Dance has been a consistent influence in the shows created by Amy Sherman-Palladino and Daniel Palladino. From the glitter-throwing kids in Miss Patty’s annual recital to the prominent role of the musical in the “Gilmore Girls” revival to the plot of “Bunheads,” a short-lived show about teen ballerinas, to the burlesque performances in the award-winning “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” it’s easy to see how Sherman-Palladino was shaped by her past as a trained dancer. She was even still dancing up until she got her first writing job on “Roseanne.”
Given this record, Sherman-Palladino considers Prime Video’s “Étoile” to be “the next logical step” in her career because it goes “into the world of professional ballet behind the scenes.” The new series is now streaming.
Any longtime fan of the Palladinos will probably agree about how natural this trajectory feels. As someone who spent most of middle school trying to emulate Rory Gilmore and watched “Bunheads” live from my college dorm, it is easy to see the increasing prominence that dance has played in Sherman-Palladino’s storytelling as both a stage-setting device and central plot device.
The world of “Étoile” is immersive and just as specific and stylized as every show the Palladinos have created; the focus on ballet makes it feel especially niche in a way that is reminiscent of “Bunheads.” Yes, the show has the trademark fast-paced dialogue and witty banter that fans of the Palladinos will expect, and it centers on quirky, imperfect characters with unique personal stakes. However, it’s the first show of theirs to ever drop all eight episodes at once to encourage binge-watching, and it feels like the least bingeable of their shows. Every episode is so performative that auto-playing into the next one feels like a waste. It’s a show that deserves a week’s wait between episodes to savor the level of production for which the Palladinos have become known.
“Étoile,” which means “star” in French, follows two professional ballet companies, one based in New York and helmed by Jack McMillan (Luke Kirby) and the other based in Paris and led by Geneviève Lavigne (Charlotte Gainsbourg). Both companies are struggling, especially after the impact of Covid. They don’t have enough money, the patrons in New York are pocketing the etched champagne glasses, there are union issues, audiences’ interest in ballet is dwindling, and more and more dancers have “abandoned toe shoes for TikTok.”
The solution — to trade each other’s top talent in the hopes of renewing interest — has one big catch. Everything, including a massive transcontinental marketing campaign, will be funded by the “blood money” of Crispin Shamblee (Simon Callow), an older man who made his fortune manufacturing weapons and harmful chemicals and who feels very much like a nod to David Koch, a huge patron of New York City Ballet and Lincoln Center. In the show, Shamblee’s upbeat way of speaking and enthusiasm for the ballet belies the manipulative mastermind who is clearly pulling the strings of everyone for his benefit. Yet, despite Jack’s protestations, both companies need his help to save the art form.
What follows is an ensemble-driven show about Jack and Geneviève struggling to make the arrangement work, so both their companies and ballet itself can survive. But, managing the talent to bring those plans to fruition won’t be easy.
Paris gets the genius but incredibly eccentric choreographer Tobias Bell (Gideon Glick) and Mishi Duplessis (Taïs Vinolo), a young ballerina who previously danced for the French company but has been so focused on ballet that she doesn’t know how to do anything else and struggles to navigate the controlling environment of her French socialite parents.
Philippe Antonello/Prime Video
New York gets Cheyenne Toussaint, France’s most famous ballerina who dances like “poetry in motion” and is considered a “national treasure” (her face is even on a postage stamp). However, in contrast to her lyrical dancing, she’s difficult and unpredictable and has terrible people skills. However, like all Palladino characters, she is complex, and it’s this complexity that prevents her from becoming a caricature. Cheyenne may be demanding, but she’s also an environmentalist with a passion for “The Nutcracker” and a soft spot for Susu Li (LaMay Zhang), a girl who begins the series dancing in the middle of the night in the company’s dark studio while her mom cleans the building and whom Cheyenne becomes an advocate for. She even helps Susu enroll in a youth class.
Over the course of eight hourlong (sometimes more) episodes, the Palladinos weave together the arcs of these characters and the ballet companies to show what it’s really like to strive to be a star. This struggle is set among a backdrop of hallways bursting with dancers in leotards and studios with dancers taking class and rehearsing. Every scene is precisely choreographed and every quip and line of dialogue is specifically delivered.
In other words, the show embodies what fans of the Palladinos have come to expect and that they have been able to deliver on a larger and larger scale as the budget for their shows has increased. While “Étoile’s” budget is not as big as “Maisel’s,” it’s obvious that it’s still hefty, and the attention to detail is still immaculate.
Instead, what sets “Étoile” apart from the Palladinos’ other shows is its subject matter. Instead of exploring female friendship or the nuances of family dynamics, the show is about a collective group of individuals interacting because of a shared passion. For this reason, it seems as if the companies’ fight to restore the prominence of ballet parallels the Palladinos’ work to reignite interest in the art form by making dance the focus of their new show.
However, I wonder if the subject matter will feel too niche? It definitely feels like it was made for the Palladinos’ already existing fan base. Not only is Kirby, who played the iconic Lenny Bruce in “Maisel,” one of the leads, but also favorite characters from other Palladino shows appear. This includes Kelly Bishop, Yanic Truesdale and Dakin Matthews from “Gilmore Girls.”
While the show technically has a two-season order, the status of Season 2 is “pending,” according to Palladino. Personally, I hope this series about ballet is not a one-season wonder like “Bunheads.” My worry is that the show, despite being phenomenally written and directed, will not feel accessible to a broad audience. In a world where streaming gives fewer and fewer shows time to grow and Prime Video is in flux after its head of film and television, Jennifer Salke, stepped down a month ago, it seems like a second season is uncertain.
This is a shame, because if you make it through all eight episodes, you are bound to become as invested in the characters as I have, and, after the final scene, you will certainly want to know where the Palladinos intend their stories to go.
I hope we get a second season, so we can find out.
″Étoile” is streaming on Prime Video.
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