User reviews

What an embarrassment.

This series got into hot water because director Amy Seimetz, who was supposed to direct this series, and tell this story from a feminist point of view of a girl being exploited by men and the music industry, left because of intense hostility from the cast and crew. Then Sam Levinson took over and turned into an exploitative torture porn fest. At least that's what the Rolling Stone magazine article said.

And boy were they correct on this one.

There appears to be a good, interesting story about the sleaziness of the music/movie industry and how it mistreats and exploits pop singers, reaching out to get heard. But it never gets the upper hand, and is more interested in showing its very young-looking female lead nude and performing gratuitous, pointless long sex scenes that add nothing to the story.

I don't think I can listen to the Weeknd's music anymore, as Tesfaye not only plays a horrifically sleazy nasty character in this (his acting is low-par and this is his first acting role) but he's also the producer on this show. And the series also uses his songs during the most extreme sex/sadomasochistic scenes. Like WTF?

Almost nothing is from Joslyn (Lily Rose Depp)'s point of view. Her inner thoughts and feelings and past are mostly told by other characters. The cringy, offensive dialogue is just there to shock, and therefore, it's tedious and vomit-inducing.

I'm sick to death of men in Hollywood doing this to female characters on screen. It was bad enough with Blonde and how they disrespected Marilyn Monroe. Now this?

Enough. You are not special, you are not edgy. You are just wrong and untalented.

This only gets 3 stars from me because it's clear that Lily-Rose is doing the best she can with what she was given. But my goodness, this was a painful watch. Abel Tesfaye was severely misscast which makes this awkward, since the entire thing was his idea. Levinson's vision feels contrived, lacking every bit of that magic he created with Season 1 of Euphoria. The show just misses the mark, relying on nothing but nudity and shock value. The dialogue is vapid, the story is misguided. Points for lighting and camera work but that's about it. There are better shows to watch out there. This one isn't worth your time.

I'm shocked at the number of reviewers claiming this show reflects real life. This was like watching a large budget porno. It was so unnecessarily saturated in sex, I found a coherent story hard to tease out of the sleaze. I simply couldn't keep watching it. In retrospect, my final impression of the show reminded me of a line from the old movie, Butterflies Are Free, when Mrs. Baker declaims degeneracy, obscenity and nudity as a part of life, "I know [it's real life], Mr. Santori. So is diarrhea, but I wouldn't classify it as entertainment." If this show is like real life, you can keep it. I need some fresh air.

This gives me high school play vibes with lots of nudity, sex and shock value with absolutely no content. I think they thought they will just add a lot of famous last names to the mix and that will do it, but this is really bad. The plot is incredibly not interesting, the actors have very little to work with so no wonder that they come out as doing a bad job. But I don't know if any actor would save it. I was tired after 10 minutes, but I thought I would give it a benefit of a doubt. At 20 minutes something inside of me was breaking. It's clear now that Sam Levinson cares only about aesthetics which is not my kind of tea anyway and not much about content. The dialogs are like an AI idea of what a human dialog should be. This is really embarrassing for everyone involved.

I think this show gets a bad wrap because people expect it to be more like Euphoria when its closer to a Lars Von Trier movie. People I've read reviews of usually say its a male fantasy and its disgusting, but in reality its meant to be disturbing and it was just badly marketed. I think people heard creator of Euphoria and The Weekend and thought it was a sexy show with some dark sides as opposed to a show that was meant to be intentionally disturbing and uncomfortable. I believe a lot of the writing is intentionally disgusting along with the acting. I honestly think people have a bad view of individuals if they think the show is trying to be sexy considering how emotionally disturbed and manipulative people are being. Make no mistake, this is a show about abuse over fame, more of a horror than a drama. If you're into difficult and disturbing cinema with great cinematography, this is your speed. If not, I'm sorry it was marketed incorrectly to you.

Rather than being over the top, explicit or hard to watch it ends up being dull and cringy.

The writing feels straight out of a WattPad fanfic, in fact, I've read better fanfic.

The show tries really hard to act like they know what they're doing with the cringe, but it ends up falling flat as nothing becomes of it. Just bad writing, boring story and terrible messages.

The 10 star reviews on here are very obviously faked to boost scores. There isn't one aspect about it, writing, acting, cinematography, controversy that would give it even a 5, let alone a 10.

