Developing a signature style has its benefits. It makes you stand out, attracts fans faster than a more workmanlike approach, and frequently awards a certain prestige to the person/people. However, it is a double-edged sword. Take an Aaron Sorkin or a David Mamet, for instance. As many devotees as they’ve attracted, there are equally fervent detractors. Worse, there are times when the style either upstages the material or impedes the audience’s ability to connect with it. For the first time, with the news series Étoile, Amy Sherman-Palladino and Daniel Palladino’s signature style and attitude have run aground of the latter.

Put another way? Étoile is no Bunheads.

The series begins with Jack McMillan’s (Luke Kirby) Manhattan-based and Geneviève Lavigne’s (Charlotte Gainsbourg) Paris-based ballet companies facing a multitude of challenges including unaddressed facility needs, stale productions, and disappearing audiences. The solution, it seems, is to exchange talent. To make that happen, they must also accept the dirty money of Crispin Shamblee (Simon Callow), a Sackler-type seeking to paper over his misdeeds by putting his name on every building he can that makes or showcases art. Treating either of these as unique is a bit dubious. Dance companies don’t frequently swap talent, but they do it enough for it not to be considered rare. As for taking money from morally dubious wealthy donors? Well, see that Sackler reference.

Still, when it comes to almost any line of work depicted on television, some artificiality is to be expected. But the show can’t decide what slightly removed from reality version of ballet it wants to portray. Is it the down-on-the-luck studio that is desperate enough to do these unusual things? Or the world where ballet is central enough that everyone keeps gossiping about Jack possibly running for Mayor and the Paris press comes out in full force to meet Mishi (Taïs Vinolo), one of the swapped dancers, at the airport? Is it the world where shows go on to nearly empty audiences or where students paying top dollars to study the craft fill the studios?

Kirby’s take on Jack, unfortunately, doesn’t help. He’s excellent as Lenny Bruce on another Sherman-Palladino(s)’ project, so the issue isn’t his inability to speak the language. Literally or otherwise. It’s that the character, especially in the early going. One disastrous interview with New York One heightens the issue. This is the longtime head of New York’s foremost ballet company. He can’t stop himself from a rambling monologue about how attractive ballet dancers are and how he doesn’t want for women’s attention? Also, everyone wants him to run for Mayor? Sorry to harp on that again, but, in fairness to me, Étoile does so quite a bit as well.

Gainsbourg fares better, perhaps because the kind of clumsiness the show hangs around her neck feels less intrusive and more of the “geniuses often say the wrong thing” variety. Unfortunately, perhaps because this is a show mostly made by Americans and produced by an American company, the Paris sections of the series never feel as essential as those in New York. Paris also gets the short end of the stick on the talent exchange. The season can never really figure out what to give real-life dancer Vinolo to do beyond, admittedly, well capture her tremendous talent. Tobias Bell (Gideon Glick) is quirky but not compelling until a late in the season romance starts to come together. That coupling turns out to be a highlight but, again, not “late in the season.”

The New York section, on the other hand, has Cheyenne (Lou de Laâge), a towering talent filled with nearly as much misanthropy as ability. She saturates the screen with an unmitigated distaste for everyone around her, be they dancers and choreographers she deems unworthy of her or environmentalists who lack her commitment to “any means necessary” opposition to polluters. Laâge is great when she’s going full steam, full of dismissiveness and smirkingly delighted in how people cower at her in equal parts fear and awe. Less successful are the moments where they soften her to be kind to others, like one of the janitorial staff’s daughter, Susu (LaMay Zhang), who practices in the studio after hours with videos of classes her mother secretly records for her. Totally unsuccessful are attempts at generating heat with her new dance partner, Gael (David Alvarez). He’s good, but she’s incandescent. Their chemistry never materializes.

Callow has great fun as the bad man with the money, but his apparent evil never feels real. Instead, he seems eccentric. A bit of a scamp, really. He has a scene with Cheyenne early on that comes closest to giving him some darkness. Callow is excellent at it, giving Crispin a menace in his flippancy. The rest of the season, though, it is primarily the flippancy that shines through. It’s fun to imagine him opening up an ice cream shop on the Louvre’s campus, but Étoile never quite explains why we should question that whimsical endeavor.

This all reads a bit harsher than truly reflects my feelings, partly because every time Étoile seemed to find its groove, something would knock it slightly out of place. But it has things to recommend it. It’s the Sherman-Palladino(s)’ best filmed series to date with surehanded direction from the couple and Scott Ellis and strong compositions by cinematographers M. David Mullen and Alex Nepomniaschy. The creator handle the season’s turn to seriousness well despite how fluffy the first two episodes feel. There is some good work in smaller parts—I’m especially partial to Patrick Page’s appearance. And the series’ overall advocacy for art is strong without being sledgehammer preachy.

Alas, it is a two-step forward, one-step-back watching experience throughout. I can feel the creator couples’ love for the material. And see how their style keeps getting in the way.

Étoile pliés onto Prime Video April 24.

Étoile Trailer: