As much as I love creator Amy Sherman-Palladino’s acclaimed, successful shows “Gilmore Girls” and “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” I’m especially partial to her short-lived ABC Family series “Bunheads,” which premiered in between those two major hits and lasted only a single season.
With their new Prime Video dramedy “Étoile," Sherman-Palladino and her husband and regular collaborator Daniel Palladino return to the “Bunheads” world of ballet dancers, while raising the stakes from a small-town studio to two of the most prestigious ballet companies in the world.
Sherman-Palladino is a classically trained dancer who nearly pursued her own professional career, and anyone who watched “Bunheads” knows that she has great affection for the art form of ballet. “Étoile” takes that to another level, bringing in the sweeping showbiz drama of “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” alongside Sherman-Palladino’s signature rapid-fire humor and quirky characters.
It’s not the revival of “Bunheads” that I may have hoped for when that show was canceled back in 2013, but “Étoile" is another witty and winning show from one of TV’s most talented and distinctive creators.
All eight episodes dropped today (April 24) on Prime Video.
‘Étoile’ tells a tale of two ballet companies
The high concept of “Étoile” is that the major ballet companies in both New York City and Paris are suffering from declining revenue and attendance, and decide to stage an audacious stunt to bring renewed attention to their respective work.
Geneviève Lavigne (Charlotte Gainsbourg), the head of the French national ballet, proposes to her New York counterpart, Jack McMillan (Luke Kirby), that they swap some of their top talent for a single season, exposing audiences to new performers and creators while generating press and word of mouth.
In practice, that means that “Étoile” takes place across two cities with an expansive cast of characters, and that can sometimes make it unwieldy.
Geneviève is the closest that “Étoile” comes to a typical Sherman-Palladino protagonist, and Gainsbourg effectively fits into the template established by previous Sherman-Palladino stars Lauren Graham, Sutton Foster and Rachel Brosnahan. There are plenty of times when Geneviève’s riffs on a particular topic could be transposed nearly verbatim to Lorelai Gilmore or Midge Maisel.
Gainsbourg gives the show’s best, most fully realized performance, but Geneviève isn’t the only main character, and Kirby is the true lead as the neurotic and conflicted Jack. Although Jack and Geneviève spend most of their time on different continents, their interactions are the highlights of “Étoile,” and their banter should satisfy any old-school Luke/Lorelai fans who are eager for more of that flirtatious repartee.
Keeping the characters spread out across two far-flung locations can be frustrating, but it also makes the varied combinations feel more significant.
‘Étoile’ is full of offbeat characters
Jack and Geneviève are relatively grounded compared to most of their employees, including demanding, temperamental star dancer Cheyenne Toussaint (Lou de Laâge), who is sent from Paris to New York, and eccentric, possibly autistic-coded choreographer Tobias Bell (Gideon Glick), who makes the opposite journey.
Anyone who’s been following the Palladinos’ work will be familiar with the possibility of quirkiness overload in the characters they create, and both Cheyenne and Tobias can verge on caricature in the way they obliviously steamroll over their colleagues in pursuit of their artistic visions.
Over the course of the eight-episode season, though, Cheyenne, Tobias and many of the oddball supporting characters demonstrate emotional depth and nuance to balance out their sometimes off-putting weirdness, and the Palladinos develop some sweet and understated romances amid the dual workplace drama.
While the characters’ love lives may be less prominent than in past Sherman-Palladino productions, there are still multiple pairings worth rooting for (or against, depending on your preference).
Only one broadly defined character comes off as entirely ill-advised, and he’s also the main element potentially dragging “Étoile” down. The initial swap scheme is bankrolled by wealthy industrialist Crispin Shamblee (Simon Callow), a scheming Brit who uses his money and connections to get what he wants, and is presented mostly as a lovable scamp.
He’s also unequivocally depicted as a war criminal and destroyer of the environment, but “Étoile” isn’t equipped to take on heavy political topics, and any references to his nefarious activities come off as glib and tone deaf.
Thankfully, Crispin mostly stays in the background, popping up every so often to cause chaos and leave the main characters to deal with the fallout. The big personalities take up most of the show’s attention, but “Étoile” also makes room for a charming coming-of-age story about French “nepo baby” dancer Mishi Duplessis (Taïs Vinolo) and a surprisingly heartwarming connection between the ruthless Cheyenne and a talented young girl who lacks the means for professional training.
‘Étoile’ is sprawling but entertaining
That’s just a sampling of the various storylines that the Palladinos pack into eight episodes, along with multiple original ballet performances, choreographed by dance legend Marguerite Derricks. Even with relatively lengthy per-episode running times, that leaves some characters underserved and some settings underdeveloped.
The second episode includes a dig at Netflix’s “Emily in Paris,” but the version of Paris in “Étoile” is no less cartoonish, and while there is plenty of French dialogue, the Palladinos frequently offer flimsy excuses for the French characters to speak English to each other. Croissants, berets and other stereotypical French accoutrements abound.
Still, it’s not like the Stars Hollow of “Gilmore Girls” was a realistic small New England town, or the 1960s New York City of “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” was a scrupulously accurate historical replica. These shows take place in candy-coated fantasy worlds where everyone is quick with a pun or pop-culture reference, and their most annoying traits can become their most endearing.
“Étoile” fits right into that format, and it makes for a welcome addition to the Sherman-Palladino canon. I’ll just keep waiting on the “Bunheads” reboot.
All eight episodes of the first season of “Étoile” are streaming now on Prime Video.
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