Onwards and upwards

• Published date: 05 September 2023
• Publication title: Signal

ABOUT 90 seconds into the third series of Starstruck, it becomes clear that Rose Matafeo’s rom-sitcom has a major problem. The action picks up precisely where we left off at the end of the second series, namely a snogging sesh in the middle of a big pond, as Matafeo’s Jessie finally gets (back) together with her on-off love interest, film star Tom Kapoor, with whom she had a one-night stand in the show’s first episode. Cue a pacy montage charting the giddy highs, then inescapable lows, of their relationship, before Tom walks out of their shared home for good

When we rejoin her two years later, Jessie seems largely over it. But Tom’s departure has had an existential impact on the show itself: surely we must now also wave goodbye to the titular conceit — whether the normal girl and the famous guy can ever make it work — too? (Starstruck is essentially a gender-swapped Notting Hill, with a more realistic grasp of London property prices.) Yet the show, initially at least, isn’t quite ready to let go of its central gimmick, which means it spends its third outing raking over the embers of the romance, from genuine attempts to move on with new people to tentative reconnection.

So instead of a will-they-won’t-they, Starstruck becomes a please don’t, please don’t! Not only because Tom and Jessie have given love a shot and found themselves incompatible, but also because it seems increasingly obvious that Nikesh Patel’s character — a down-to-earth but slightly dull actor — is a poor match for the lively, mordant Jessie. Starstruck has morphed into an anti-romcom, and it’s no wonder the genre has never taken off — it isn’t a great feeling when the driving force of a binge-watch is the desperate hope that love is eviscerated once and for all.

The good news is that there is plenty to appreciate here that is completely unrelated to moping movie stars. In fact, the Tom and Jessie storyline has always felt like the most contrived element of Starstruck — maybe because it literally is. Like her standup comedian creator, Jessie is an effortlessly funny, clever and cool New Zealander living in London. She is also a self-aware and hardy variation on the messy millennial woman, dealing in mild emotional chaos, but showing resilience too. Jessie’s second significant other, meanwhile, is her best friend and erstwhile flatmate Kate, a people-pleasing perfectionist played to people-pleasing perfection by Matafeo’s actual close friend and erstwhile flatmate Emma Sidi. Kate’s nerdy...