Boring. Dull. Don't bother. Waste.

This show is not a 1/10, nor is it a 10/10. Read most of the reviews and it's something along the lines of "this made me uncomfortable/too much nudity/I don't like the weekend etc, etc." -- This is not a valid or even semi constructive review that helps someone determine if they will like this show or not.

Your opinions are not the same as a review. There is more to a show than just "too much nudity 1/10." What about the music? The lighting? The production? The set? These all hit consistent 8-9 out of 10s for this show.

Content-wise, this show is quite uncomfortable. No, your children shouldn't be watching this show. No, people should not see this show and think any of this is normal, but guess what, it's not presented in that way! This show was made to make you feel uncomfortable, and THAT'S OKAY!

So, should you watch this show? Are you sensitive to nudity, violence, and disturbing situations? Then it's probably not for you.

Show is a solid 7/10, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise because of some weird aversion to feeling uncomfortable.

I gave this the benefit of the doubt and sat through 2 episodes, and it is truly awful. This show depends heavily on it's use of shock value and smut. It is essentially the equivalent to taking A Star is Born and adding multiple sleazy sex scenes with graphic nudity and substance abuse. Not only do they feel the need to have these sex scenes but they make them very graphic to push the envelope and be edgy (strangulation, masturbation, graphic nudity, voyeurism etc). This show basically borders on pornography and there's even a warning before each episode that tells you as much. I am not sure what the writers/directors of this show are trying to accomplish but this show is incredibly trashy.

The first half started off pretty good watching her team work around different problems. Kind of like an old school workplace drama / comedy. Then it just gets tediously boring as you watch Jocelyn make bad decisions that you really don't even care about. Watching the last 20 minutes of the first episode was just dreadfully painful as ut just dragged out into essentially nothing.

The Weeknd is a creep - just the idea that Jocelyn would fall for such an obviously sleazy low rent guy with a rat tail makes the show less believable. He's a gross bottom feeder and it doesn't make any sense. At least in fifty shades of Gray the guy at least had the illusion of being awesome and powerful... This guy is just gross and her falling for his shtick makes her gross.

You know how not everyone can do EVERYTHING...they really should've told that to The Weeknd.

Aesthetically it's like they were trying to go for a mix between Euphoria and A24 and it just falls flat.

Lily Rose Depp is trying her best with this poorly re-written script and all the side characters are just bland.

This just feels like a sad attempt to be edgy and provocative with no substance.

The only thing entertaining about this show was watching all the TikTok's talk about the behind the scenes drama.

HBO MAX really shelved Batgirl from ever being shown but in turn releases this pile of crap?

Let's go ahead and get the most obvious flaws out of the way first. The Weekend playing some club owner/mogul/scene daddy might be the most ridiculous thing I've seen in quite some time. This bad hair wearing suburban kid from what sounds like Canada is supposed to be an exotic attraction for a megarich young pop star?😄seriously? IT might have passed if he managed an alone meeting then had some hidden attributes. But no! HE JUST GOT CREEPIER!😂 Amy could have made this a compelling view into the trappings of youth and stardom from an under-appreciated female perspective and they turned it into another new starlet being naked vehicle. The irony.

I'm guessing the singer 'the weekend' thought that he could write and star in a show where he gets to have sex with an actress way to young for him.

His acting is far far worse than anything you may have heard, it's embarrassing. So is the fact that his part is meant to be some sort of mysterious lothario, yet it's fair to say he doesn't exactly have movie star good looks.

All of the parts are written like extreme parodies of what a manager/ PR agent/ pop star would be like.

The main actress, Jonny Depps daughter obviously only got the part because of her last name, she spends the entire time looking confused, and throwing in random nudity will only make people check out these scenes online and not watch an hours episode.

Truly truly terrible, it's what happens when you throw money at a pop star who can't act, can't write and just comes across as creepy on screen.

I see people writing a review with title "I lasted 36 minutes" , how can someone review a show with 5 episodes of 1 hour when they only watched 36 minutes??

I can't understand why people hyped Euphoria, which has wayy more sex, genetalia, drug-abuse and violence, but they pull down "The Idol".

Is it because of the people at Cannes that didn't like it?

If you watch the complete show it's really nog bad, it's hard to watch with really intense scenes, and you'll see a lot of Lily-Roses behind and sometimes a nipple.

