I wanted to like Still Star Crossed (2017) — the show that riffs on what could happen after Romeo and Juliet ends. It’s a historical soap opera currently airing on ABC. The series comes from TV producer Shonda Rhimes and her company ShondaLand, known for mainstream hits like Grey’s Anatomy, Scandal, and How to Get Away With Murder. The lead writer is listed as Heather Mitchell, who has credits with most of the ShondaLand shows. In addition to the big-name production company, the race-neutral casting made news. But if you’ve paid attention to theater in the past few decades, you’d see it’s no big deal to have actors of various skin colors playing Shakespeare together, so this fit well on multiple levels.
What really attracted me was the Shakespearean fanfic aspect. As ye olde literary nerd, I love a good re-imagining of the Bard’s work because I feel that the appeal of Shakespeare is precisely in the timeless themes that can be reimagined and explored in different ways for new audiences. Starting with what happens after the play Romeo and Juliet ends could provide plenty of characters and situations to work with. But I’ve come away from the first few episodes of this show disappointed because, yet again, this is American network TV dumbing things down for the masses.
Still Star Crossed bounds along a breakneck speed, complete with silly camera effects, that makes it feel more like a modern superhero movie and less like a romantic drama. The show bounces from poorly choreographed sword fights to weak bitch fights to uncomplicated politics with minimal character development or internal reflection. It’s not as aggressively stupid as TNT’s Will seems, but this show is just a lukewarm mess of people doing things to annoy each other for no good reason.
Rosaline Capulet and Benvolio Montague are being forced to marry each other to unite their warring families and supposedly bring peace to Verona. Rosaline and the prince of the city have a past fling that’s a mild irritation. Neither of their families are super supportive of the marriage, nor does the town think it’ll calm things down. And none of this is particularly grounded in Shakespeare’s plays or in any particular historical era.
Costumes in Still Star Crossed
OK, here it comes. What really gives this show a complete and utter feeling of randomness is the costumes. As in “what random historical period are we in?” 14th century? 15th century? 16th century? Victorian? Modern bridal? Because I can’t tell looking by the costumes. The physical setting is generically ye olde timey — lots of stone walls and candles (with exteriors filmed in Salamanca, Spain, and surrounding towns). But the clothes are a WT-Frock fantasy riff on renaissance, just historical enough to show that the tale does not take place in the modern era, but not enough to be set in a specific year. It’s enough of a fantasy style that if dragons or fairies showed up, I wouldn’t be surprised.
Some costume themes in Still Star Crossed: Modernized ruffs, giant hoopskirts (often with ridge lines), contractually obligated leather pants, modern makeup, frock coats and cravats, overly complicated closures, modern jewelry, heavy handed trimming, and thoroughly modern fabric. There’s even a ‘corset-lacing while holding the bedpost’ scene (without a smock, duh) in the first episode! You might want to get out your Bad Costume Bingo cards for this one and see how fast you score five across. If you do that as a drinking game, we can’t be held responsible for the results.
Lest you think it’s just me and the historical / literary purists being harsh on Still Star Crossed, the TV ratings haven’t been so hot. The show was moved from a Monday timeslot to Saturdays, and according to TVline.com “the cast’s contracts are set to expire, which makes this scheduling move a clear sign there won’t be a season 2.” Buh-bye!
Are you one of the few who watched Still Star Crossed?
from what I’ve read the population of medieval Italy was fairly ethincally diverse anyway.
the sleeves of Rosalind’s party dress look like someone treid to tear them off her. but even though that frock coat is massively inauthentic it’s still kind of hot (I might have a minor fetish, not that I make my beloved wear one in the bedroom or anything, that would just be pervy…)
I’ll watch it for laughs on Cox on Demand. It seems to fill a void left by Reign. I’m sure I’ll fill a Bingo row in the first minute or less.
Admittedly, I’m watching it because I love a retelling. The melodrama is pretty delicious, even if the costumes are mostly bad.
I can’t even tolerate the cold-shoulder look on modern clothes. I certainly don’t want to see it on a “period” dress.
OK, so Reign is gone. But do other historical flick costumers take this as a competiton? Is there some sort of a huge prize at the end, we don’t know about? Is this year the snark week, and we’re stuck in a time loop? What will you blog about during snark week?
Gonna have to watch it. ;)
I had already on the FF FB page about this mess. Given the quality of some of the actors, it’s really wasted potential. And the costumes!!!??? Shudder!
ALSO. Why is Rosaline a Capulet. If Rosaline is also a Capulet, then why the big “omg Juliet’s a Capulet? OH NOES” when Romeo finds out after the ball in R&J you know what, I’m thinking too hard, not worth it, nvm. Also I love #WTFrock and shall be hashtagging it vigorously.
Thank you! I thought I was the only one who remembered that Rosaline was Romeo’s crush before he spotted Juliet. And that Rosaline’s unlikely (in the context of the play) to be a Capulet.
This is old as hell but i still have to comment that Rosaline is his niece in the play too. It’s not something they made up.
The pleats…what? No, really, what? Who has looked at a human body and thought “These pleats are a good idea with this fabric right over a girl’s hips?”
I had such high hopes for this show and then I watched the first episode and I was so, so confused. The costumes are just so bad. And I know that they’re not going for accuracy, and I can give them some leeway because sometimes you just want a pretty soap opera… but when they brought in a guillotine (a literal guillotine), I had to give up.
