The Idol is one of those shows whose news-cycle fodder may be remembered stronger and longer than the series itself, with its five-episode first(?) season on HBO wrapping up on July 2 without an abundance of fanfare or revulsion, though perhaps its delayed viewership will react more vibrantly. But it’ll be difficult for post-season conversations to be louder than all the reports, rumors, and critical panning that preceded The Weeknd and Lily-Rose Depp’s big TV collaboration with director and noted “twisted mind”-haver Sam Levinson. Although now such talks might revolve around a new report that puts some of The Idol’s five-star reviews and other positive online reactions under a suspicious light.
I doubt anyone expected The Idol to match up accordingly with FX and Hulu’s The Bear in terms of hitting the 100% Fresh critical ceiling on Rotten Tomatoes, but the budget-stretching drama currently sits at 22% Rotten (from 85 reviews), which itself is a big rise from the initial post-Cannes score of 9%. The audience score is far more positive at 41%, but within that audience pool of reviewers exists a pattern of questionable legitimacy, as pointed out by Rolling Stone.
As it turns out, 491 out of the 500 5-star reviews posted on Rotten Tomatoes for The Idol’s reaction-provoking series premiere were crafted by users who were posting their very first reviews ever (at least under those names) on the site. While that certainly isn’t inarguable proof of wrongdoing or coerced promotion, and it’s theoretically possible for 98% of a TV show’s audience score to come directly from first-timers, it’s certainly not the most common occurrence. (Rolling Stone also notes that a similar look at The Last of Us’ reviewer standings doesn’t isn’t comparable by way of new users.)
Things have also looked more than a little sketchy on IMDb, where The Idol boasts over 31,000 10-star ratings. Half of those takes apparently come straight from users located in India, and out of a small sampling of those reviews, several were flagged by an A.I. content detector, while another categorized the show as a film. One can assume those stats would only grow more questionable if more of the positive reviews were studied further.
Again, it’s within the realm of possibility that The Weeknd’s hyper-promotion of The Idol via his hugely popular social media channels engaged a large number of Indian viewers to watch the premiere, and for a ton of those people to love the show enough to hop onto IMDb to rate it. But again, not the most common way for things to go, especially not for a project that has been widely considered to be supercharged meh-ness.
Ahead of The Idol’s debut, the show was derided by many for Euphoria’s Sam Levinson choosing to refilm the entire shebang and take the story in a different direction following the sudden exit of original director Amy Seimetz, who’d already filmed a ton of footage by that point. Quite a few members of the crew who worked on the HBO series were among those who spoke of it with ill will, saying that Levinson and Tesfaye leaned heavily on gratuitous sex scenes and plotting and pushing back on the cult elements that would have added to Jocelyn’s story arc. Lily-Rose Depp also made things sound a bit feral around the set when talking about filming the second time around, though she didn’t get nearly as critical as the show’s staff.
One member from the production crew told Rolling Stone that the premiere was worse than they’d even expected. The worst thing, to them, was knowing how “nuanced and natural” the lead characters were in the original iteration, and then seeing what actually played out on screen, saying it was like “watching a jumbled analog of the show’s own SNL parody.” That parody included Chloe Fineman’s backwards-bra-wearing spoof of Depp’s character, which the actress responded to.
Making the initial bursts of 5-star and 10-star reviews all the more questionable, in the end, is the show’s viewership dropping off quite quickly after the premiere was touted as getting more online attention than The Last of Us’ debut. Perhaps the numbers for the season finale, “Jocelyn Forever,” will tell a different story, but chance are solid that they’ll be even lower than the 133,000 linear TV viewers that watched Episodes. 3 and 4 on the night.
For those who do want to catch up on all the music industry mayhem, all it takes to watch The Idol in its entirety is a Max subscription.
