Your Song; Euphoria

“Modelled on Channel 4’s surprise success The Piano, it invites ordinary people to tell us a story that jerks at our heartstrings, before belting out a tune. In place of Claudia Winkleman as presenter, Your Song is hosted by Alison Hammond, whose job is simply to greet each singer and send them on stage with a few words of encouragement. But unlike The Piano, where the instrument is plonked in a railway station or a shopping mall, Your Song can’t make any pretence at spontaneity. Most songs are performed with a full backing band. This must require hours of rehearsal, but we don’t get to see that bit. We also don’t get to hear a full performance, or anything close to it. Every few bars, the camera cuts to Paloma and fellow judge Sam Ryder nattering away, or Alison gossiping in the audience, or the artists themselves, explaining why this song means so much to them. That works with The Piano, particularly for instrumentals, but it’s disastrous for vocal pieces. Songs are supposed to tell stories.”
Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail

“Like The Piano, Your Song is playing all the right talent-show notes, but not necessarily in the right order. Only the rain remains a constant. At one point, apropos nothing, we cut to [Paloma] Faith and [Sam] Ryder peering blankly through their hotel window at the events below, like the ghosts of Edwardian siblings cursed for ever to watch Alison Hammond high-fiving a passing hen party. “I actually feel like screaming,” gasps Elliot, overcome with emotion after his performance. You and me both, pal.”
Sarah Dempster, The Guardian

“To say that season three of Euphoria is long-awaited would be something of an understatement. HBO’s high school drama debuted in 2019, when it garnered a fanfare of attention with its heady mix of grinding trauma, heavenly eyeshadows and cheap/daring (delete as appropriate) feats, including a locker room scene starring 30 penises. In the years since, it cemented itself as a show with much to say about gen Z’s relationship to sex, drugs and mental health, and pushed Jacob Elordi, Sydney Sweeney and former Disney teenybopper Zendaya to the A-list. It has also released a mere 18 episodes in that time, a victim of everything from the Covid pandemic to the Los Angeles fires. Like a new Rihanna album, Euphoria season three has – in time – become shorthand for a pop culture mirage that would maybe, possibly arrive sometime before 2030. At least, we hoped, before most of the cast were in their 30s. Excitement, too, has waned over time. Rumours of rifts between the cast and creator Sam Levinson have only grown since its return was confirmed last autumn, and the press tour that followed has had a distinct flavour of “contractual obligation” about it (social media posts from the cast were few and far between, while Zendaya, in an interview with Variety, ambiguously described filming as a “whirlwind”). It brings me no pleasure, then, to report that, based on the three episodes released for review, Euphoria’s third (and probably final) run was absolutely not worth the wait. It’s a grubby, humourless work of torture porn that’s obsessed with and repulsed by sex work.”
Hannah J Davies, The Guardian

“Any parents worried that Euphoria glamorises its many moments of reckless drug-taking can take solace in a stomach-churning sequence in the third (and probably final) series where our heroine, Rue (Zendaya), squeezes balls of narcotics down her throat. The indignity of her balloon-packed stash’s later emergence from another orifice and the possibility that one packet will break is clear from a grisly fantasy flash-forward where her corpse is dissected on a mortuary slab. This dazzling show is many things, but coy it is not.”
Ben Dowell, The Times

“Once beloved by Gen Z, Levinson’s ultra-stylised aesthetic now feels tired and dated, while an attempt at Breaking Bad-lite violence borders on parody. Euphoria may still have the gloss, budget and star power of prestige TV, but it’s no longer enough to disguise what increasingly feels like the misogynistic fantasies of a creepy old man.”
Eleanor Halls, Telegraph