, but sometimes what you’re looking for is a simple Do or Don’t. That’s why we created See/Skip, to tell you exactly what our writers think you should See and what you can Skip from the past week’s crowded entertainment landscape.

Skip: The Idol

The Idol is already the summer’s—and maybe the year’s—most controversial new show. And while that’s certain to draw viewers, there’s not much in its first two episodes beyond pointless filth, designed to shock and awe with little substance underneath.

Here’s Caspar Salmon’s take:

“Sam Levinson’s The Idol—at least on the basis of its first two episodes, which bewilderingly premiered at the Cannes Film Festival—is bad. But you knew that already. It was always kind of a given that Rape Culture: The Show would be a severely compromised thing, particularly after firing director Amy Seimetz (The Girlfriend Experience) and replacing her with Levinson (The Nepotism Experience).

‘The Idol’s’ Horrific Depiction of Rape Culture Is Shocking Because It’s So Lazy

If you were following closely you would have heard that hugely expensive reshoots followed Seimetz’s departure, reconfiguring the series entirely. That much is visible on the screen, in a story that is painfully shorn of any substance. Instead, we are given an increasingly dreary and pointless succession of music-video style shots, slow-motion sequences, and porny overheads, depicting Lily-Rose Depp in various states of undress, as her character Jocelyn struggles through her life and career.”

<div class="inline-image__credit">Disney+</div> — Disney+

See: American Born Chinese

American Born Chinese is a beautifully bonkers trip through three converging storylines, that reunite Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan, and Stephanie Hsu for a delightful Disney+ adventure. It’s got guts, gusto, and a humanoid monkey man, like all shows should.

Here’s Laura Bradley’s take:

“It’s impossible to miss the look of dread on high schooler Jin Wang’s face in Disney+’s new YA-action series American Born Chinese, when a teacher assigns him a new student from China as a ‘shadow.’ Although the instructor insists that he and new student Wei-Chen have ‘so much in common,’ Jin can’t stop himself from asking, ‘We do?’ Jin wants to assimilate so badly that never considers the one thing he and Wei-Chen clearly have in common from the start: even faculty can’t be bothered to pronounce their names right. Instead, Jin immediately rejects his ‘shadow,’ whose complete lack of shame seems to baffle and intimidate him in equal measure.

‘American Born Chinese’: Michelle Yeoh’s New Series Finds Beauty in Coming of Age

American Born Chinese, which debuts Wednesday on the streaming service, plays with many classic hallmarks of the first-generation coming-of-age story—from laughing off offensive “jokes,” to constantly deciding which parts of his identity are fit for public consumption among his white peers. In Jin’s mind, his choice seems binary: either edit himself down and be popular, or let everyone see who he is and get shunned. Luckily, the Disney+ series finds a force even stronger than high school popularity to help Jin see through his conformist haze: Michelle Yeoh.

Skip: FUBAR

FUBAR finds Schwarzenegger greasing those creaky joints for a new action show, only for its editors to cut around his stiff movements, which are almost as tedious as the series itself. Its star remains magnetic, but this is indeed F*cked Up Beyond All Repair.

Here’s Nick Schager’s take:

“Arnold Schwarzenegger goes back to the True Lies well—replete with a Tom Arnold cameo!—with FUBAR (out May 25 on Netflix), playing a famed super-spy whose time and energy are split between fighting international terrorists and keeping his job a secret from his family.

Arnold Schwarzenegger’s New TV Show Is an Embarrassing Stain on His Action-Hero Legacy

The twist, as it were, is that this time around, he also has a daughter who he learns is in his line of work! Premises don’t come much more hackneyed than this, nor more sluggishly executed. As a gun-shooting, cigar-smoking hero, the action-movie legend remains as charismatic as ever. His first foray into television, however, is a sitcom-grade mission that’s all-too-possible to turn down.”

See: The Kardashians Season 3

The Kardashians Season 3 sees America’s first family finally settling into streaming, finding a bit of room to breathe and be silly again. Highly produced music videos, jet packs, and stick shift lessons that almost end in demise. And that’s only Episode 1!

Here’s Coleman Spilde’s take:

“Season 3 of Hulu’s saga following our great American royalty, premiering May 25, is typically an incredibly rigid watch; the Six Ks—Kim, Kourtney, Kris, Khloé, Kendall, and Kylie—meander around the greater Calabasas area in their matching black lycra body suits, skimming the surface of just about every single topic that the press shares about their family. Unlike in Keeping Up with the Kardashians, where the family only gradually came on as producers and were beholden to the budgetary constraints of parent company NBCUniversal, the Kardashians have full creative control at Hulu. Initially, I thought this might mean they’d feel a sense of safety, allowing themselves to intimately reveal more to their audience. Alas, their walls have never been more fortified.

‘The Kardashians’ Gave Us the ‘Renaissance’ Visuals We’ve Been Craving

However, this reluctance to truly open up on camera—beyond a few tears and the repeated declaration that, ‘Things are just so hard right now’—can sometimes result in magic. The Six Ks must resort to sheer nonsense to entertain us, when their individual fortresses of solitude prevent them from authentically serving that purpose. And that is precisely how they were able to get my laughter: by casually slapping a completely produced music video to Beyoncé’s ‘Cuff It’ into their Season 3 opener.”