Perhaps it’s no surprise that The Idol is emerging as one of the buzziest new TV series of this year. Its formula is almost foolproof: helmed by a starry, Gen Z nepo-baby (Lily-Rose Depp), executive produced by a major pop star (Abel Tesfaye AKA The Weeknd) and co-written by Euphoria creator Sam Levinson, the series has all the hallmarks of a TikTok-dominating, think-piece generating, Twitter thread-spawning sensation. Dogged by controversies for months its status as the enfant terrible of Sunday night television was cemented when it premiered its first two episodes at Cannes film festival and was almost immediately decried by the world’s media as “torture porn” and “more regressive than transgressive”.
On paper, the story about an aspiring pop star, Jocelyn (Depp), and her “complex” relationship with a self-help guru and cult leader Tedros Tedros (Tesfaye) had all the makings of a biting satire, skewering fame in the post-MeToo era. A female director — Amy Seimetz (who had previously worked on The Girlfriend Experience and She Dies Tomorrow) — was attached to theproject and shooting began to great fanfare in 2021. By the time of its premier, though, Seimetz had been replaced (allegedly leaving when the show was 80 per cent complete) and the story had morphed into something else entirely.