But you'll never see fully erect male genetalia like in Euphoria..

The ending is surprising and the characters are interesting.

Please give it a chance, keep watching and review after 5 episodes!

I just can't with this show, the guy from Euphoria thought he was making the hottest thing in the planet, but oh lord I couldn't atop cringing.

The acting is bizarre, the chemistry non existent, the history plain and boring and the dialogue straight up dumb.

I know the weekend is supposed to be creepy on purpose but he just looks and act ridiculously bad, he is a very bad looking person, I'm sorry but it's true, maybe if they got someone to look creepy but was a little better looking the story would me more sense.

She looks amazing but she doesn't make sense like a pop star, for some reason her extremely raspy voice distracted me the whole time.

I went in expecting bad, but this takes the cake, definitely skip it.

There is no way this show should be sitting below a 7 on IMDb. Anyone can get into this but even more so if you have been close to the music industry. The weeknd plays the role of a controlling partner with purpose expertly. The lead actress plays the role of vulnerable singer with incredible poise. The plot is great so far. It is very well produced. Soundtrack is amazing. Certainly has an element of fifty shades of grey.

Overall I've just finished episode three and I'm so so glad I ignored the review bombs and made my own mind up.

Great show. Well done. I trust the executives will see the quality in this production. And the weeknd certainly has a future in acting should he choose to.

I mean, I have to have something on Sunday night, right?

I had to watch it just to see how it turned out afer all the drama during filming. Lily-Rose is fantastic, very believable. What I'm not buying is that she'd be so taken with Tesfaye's character, who comes off very much like an uncool dork who's watched every Youtube video about how to win women over by negging them. Maybe that's a commentary on Levinson more than anything else? Anyway, if Tedros is supposed to be a dom, this ain't it. Maybe the series needed a BDSM consultant because no woman, no matter how naturally sub, is going to fall for this character.

I did enjoy the accurate portrayal of the music industry, and I'd watch a whole show centered on Jane Adams' character. She was the best. The clash between the old guard and the new woke internet people is amusing and true to life. Like I say, I'm gonna watch it. I just think it would have been a lot better with a different actor.

Ok so it looks good and Lily-Rose Depp is fine in her starring role, but other than that you have to wonder what is the point. What could have been an intriguing examination of how the entertainment business gobbles up and exploits young women becomes just another ugly example of creepy exploitation. Read the Rolling Stone expose to understand how it completely pivoted from its initial premise and got Euphoria-ised by Sam Levinson. What a disappointment. A funny review in the UK Telegraph about Idol, said Levison makes Showgirls look like a masterpiece. No wonder it was decried at Cannes as "luxury sleaze." Two thumbs down.

Why? Is this one of those 'just trying to create jobs' stunts? It should have been a silent movie because the only thing noteworthy is the cinematography. The context is boring, the delivery bland and the point....who knows. It's not worth it. Nice try but there are so many other scripts and stories to be told and this is what the studio picked? Watching this show makes you wonder if the film industry is still a creative industry. How many times are they going to regurgitate the 'poor me' 'fragile me' sexploit me' story.

It's been done. Lily Rose should pick better work because this film...oh wait this series is a piece of junk.

Abel? Why? Whyyyy? You are a bad actor. Embarrassing and ridiculous. I will try to forget this.

The story itself is totally boring and showing Lily naked or in loose clothes is not enough to maintain interest. Okay, Lily is good, just don't have Abel as the other main character. Jeez, he's a bad actor. I love him as a singer, but it was bad to watch what he was doing here. I felt awkward and I'm afraid that from now on I will always remember him and not what a good singer he is.

It took a lot of patience to watch the first episode, I'm sure I won't watch the sequel. Dear HBO, don't cast someone who has never acted before in his life. There are no miracles, it won't be good.

Don't bother with this show, listen to the neg reviews it's really bad. There is no depth to any of the characters, even the decent veteran actors couldn't help that script. LRD is beautiful but the character is so poorly written im not sure even with her dads talent she could have done any better.

The Weekend was as bad in this as he is good at music.

The coolness was really lame and contrived like it was written by high school students with a big budget to make a series as an elevated school project.

I won't persevere and if you are reading this trust me when I say don't bother. Maybe for 5 mins if you are curious.