A Look at The Idol's Scrapped Version Just Made Fans Hate The Weeknd More

HBO's The Idol is clearly one of the most popular shows of the television season, but for all the wrong reasons. The series' respectable ratings came not from genuine admiration from fans about the quality of the show, but from hate-watching, as millions of people tuned in to see if the show was really as bad as the critics said it was.

And for the most part, the critics were right.

Sam Levinson and The Weeknd's creative vision turned the show into a glossy and soulless pornographic extravaganza that featured insane amounts of nudity and violent content just for the sake of shocking viewers. The story of pop star Jocelyn being corrupted by cult leader Tedros sounded like a perfect project on paper, but Levinson and The Weeknd's decision to fire showrunner Amy Seimetz and reshoot the entire show turned it into a real mess.

Prior to her firing, Seimetz had shot nearly 80% of the show, and ever since the first episode of Levinson and The Weeknd's The Idol premiered, people had been clamoring to see her version of the story. Recently, some of the behind-the-scenes photos from the first iteration of The Idol were leaked, prompting fans to demand that HBO air Seimetz's cut of the show.

All of the scrapped version pictures altogether as of 07/05/23
by u/5bucksadayonlineDMme in theidol

These pictures make it clear that Seimetz was using the show's early 2000s inspiration, making Jocelyn look more like Britney Spears or Lindsay Lohan than today's pop stars. After seeing the photos, fans felt devastated and started to hate The Weeknd even more, arguing that he single-handedly destroyed the first version of the show.

Of course, we shouldn't forget that Sam Levinson rewrote much of the script after Seimetz, but it looks like The Weeknd was the true creative force behind those rewrites.

'This looks like something I would have really enjoyed watching. The photos are so girly and nostalgic. I'm actually sad that it was replaced with something so vulgar and soulless,' a fan said on Reddit, echoing the sentiment of many.

While it's very unlikely that HBO will hire Amy Seimetz back to finish her vision of the show, fans are eager to at least see her cut of The Idol and enjoy Lily-Rose Depp's character the way she was originally created.

Source: Reddit.