Let’s start this article at the end.
I’ve just discovered (Thursday 18th April, the day before this is due to be published) that there is a third series of Starstruck.
If I had known, I would have watched all of it before writing this.
But here we are.
This article turned out to be a long ‘un as I tried to sort it out in my head, so we’re going with it.
Back to the beginning.
A few weeks ago, I was stressed and in desperate need of lying on the sofa watching Netflix. I had Starstruck recommended to me ages ago, and I adore Rose Matafeo (who co-created and stars in it) so thought this would be the perfect thing to stick on.
And here we are…
Not quite the restful lie down I was hoping for.
Starstuck is easy to binge, or watch at a reasonable pace. You might want to watch it before reading on.
From here, there be spoilers for series one and two…
(Series one to three of Starstruck are on BBC iPlayer, and series one and two are available on Netflix.)
Starstruck follows Jessie (Rose Matafeo), a New Zealander millennial living in London who does not have her life together and enjoys casual sex. She’s wonderful.
She lives with bestie Kate, who is lovely, and at a New Year’s Eve party, meets famous actor Tom (Nikesh Patel), not that she knows he’s a famous actor.
They don’t exactly hit it off immediately, but their opposites attract vibe leads them to falling into bed together to see in the New Year. The first series then follows them throughout the course of a year as they dip in and out of one another’s lives, unable to get each other out of their heads.
I loved series one. Jessie is a mess and I love her. She gets fired from her nanny job, because she’s awful at it; she loses a wad of cash, failing to buy back her donated clothes from a posh charity shop; she drops her phone on her head while lying in bed (been there, done that!); and finally getting together with Tom at a film premiere only to be kept in the hotel bathroom by him because his current squeeze interrupts them. Something that would have been a deal breaker for me, but not for Jessie.
The first series had a coherent structure, taking us season by season through the year, with great character development and, by the end, they’re silently together. Series two picks up immediately after series one ends with the big question of ‘what now?’
I’m going to say this quickly, like ripping off a wax strip: Series two was not as good.
Every romance needs a why
The main problem, in my mind, was that Jessie and Tom felt flat, despite their brilliance in series one. Series one shows them being drawn to one another, series two should have shown us why.
Instead, we see them get together, break up, get together, break up, mainly because they refuse to talk properly. This is a common complaint among romance fans and feels a little lazy in terms of writing.
One good thing about series two is that Tom gets more character development. We start to see him in more awkward situations, with his parents, his arrogant brother, the awful director. Yet it doesn’t translate into his relationship with Jessie, and I’m not sure why.
And who the hell is Ben?
My main issue with series two was Ben.
Jessie’s ex-boyfriend – labelled The Dickhead – reappears in her life, invites her to his nan’s funeral and offers her a job in an attempt to get back with her. She fails to tell Tom that her new job is with her ex-boyfriend, resulting in a huge argument when Kate accidentally lets it slip.
Which is fine. But who the hell is Ben? I watched both series one and two very closely together over the course of four days and I didn’t have a clue. It wasn’t until I Googled it to see what others were saying before writing this that I discovered Ben is the man Jessie moved to the UK for who then broke her heart.
This should have been mentioned more than once in series two. Jessie should have been more torn about being around him, considering how much he hurt her, more should have been made of their history.
Instead, Jessie and Ben fall back into easy conversation – easier than Jessie and Tom to a certain extent. There’s no real mention of pain or anguish.
We skip forward in time, but without the cute season labels from series one, and suddenly we’re at a hen/stag do that Jessie, Ben and Tom have all been invited to. Jessie tells Ben she doesn’t want to be with him, although they have been sleeping together (which we haven’t seen anything of, because of the time skip), Jessie and Tom kiss, Jessie has a quick epiphany of how she sabotages herself and declares her love for Tom.
Why does she love him?
Tom seems to like that Jessie is ‘kooky’, but it’s never explained why Jessie loves Tom. Other than him being gorgeous and rich.
And the writing lessons are…
Are Jessie and Tom even compatible? I’m not sure. I want them to be, but the relationship feels a little…forced at times.
We should at least understand why they love each other. Do they even know?
This feels like the TV equivalent of a ‘show don’t tell’ lesson. It feels like the writers are telling us that Jessie and Tom love each other and so we have to accept that. Ben is the ex-boyfriend and they’ve been sleeping together, and we have to accept that, despite not knowing how Jessie feels after sex with the man who hurt her.
The character development was done so well in series one, I have trouble believing this is the issue. Series two just feels…rushed. If they had kept the same structure as series one and shown us more of what Jessie and Tom were both feeling about everything going on, it could have been better.
The lesson I took from series two was one of exploration. I was longing for more concepts to be explored: what grief does Ben bring up in Jessie? Why does she allow men to keep treating her badly?
The complexities of Jessie, and Tom, needed further exploration, and that is the fun of character development: exploring every facet of your characters and laying them bare in your words.
I have a theory about Jessie and Tom, from a writing point of view, but I need to watch series three to confirm this.
Watch this space.
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