The unlikely TV series Sarah Snook called “a genius idea for a show”
Sarah Snook might just be the perfect person to call something a “genius idea for a show”. The Emmy and Golden Globe-winning star of Succession has, of course, starred in what is now widely considered to be one of the best TV shows ever made.
Succession, on paper, is a fairly simple premise: the children of an extremely wealthy media magnate ponder and clash over who their father will choose to succeed him. Its brilliance becomes clear in the many nuances of the Roys’ relationships, the carefully crafted dialogue that reveals everything from their deepest insecurities to the state of the world at large, and the tangled web of media and politics. Of course, this epic of perverted egos and a poisonous heritage won ‘Outstanding Drama Series’ three times in a row.
Snook and the rest of the cast were crucial to this success, scooping up many acting awards for themselves along the way. Snook has had a quiet career elsewhere, appearing in dramas like Steve Jobs and The Dressmaker (both from 2015) as well as 2024’s ‘Best Animated Feature’ nominee Memoir of a Snail. But Snook has kept busy in the wake of Succession‘s ending and just debuted the relatively well-reviewed thriller miniseries All Her Fault, following a mother whose son is kidnapped, based on Andrea Mara’s popular novel.
But Snook highlighted a different genre of “genius” in her interview with Harper’s Bazaar, when she was named ‘Woman of the Year’. “I used to watch a lot of high-brow, I-need-to-educate-myself stuff, and I still get a lot out of that, but I’m also like, ‘Just give me some reality TV’,” says Snook in this conversation.
So do many of us, probably starting with Succession as one of the high-brow shows you can’t miss if you want to understand good television, alongside the likes of Breaking Bad, Severance, The Bear, and so on.
But these series’ place in pop culture is contrasted with the enduring appeal of reality TV. “Cooking with Paris is a genius idea for a show, because everyone can have an opinion on it,” says Snook, talking about media personality and socialite Paris Hilton’s Netflix show, which dropped its six episodes in 2021 (the same year as Snook’s interview). Hilton, who expresses that she is “not a trained chef”, attempts real cuisine in her million-dollar kitchen and invites friends to help and taste the results, including Kim Kardashian, Demi Lovato, and Nikki Glaser.
Cooking with Paris has a 29% on Rotten Tomatoes, whatever that may signify. It might have curated some appeal by showing the construction of popular recipes through the eyes of someone who is not an expert, but really, it’s all riding on Hilton’s bedazzled public persona. An excessive amount of edible glitter is involved in this celebrity disaster cooking series that plays into the premise that Hilton has no idea what she is doing.
Snook, who has, as she says, watched a lot of prestige television, seems to appreciate Cooking with Paris for the absolute joke that it is, so kitschy that it is “genius”. It is its own kind of genius to put together something dumb that still boasts an appeal that will draw in large audiences for light entertainment.
However, Cooking with Paris was cancelled by Netflix after one season, so it will not become the new The Bachelor in this regard.
