What a bizarre show. it is this trainwreck of a combination that forces a Simon Cowell vanity project about himself, with a reality show to find the next One Direction. Simon seems alone in this endeavor, using the camera crew to make him look like a tame pussycat, and a deeply empathetic individual who has a knack for finding excellent talent and being able to predict trends, and create the next One direction. The problem is that no one saw this, so the band created within the show faces an extreme uphill battle in validating Cowell’s prowess as a producer.

On the flip side, he has a wife, who has conflicting opinions on even being involved in the project, and an adorable son who isn’t aware fully yet of who his dad is. Cowell isn’t famous for is warm and fuzzy feelings, but rather for his biting sarcasm, and ability to cut to the core of a performance or a performer that just didn’t work. he’s tried to revamp this image more and more, and it has made him less and less interesting. it doesn’t seem to be something he’d like to go into here, because he has to split private time with a reality competition series, and do it all in six episodes.

he starts from his humble beginnings where the new generation has no idea who he is, or why they should audition for his reality show. Eventually, he gets enough talented boys to be able to start throwing them into random challenges, before whittling them down to the eventual group, whose name ends up being the release date for the series. No, seriously.

I love Simon. I enjoy him as a human. Even as other critics lambasted this, I figured I’d get something out of it. It’s like trying to get juice from a raisin though. It’s basically all dried up. While the series does have audio description, it lacks the ability to get us individually interested in the talent, since they actually aren’t the focus. So I never knew which boys to root for, and there’s no voting, which is how actual humans propelled One Direction to stardom. real people voted for them. Here? Simon has some advisors, and none of them have that impressive of a resume either. it isn’t like these big reality competition series where your future is decided by Carrie Underwood or christina Aguilera, it is just some music industry insiders.

Simon made sure to include his reaction to the death of Liam Payne, the One direction singer who just a few months prior hosted his own reality competition series on Netflix to find the next best boy/girl band. 3quency, which hasn’t charted on the Billboard Hot 100, and neither has Simon’s new band December 10th. Netflix hasn’t necessarily launched something with the output of American Idol, X-Factor, or The Voice, so these kids are losing time while hoping on a wing and a prayer someone will watch their show.

is there any reason to watch this? Not really. if you’re a huge Simon Cowell fan, he constantly feels like he’s playing to the camera, and doing career rehab. It all feels fake, possibly more than all the stuff Bravo keeps churning out. I enjoyed seeing him interact with his son, but who knows if he only does it for the camera. Simon needs to either revive his tried and true formula, or just star in his own reality series, which would likely get more of an audience than this. Pick one. ironically, the one thing he’s been able to do, is make choices, he’s surprisingly unable to do here.

It isn’t nearly the travesty some have made it to be, it is just rather pointless. Simon Cowell’s next Act is apparently to get buried in Netflix’s algorithm.

Since Netflix apparently wants another season, my advice is to tell Simon that no one is buying the care bear attitude, and to pick a lane. Is this a reality series about his life, or about the boy band he creates? X-Factor, Pop Idol, American Idol, America’s got Talent, Britain’s Got Talent, all have understood that he is a man behind the table. this seems to have lost that thread.

Rotten: 3.8/10