First Impressions: Star

Premise: A girl named Star [really], her sister and a friend she met on Instagram [really] move to Atlanta with the hope to become music superstars [really].

Some shows just don’t have enough conflict.That’s something that probably will never be said about Star.

In the first episode of the show we meet Star, a girl from the wrong side of tracks. Her life is basically a pot of melodramatic cliches: Tough life in the foster care system, long lost mother, sister with a history of sexual abuse, earrings that are way too big…

The twist? Star wants to be a star. Who saw THAT coming?

With that objective in mind Star drags her girl group in the making to Atlanta, but not before “taking care” of her sister’s abusive father. And by “taking care” I mean “stabbing repeatedly.” Once in Atlanta she is taken in by godmother (Queen Latifah) and then magically gets a manager (Benjamin Bratt) by pretending to be a stripper for a night.

The corny twist? The manager she just happened to meet at a strip club was also her mother’s manager back in the day. After that convenient confluence of events, there’s a house party, drugs, lots of dancing and strange “music video dream sequences”.

Verdict

I don’t know what to think about this one. I am going to say that it has guilty pleasure potential, but they might have been aiming for “serious drama”, which is a problem. Star is supposed to be similar to Empire [there is already a crossover planned], but it doesn’t quite feel like it. Empire is soapy all throughout and not ashamed of it. I’m not quite sure what Star is… I guess it’s hard to be a wild soap without talent like Taraji and Terrence’s to ground the craziness.

What exactly have we learned from watching this episode? “You strip, you win”? Or... “Stab your problems away”? Like seriously, I know the guy was a rapist but almost killing someone should have some kind of an impact! But no… Star didn’t give it a second thought. Maybe we are supposed to assume Star is a psycho? Now that would be a totally different show. [Kinda like Dexter starts a boy band]

Should you watch it? I have no clue. It seems like it will become popular, I admit, I’m kind of curious.