I saw the first episode and there was a guy with buckles on the back of his doublet. And I don’t mean little tiny ones, I mean those big ol’ honkin’ Victorian buckles. They were in the front, too! That, and exposed shirtsleeves. Bonus points for open doublet fronts.
I was wondering what you ladies would get around to this. It seemed like prime Snark territory, though it appears bad costumes aren’t the only malady this waste of tv time space is plagued with. Bad writing and bad acting that even teenagers wouldn’t fall for also surround this new gold-painted, jeweled turd.
But then again, ABC is notorious for C-grade crap shows anyway. This is just the latest in their feeble bids to get more people to watch. I honestly don’t know why they haven’t re-named themselves “TV Trash Heap,” considering how far the station has fallen. The only thing my family watches on there are game shows. The one and ONLY reason Shonda Rimes still has work is because her studio can shell out a dozen C-grade TV shows and get just enough ratings to keep ABC afloat. Otherwise, she would have had to close her studio ages ago. Most people don’t even know who she is.
I’m still mad at them for ruining “Once Upon A Time,” but in retrospect, that show was doomed to fail, considering what direction they were going and what station it was on.
I was wondering what you ladies would get around to this. It seemed like prime Snark territory, though it appears bad costumes aren’t the only malady this waste of tv time space is plagued with. Bad writing and bad acting that even teenagers wouldn’t fall for also surround this new gold-painted, jeweled turd.
But then again, ABC is notorious for C-grade crap shows anyway. This is just the latest in their feeble bids to get more people to watch. I honestly don’t know why they haven’t re-named themselves “TV Trash Heap,” considering how far the station has fallen. The only thing my family watches on there are game shows. The one and ONLY reason Shonda Rimes still has work is because her studio can shell out a dozen C-grade TV shows and get just enough ratings to keep ABC afloat. Otherwise, she would have had to close her studio ages ago. Most people don’t even know who she is.
I’m still mad at them for ruining “Once Upon A Time,” but in retrospect, that show was doomed to fail, considering what direction they were going and what station it was on.
Those 2 writers do not know how to write good fantasy stories, and are now not even hiding the fact that they’re milking that dying cow for cash.
In regards to “Still Star-Crossed,” my family took one look at it and said, “Wow, what a load of horse crap.” And hit the mute button. If I wanted a fun, racially mixed program to watch, I’d pull out that Roger’s and Hammerstein DVD with Brandy and Whitney Houston in it, or watch “Cinderella” from 2015 again. This show almost feels like an insult. Rosaline isn’t even pretty! And whatever Shakespearean talent she has is wasted on this show. The costumes also all look like they were designed by a teenager whose only research into historical costume involved going to a Renaissance faire, and then walking into some costume warehouse and grabbing every shiny or complicated outfit they could find. I actually kinda like a few of the costumes shown here, but again, they look awful in this kind of setting. They would look better in a fantasy Renaissance kingdom.
I’m starting to see what you mean about modern fabrics being used. I didn’t originally notice that sort of thing until I read a few articles on here and learned a little bit about identifying them. I sincerely doubt they had such shiny, stretchy fabric in northern Italy during the 1400s. (I know Shakespeare’s plays were supposed to be timeless, but many of the ones in Italy seem to take place during THEIR Renaissance, which was much earlier than England’s, mostly in the early 15th century). The men in particular wouldn’t be excited about someone ripping up their tapestries or furniture just so they could have doublets to wear.
If they aren’t gonna make it to Season 2, I say, “Woohoo! Yay! Intelligence wins the day!”
The only thing worth remembering about this show was the pop song they were playing during the commercial. You can find it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ac4J9344s2s
Ugh! The comments program is awful! It won’t let me post the whole thing!
Please feel free to delete my comments, this awful comments program ruined what I had to say :(
Personally, I rather like the costumes over all, because they are so mishmash. It fits with the sort of timeless Shakespeare feeling I think they were going for. I like that so far the characters seem to have their own somewhat distinctive styles.
That said. Those. Fucking. Hoop ridges. Oh my god. Please no. Please, please put on a petticoat, for the love of god, please.
Why does the dress in the 1st photo of Rosaline look like it has some of those fabric towels on rollers from a public bathroom on it?
snicker tee hee hee bc they are.😁
The first picture you had of this show ( The wide scene of the funeral I guess), I was thinking “well, that doesn’t look look too bad”.
Then….every picture after, my cringing increased. Lord love a duck, I can buy butterwick patterns that would be more accurate and far more flattering.
do we really expect a network to come up with something HA? This is pure fantasy, for the tween crowd and the romance novelist crowd. I would stick to something that is supposed to be accurate, like PBS stuff.
Saw this for the first time last night. My dear god!! The costumes are only eclipsed by the really bad acting and script. I swear one character was wearing a green polyester “I Dream of Jeannie” reject. So much synthetic fiber, so many pairs of ill fitting leather pants, so much gell. I swear I saw modern (well 70’s) curlers in one scene. So much polyester chiffon, so much shiny, so much just BF ugly. Someone needs to burn all of these costumes before they enter the rental market. They could effect bad period dramas for decades
Couldn’t get passed the first episode. The cheap costumes were distracting and badly fitted, bad acting, no chemistry between the leads and I’m sorry to say but the main actress was not very pretty.