Hi °C | Lo °C They're chasing the American dream -- but The Saturdays have been panned by US critics for their new E! show, Chasing The Saturdays.
The reality docu-series, which follows Una Healy (31), Frankie Sandford (24) , Mollie King (25), Vanessa White (23) and Rochelle Humes (23) as they try to break into the US market, has been branded 'calculated'.
Worse still, the girls' music has been dismissed as 'flabby'.
The new series debuted on Sunday night after a huge promotional push.
The girls have appeared on other hit E! shows, including Joan Rivers' Fashion Police, they wangled their way into several Golden Globes after-parties and were quizzed by talk show host Jay Leno.
The girls were also given a dream slot in the schedule. Chasing The Saturdays is sandwiched between two new episodes of the hugely popular Kardashian show; Kourtney And Kim Take Miami. But despite their best efforts, The Saturdays have failed to impress.
Ken Tucker, of Entertainment Weekly, dismissed the girls as bland and generic.
"The Saturdays sounded like a cross between the Spice Girls and approximately 487 random auditioners for American Idol," he wrote. "Their harmonies are fine; their stage wiggling was charmingly sloppy; the songs sounded not so much pre-fab as flabby."
sting
Meanwhile, David Hinkley, of the New York Daily New, said: "It never hurts for a pop singing group to have an endearing back story, and the Saturdays do, even if the timing for delivery seems a little calculated."
The derogatory comments must sting. After all, the girls who have thrown everything into the series.
But it's not all bad news. David Hinkley wrote: "The show immediately does a good job of separating the group into five individuals".
hnews@herald.ie
