by Megan Bailey, Staff Writer

Empire’s ending in 2020 marked the last show with original music on network TV. There have been several original musical shows on streaming—including today’s topic, Julie and the Phantoms—but most new network shows have either taken a jukebox approach (Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist) or been a mix of existing and original music (Ordinary Joe). With Julie and the Phantoms hitting Netflix in September 2020, we enter our streaming era.

Kenny Ortega, famously the director of the iconic High School Musical film series, had an overall deal with Netflix which included Julie and the Phantoms, based on a Brazilian show that ran for one season from 2011 to 2012. Prior to his Disney Channel work, Ortega choreographed for movies like Xanada and Dirty Dancing, as well as music videos like Madonna’s “Material Girl.” He then went on to direct films, including Newsies and Hocus Pocus, and episodes of TV shows like Ally McBeal, Gilmore Girls, and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (last month’s topic!)

Dan Cross and David Hoge were the actual showrunners, but Ortega directed about half the episodes. David Lawrence did the music, which is very good for a teen show. On the whole, Julie and the Phantoms has a very Disney Channel Original Movie sheen on it, which comes from the Kenny Ortega special sauce. This specific behind-the-scenes team helped the show thread the needle between goofy and heartfelt kids’ TV in a delightful way.

The show follows Julie (Madison Reyes), a high schooler who begins to see the ghosts, more specifically Luke (Charlie Gillespie), Alex (Owen Patrick Joyner), and Reggie (Jeremy Shada), who were three-fourths of the band Sunset Curve. In 1995, the guys in Sunset Curve met Julie’s mom while preparing to play the Orpheum. Unfortunately, they ate street dogs before the performance, which ended up being SO foul that they died after eating them (just go with it). Their instruments and gear are still in the garage at Julie’s house, and she finds them as she’s cleaning up. While playing their demo, the boys show up in the garage, but only Julie can see them.

Julie is grieving her mother, who died about a year before the show starts and always fostered Julie’s love of music and performing. By the end of the first episode, Julie has rediscovered her passion for music (with a beautiful song called “Wake Up”) and, later on, she’s able to perform with the boys, who appear to others only when playing music. Their cover story is that the boys are a hologram band and that the projectors cut out as soon as they’re done performing.

On the whole, the cast is really strong. Madison Reyes was cast at 16 years old, and she does an incredible job playing Julie. Each of the boys in the band brings a fun energy. Luke is the cutie pie lead singer, Reggie is the dopey bass player, and Alex is a golden retriever of a drummer. Each boy has their own backstory, and Luke has a heart wrenching episode about his unfinished business with his parents, especially his mom. In a lesser show, the characters would be more one-dimensional, but here they each get their moment to shine.

Over the course of the show, we see Julie deal with the loss of her mother, find her love of writing/performing music again, and grow to be really close with the Sunset Curve boys. The guys deal out some ghostly shenanigans, including haunting the fourth bandmate who didn’t eat a street dog that night. They also become tied up in a whole undead bargain with Caleb (Cheyenne Jackson), who isn’t the devil but also isn’t not the devil. (Just go with it!) The boys are signed into a deal with him, but if they can resolve their unfinished business, they can cross over.

Julie and the Phantoms is silly and full of heart. It’s at once about grief and unfulfilled potential, which is unfortunately fitting for a show that was unceremoniously canceled. The first season ends on a big cliffhanger, and we’ll never know how the show would have wrapped up those loose ends because, after more than a year, the show was canceled in December of 2021. There was, weirdly, a resurgence in the show a couple months ago, but I don’t think it actually led to any further movement for a second season. (My fingers are still crossed, though.)

I wish the streaming model gave shows a better chance to find their audience, but it’s rarely the case. For most shows, if Netflix doesn’t see an immediate and impressive response, a show is likely to get the ax. While Julie and the Phantoms had a long period before its cancellation was announced, I don’t really think the powers-that-be were waiting for it to find its footing. I think they just didn’t care very much, which is a shame.

Now that we’ve entered the streaming arena, there will be even more sad endings like this one. You’ll see a theme in the next few months where these shows get even less of a chance to flourish. Next month’s show, Girls5Eva, was on Peacock for two seasons and then Netflix picked it up for a third (and I assume final) season. Like many others before and since, Julie and the Phantoms deserved a longer life.