Nashville

Nashville is a good country-music soap, strongest when it trusts its singers and least convincing when it worries that they might not be enough. Creator Callie Khouri sets professional rivalry beside romantic melodrama, with Rayna James and Juliette Barnes providing the reason to keep watching. There is pleasure in seeing a programme take these women’s working lives seriously without pretending that jealousy and wounded pride are beneath its notice. The trouble is its appetite for more story than it can always give proper attention.

Connie Britton gives Rayna the gravity that the busy storytelling needs. Her restraint makes professional pride understandable, because the vulnerability underneath it never feels added simply to make a country-music star more likeable. We can believe that this woman has earned her place and still finds it difficult to feel secure there. That combination makes the rivalry matter: a challenge to her standing can hurt without turning her into a victim, and she remains interesting when the plot is being obvious.

Hayden Panettiere makes Juliette a worthwhile presence alongside her, rather than merely an obstacle for the audience’s preferred singer to overcome. The central pairing has enough force to survive some broad writing, although its immediate appeal also tempts the programme to rely on it too heavily. At times, we would like the writing to let the women be interesting for reasons beyond their competition. The performances keep us involved while the writing works out how much room to give each woman.

The singing gives us the clearest reason to stay. Connie Britton and Hayden Panettiere bring conviction to the musical performances, and the songs make emotional demands that the actors can meet without the help of another complication. We were moved more than we expected by their singing, because feelings that sometimes look overworked in the dialogue become believable in a song. These passages also give the programme a welcome change of pace, allowing us to listen instead of keeping track of another grievance.

The writing is less disciplined, starting with an opening episode that tries to introduce more than it can comfortably hold. Callie Khouri’s programme has a habit of adding complications before the existing ones have developed enough to justify them, and later plotting does not consistently correct that problem. Some choices feel imposed on the characters to keep the drama moving, which becomes particularly noticeable when the performers have made those characters seem credible. We can enjoy extravagant behaviour in a soap, but we need to recognise the person behaving extravagantly. Here, that recognition occasionally takes more effort than it should.

By the standards of an adult soap, though, Nashville has substantial advantages: a persuasive central performance, an engaging rival and music worth hearing for itself. It treats the singers’ feelings with enough seriousness to make its sillier stretches forgivable, though anyone hoping for tightly organised storytelling will find plenty to object to. We recommend it to those who enjoy romantic melodrama and can tolerate the occasional plot that seems to have been added to fill an episode. If tangled romances already try your patience, the songs will not be enough.