The "Welcome to Chippendales" scene in which we get the clearest sense of the allure of the male strip troupe occurs at the midpoint of the series. Kumail Nanjiani, who plays the group's founder, Somen "Steve" Banerjee, sits back and watches the action unfold around him. The self-satisfaction is reflected in Steve's face when he declares "I'm sitting in a Chippendale chair"; the dancers take their act's name from the Rococo furniture designer. He is wearing a very nice suit and a server drops a bottle of champagne into his ice bucket; For Steve, creating Chippendales is all about access to a highly polished and exclusive lifestyle.
Except…that's not all Chippendales was, or all he stands for in the public imagination. And this eight-episode series tends to leave something on the table by treating the more exciting aspects of the exotic dance phenomenon as background noise amid the story of Steve's rise to power and his quest to hold on to it. . It's not that Steve Banerjee isn't a compelling figure, and it's not that Nanjiani miscasts the part, but he's interesting in a particular way, and Nanjiani plays the part completely to the point. The fact that Chippendales provides women with liberation and joy, rather than remuneration for a man, seems lost at times.
Creator: Robert Siegel
Stars: Kumail Nanjiani, Murray Bartlett, Zack Palmisano
Executive produced by Robert Siegel and Jenni Konner, this series exists in the vein of “Pam & Tommy”; it moves in a more or less straight line through the events of some half-remembered pop culture arcana. Here, we start with Somen Banerjee's attempt to find her way to success in Los Angeles nightlife. A meeting with nightclub promoter Paul Snider (Dan Stevens) and his wife Dorothy Stratten (Nicola Peltz Beckham) inspires him to push harder, in part because he finally concludes that Snider is a fraud; the man wears a fake Rolex, a dead giveaway of a man like Steve, who values solid Chippendale craftsmanship in all things. Later, when Annaleigh Ashford's Irene, Steve's wife, coaches him through affirmations and mantras, he declares, "I wear a Rolex!", a point of materialistic pride. Irene has trained him to great success; At first, she rattles off a list of ways the club is losing opportunities to extort money from customers: They should serve softer drinks, with more ice.
Which is to say that the authenticity of the Chippendale chair only mattered once in a while; the adoption of the nickname "Steve" suggests the show's perspective that Banerjee was running from something, though his family ties are told in a way reminiscent of the cliché of disappointed parents. It can be hard to know why the Chippendales club is so scandalous to Banerjee's family; the dance is professionally shot without much charge or seduction. It's a surprising choice in a post-Magic Mike world. The dances, here, exist to give us evidence that Chippendales were a crowd pleaser, not to seduce or captivate us at all. It's a problem for the show; when, say, Juliette Lewis's character, eventually creative partner of the choreographer (Murray Bartlett), first falls in love with the dancers as a fan. For us, seeing the same numbers without power, it is not always clear what she is seeing.
There is an interesting criminal history entangled in the history of Chippendales. It's one I won't spoil, since he's at the center of this series, but it does address Steve's greed and greed, his inability to coexist with competitors. But the problem is that the show has that true crime plot as its backbone, but it has no pulse and no libido. A show called “Welcome to Chippendales” shouldn't pass up opportunities to dazzle or charm us; instead, like the drinks Irene serves, this story feels watered down.
“Welcome to Chippendales” will launch with its first two episodes on Tuesday, November 22 on Hulu, with new episodes to follow weekly.