Title: I Need Your Love
MPA Rating: Not Yet Rated
Director: Walker Kalan
Starring: Camille Trust, Inés Nassara, Athan Chekas, Willy Rincón, Susie Talbot
Runtime: 23 mins

What It Is: In its two premiere episodes, I Need Your Love follows Camille, a confident thirty-something singer trying to climb the ladder as a singer-for-hire. She faces the realities and quirks of the industry, including envy, a gig as a backup singer for SNL, and encounters with bloodthirsty Swifties.

What We Think: 

Presented with designs that appeal to a fresh, creative audience, this series offers a lovely episodic comedy packaged in an inviting mise-en-scène and an energetic cast. Personally, I was drawn to these elements, alongside the themes of what it means to be a female musician working in the entertainment industry in the 2020s—things like the frustrations of competition and the envy that comes with it, despite one’s own talent or successes, the nightmare of social media, making do with limited resources, and being independent. Seeing both the pretty and ugly sides of someone clawing their way to their “big break” was fun and relatable, especially in scenes that reveal the humanity behind overcoming small obstacles and simply surviving. It might not sound all that exciting, but I appreciate elements that ground a character and make them relatable, particularly when delivered with tongue-in-cheek humor, as this show does.

The cast is diverse, interesting, and colorful, with lead Camille Trust being a joy to watch and instantly entertaining. My main issue, however, was with much of the dialogue and delivery, which made the characters feel more plastic and grating the more they spoke. It’s fine for a character to be annoyingly self-absorbed to a cringey degree if it comes with biting humor or smart foiling as a payoff (see It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia and Seinfeld). Unfortunately, I found many of the characters in this show to be unbalanced, and the delivery, particularly in the pilot, felt unnecessarily drawn out. “Character reasons” aren’t a valid excuse when it makes me want to turn my brain off, frankly.

For this reason, the show may turn away viewers who aren’t fans of self-absorption, vocal fry, or millennial/gen-Z humor. However, the elements I enjoyed in the pilot, as well as the sharper humor and more comedic direction of the Taylor Swift episode, give me hope. I have faith that this series could develop into something grounded in authenticity, with moments of absurdity and quirky humor. I would absolutely keep watching if these few things were improved.

Our Grade: B-, A comedy series with a lot of promise and polish, I’d love to see this show return with sharper jokes and more developed characters. It has the potential to be green-lit for a full run, just to see where it goes and what the creators have in store. At the end of the day, I definitely got a kick—and a few hearty chuckles—out of our protagonist’s hyper-motivated antics and the strange modern world she navigates.