By definition, we’re a species forever seeking something that we either used to have and loved or never haved and craved. That’s especially true when it comes to television, and if you happened to be one of the unfortunate ones who were hoping to see the end of yesterday’s PRICE IS RIGHT showcase only to have it interrupted for “breaking news” that turned into a 106-minute ramble from someone clearly motivated by the quixotic pursuit of a de facto Nobel Peace prize you’d probably have been doing just that last night, too.
Luckily, last night brought the long-rumored return of STAR SEARCH to the screen, this time to multiple screens in multiple countries. The OG version was a staple of ’80s and ’90s weekend television that effectively set the bar that original weekend primetime programming could succeed on television stations outside the Big Three networks. For its time, it was a high-energy series that successfully evolved a classic format with roots going back to the radio days of MAJOR BOWES’ AMATEUR HOUR and shamelessly lableled it “The World’s Greatest Talent Competition”, a monicker croaked by its tuxedo-clad m.c.
Ed McMahon as he presided over an impressive array of new breed performers that included the likes of seasonal winners like comedian Brad Garrett and vocalist Billy Porter plus runners-up such as Ray Romano, Britney Spears, Dave Chappelle, Drew Carey and LeAnn Rimes. Wonder what became of those has-beens?
It was yet another creative master stroke from the fertile mind of Al Masini, who was never fully satisfied with the world of spot television buying and selling and helped find groundbreaking ways to improve it, including the idea of outfitting his clients with satellite dishes so they could more easily receive content. That process helped pave the way for the day-and-date delivery of ENTERTAINMENT TONIGHT and allowed STAR SEARCH and its sister shows SOLID GOLD and LIFESTYLES OF THE RICH AND FAMOUS to more readily be accepted by an eager marketplace of upstart stations. And hey, the combination of glitz and demographics lasted 12 seasons, which by yesterday’s standards was impressive and by today’s is an eternity.
This time around STAR SEARCH takes even better advantage of new technology–not to mention the global footprint of Netflix–to eliminate perhaps the one flaw that continues to exist in talent shows by accelerating the delivery of the results of interactive home voting into real time. Even AMERICAN IDOL, which took the STAR SEARCH experience up several notches by adding that component (eschewing the financial temptation of 1-900 voting in the process; a concept I couldn’t fully grasp), wasn’t able to do that–the fact is that regular primetime programming on broadcast networks still doesn’t air live in 20 per cent of the country. A streamer unencumbered by time zones and program length finally provides the opportunity to deliver true interactivity to its viewers. These were factors not lost on Netflix’s North American unscripted czar Jeff Gaspin, a seasoned veteran who once held executive positions at NBC and VH-1, among others. As he explained to VULTURE’s Josef Adalian, yet another passionate student and consumer of all things TV, STAR SEARCH was the ideal candidate to take this next step:
“There’s a built-in familiarity and a nostalgia factor,” Gaspin says. “Netflix has a lot of content, and it takes a lot to get noticed given how much else there is. So I liked having familiar IP as a starting point.”…That said, Gaspin ultimately gave the go-ahead to Star Search because he felt key elements of the show’s format made it “superior to other talent competitions…on Star Search, contestants will compete only with people in their own categories, allowing multiple champions every season.
Despite his confidence in the format, Gaspin says he held off on greenlighting Star Search until he was certain Netflix had the technology to allow for “live voting where the audience was really the fourth judge — not after the fact, but at that moment,” he explains…”I went to our product team and I said, ‘Can you build voting capability for millions of people simultaneously so they only have to use their remote?’” he says. “They came back 24 hours later and said ‘yes.’ And so they’ve spent the last year building that capability.”
I can tell you first-hand it works, frankly exceeding my expectations. And this iteration also takes the quality of judges up considerably from prior versions, borrowing a page from IDOL and putting together an impressive troika that TV LINE’s Andy Swift joined me in gushing about:
When first announced, the show’s panel of judges — country singer Jelly Roll, “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” star Sarah Michelle Gellar, and professional goofball Chrissy Teigen — raised more than a few eyebrows online, but the trio worked surprisingly well together in this first broadcast. Teigen kept things light, offering a surprising amount of insight along the way; Gellar is turning out to be the most difficult to impress, giving genuine criticism and low-ish scores; and Jelly Roll, well, he gave us our favorite line of the night: “I’m so nervous right now, I think I gotta poop.” And as host Anthony Anderson–who had previously toiled for Gaspin on ABC’s modestly successful reboot of another classic format, TO TELL THE TRUTH (this time thankfully leaving Mama Doris at home) consistently explained, this is live commerical-free TV. If nothing else, we’re compelled to watch through the duration of this projected twice-weekly five-week sprint just to see if Jelly’s nerves eventually calm down.
But in the spirit of STAR SEARCH’s format, it will get head-to-head competition tonight from FX and Hulu, who are revisiting some familiar territory of their own with THE BEAUTY, its latest buzzworthy scripted effort that will launch at the exact same time as STAR SEARCH with a three-episode mini-binge. It returns Ryan Murphy to the FX fold (ironically after a highly profitable but only modestly successful run at Netflix) and drops us back into a world of people willing to do anything to make them beautiful, which I was fortunate enough to have a front-row seat during Murphy’s breakout effort on NIP/TUCK. THE BEAUTY amps up the stakes and the intensity, as the series blurb on FX’s website attests:
(T)he world of high fashion turns dark when international supermodels begin dying in gruesome and mysterious ways. FBI Agents “Cooper Madsen” (Evan Peters) and “Jordan Bennett” (Rebecca Hall) are sent to Paris to uncover the truth. As they delve deeper into the case, they uncover a sexually transmitted virus that transforms ordinary people into visions of physical perfection, but with terrifying consequences. Their path leads them directly into the crosshairs of “The Corporation” (Ashton Kutcher), a shadowy tech billionaire who has secretly engineered a miracle drug dubbed “The Beauty,” who will do anything to protect his trillion-dollar empire—including unleashing his lethal enforcer, “The Assassin” (Anthony Ramos). As the epidemic spreads, “Jeremy” (Jeremy Pope), a desperate outsider, is caught in the chaos, searching for purpose as the agents race across Paris, Venice, Rome and New York to stop a threat that could alter the future of humanity.
And as DEADLINE’s Katie Campione chronicled last week, there has apparently been an awful lot of anticipation that has already produced strong results:
The trailer has now amassed nearly 190M views across social media platforms in seven days, making it the network’s most-viewed trailer ever, per Disney. It’s unclear which series previously held the record. The Beauty is a global thriller that asks: what would you sacrifice for perfection?
Guest cast includes Amelia Gray Hamlin, Ari Graynor, Bella Hadid, Ben Platt, Billy Eichner, Isabella Rossellini, Jaquel Spivey, Jessica Alexander, Jon Jon Briones, John Carroll Lynch, Julie Halston, Lux Pascal, Meghan Trainor, Nicola Peltz Beckham, Peter Gallagher and Vincent D’Onofrio. New episodes of the 11-episode season will roll out each Wednesday, with two episodes in each of the final two weeks.
Pooh-pooh the concept of exactly how significant or indicative of future behavior a view may or may not be, but 190 million of anything in a week is pretty darn impressive. And hey, you can add to that number right now:
At least this time, I saved you the need to search.
Until next time…