The Eddy

An unusual mix of the very good and the less good — pedestrian in its outlines, often sublime in its particulars.

If you liked the rehearsal scenes in Whiplash, you’ll enjoy lots of this. But where in that film they were in the service of a tight story, here they are the high points of swirling, indulgent episodes that last more than an hour.

The Eddy works most often on the side of things focused on the music, the culture, and the complicated relationship between Elliot and Julie. ... There are a number of scenes between them — particularly one where they discuss the deeper meaning of Julie changing her hairstyle — that are so sharply observed and poignant, it only makes the meandering, schizophrenic quality of the rest of The Eddy more frustrating.

The trouble with The Eddy is it keeps confusing its received ideas of what’s dramatic with what’s actually interesting. The show keeps putting Julie in peril, getting her wasted and then sending her running through the streets asking strangers for coke as her father frantically searches for her, but there’s more genuine feeling in the quiet conversation they have later. ... The way the music fits into The Eddy’s narrative is its smartest and most satisfying quality.

In short, the atmosphere of the series is transporting, and the toggling between French (with subtitles) and English, and images of the less-than-glamorous parts of France we don’t generally see on scripted TV, add nicely to the exoticism. But the story line imposed onto the setting is awfully stale, as familiar as the ambience is not.

The show seems equally divided between whether it wants to be a live chronicle of Ballard’s music or a boilerplate father-daughter reconciliation tale, spiced up with exotic locations and a soupcon of criminal intrigue. For a record of Ballard’s music, buy the record. For the rest, future episodes will have to put the characters first.