Sometimes it’s easy to understand why a TV show is bad.
Maybe the cast isn’t right, or it’s cheaply made. Maybe it’s based on flawed source material or it’s a soulless extension of corporate intellectual property that shouldn’t exist. Maybe it’s just really weird.
But what if you have an amazing cast, extravagant costumes and sets, talented producers and an interesting setting and the show still doesn’t click? What then?
That’s the question I found myself asking about Apple TV+’s “Palm Royale” (streaming Wednesdays, ★½ out of four) a star-studded, luxe dramedy about one woman’s (Kristen Wiig) quest to become the queen of Palm Beach society in the late 1960s. All the elements are there: The cast that includes Wiig, Laura Dern, Allison Janney, Ricky Martin, Josh Lucas, Kaia Gerber and Carol Burnett; creator Abe Sylvia (a writer of “Dead to Me” and “George and Tammy”); and episodes that are gorgeous to look at. But despite everyone’s best efforts, “Palm” reads like an expensive screen saver: just something pretty to look at while you’re not watching the good stuff.
How did this happen? The format is a big problem. Hourlong episodes lean on the drama, when this cast is much better built for a half-hour comedy. As the series unfolds it loses focus. We start with Wiig’s Maxine Simmons, a bright, ambitious wannabe socialite, who recently moved to Palm Beach. She lies, steals, charms and climbs her way into society by any means available, including pawning the jewels of her comatose aunt-in-law (Burnett) and scaling a wall to break into the local country club.
The ladies who lunch resist Wiig’s entreaties – especially Janney’s Evelyn, the reigning queen bee. But as the season progresses, attempted murder, racial politics, LSD fantasy trips, financial crimes and soap opera romance are abruptly added to the simple aspirational story. By the time Martin, who plays the club’s hunky bartender, is petting a beached whale in Episode 8 (of 10), you may just be wondering how on Earth the show got there.
While made up of beloved actors, the cast is far too big and unwieldy for the story. It includes Dern as Linda, a reformed heiress trying to immerse herself in the burgeoning women’s liberation movement; Lucas as Maxine’s doltish husband Douglas; Gerber as a manicurist and aspiring model; and Leslie Bibb as a philandering socialite. For the first time, Dern and her father, Bruce Dern, team up onscreen, playing father and daughter.
Yet these surface-level characters move through the sunny “Palm” world without making much of an impact. There are too many ideas, and the series can’t focus on any one successfully. In one scene, Maxine acts like a party is a matter of life and death, and in another Linda is lectured on her privilege by her Black friend Virginia (Amber Chardae Robinson). It’s a jarring transition, and “Palm” doesn’t really have the credentials to take on bigger questions than what to wear to a ball anyway.
The biggest crime is that it is so wasteful of raw talent, which is left languishing in the hot Florida sun. Martin has proved himself more than capable as an actor in projects like FX’s “The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story,” and he should be charming playing a loyal friend and military veteran, but he’s tiresome. Wiig is as full-throated in her depiction of Maxine as she was for any “Saturday Night Live” character she played, but the Target lady wasn’t someone I wanted a whole series built around.
Sometimes you can have all the right ingredients, but the soufflé still falls flat. High-profile failures are as old as Hollywood itself. I’m not particularly worried about any of the stars involved; there will be better stories than “Palm” for them in the future.
But we can all just give this one a “Royale” wave goodbye.
First appeared on www.usatoday.com