The Idol (Sky Atlantic) | Sky/Now)
Gods of Tennis (BBC Two) | iPlayer
Davina McCall’s Pill Revolution (Channel 4) | channel4.com
Significant Other (ITVX) | itv.com
I can’t recall a modern series working as hard to pre-empt criticism as Sky Atlantic’s new six-part music business drama The Idol. Co-created by Sam Levinson (Euphoria), it opens with pop star heroine Jocelyn (Lily-Rose Depp) undulating sexily at the shoot for her comeback single, which she will later fret is “superficial” (she’s not wrong: it sounds as if Britney coughed up an electronic furball). At said shoot, central-casting evil music execs josh about romanticising mental illness (Jocelyn has had a nervous breakdown) and say things like “Will you let people enjoy sex, drugs and hot girls. Stop trying to cock-block America.” When someone fusses over her breasts being exposed, Jocelyn seethes: “I’m not allowed to show my body?” Later, when a revenge porn-style photo of her semen-covered face circulates online, she shrugs blankly: “I feel like it could be a lot worse.”
