Netflix’s revival of Star Search is not easing into the spotlight. With a two-night premiere that began on January 20, 2026, the streamer is using the iconic talent show to test a new era of live, interactive TV. As Netflix launches “Star Search” as its first live competition series, host Anthony Anderson, judges Jelly Roll, Sarah Michelle Gellar, and Chrissy Teigen, and a global audience armed with their remotes have already crowned winners on Night 1 and Night 2.
The reboot brings back the spirit of the original 1980s syndicated Star Search more than 20 years after the franchise first ended and was briefly resurrected in 2003. Now, instead of dialing 1-900 numbers, viewers score performers in real time on a five-star scale that gets averaged together and treated like a fourth judge. As critic Andy Dehnart puts it, “Five stars pop up on the screen, select your score, and done. Its simplicity was a true technical marvel.”
That simplicity sits on top of a surprisingly ambitious format. Each episode features head-to-head face-offs in categories such as Junior Music, Dance, Variety, and Music Group, with judges’ scores from Jelly Roll, Gellar, and Teigen combined with the live audience average. Anthony Anderson has described Star Search as a five-week event, with new performers entering every Tuesday and Wednesday at 9 p.m. ET while winners return in later rounds.
How the Live Voting Works on Netflix’s Star Search
The rebooted Star Search may be steeped in ’80s nostalgia, but its voting is pure 2026. Dehnart notes that the show sidesteps the clunky systems that defined earlier interactive formats on series like American Idol, where Ryan Seacrest’s “America voted” refrain masked the limits of who could actually take part. Here, there is no app to download, no shortcode to text, and no per-call fee.
Instead, the five-star scale appears directly on-screen. Viewers vote with their remote or keyboard, and those scores are averaged into a single home-voter number that sits alongside the judges’ three individual scores. Netflix executive Jeff Gaspin, the company’s VP for unscripted, explained the appeal of that approach to Vulture’s Joe Adalian, saying, “The barrier to entry for voting is basically zero. That was the final piece that made me say ‘yes’ to this.”
Dehnart argues that this streamlined system is something broadcast stalwarts like Dancing with the Stars on Disney+ and Hulu should envy. He contrasts Netflix’s one-step voting with DWTS executive producer Conrad Green’s elaborate explanation of how judges’ leaderboards and public rankings are combined. The result is a live Netflix series that, in Dehnart’s view, feels like a time machine back to the shiny-floor heyday of broadcast competitions on NBC, ABC, and CBS, yet with technology those networks have never quite matched.
Star Search Night 1 Contestants, Categories, and Scores
The Netflix reboot keeps the original format’s multi-talent DNA intact by dividing the premiere into four categories: Junior Music, Dance, Variety, and Music Group. Each face-off produces one winner, who returns in a later episode, while the losers go home after just one shot.
Junior Music: Eric Adrien Williams vs. Blair Kudelka
The first showdown belongs to the kids. In Junior Music, 11-year-old Broadway performer Eric Adrien Williams opens the night with a precocious cover of The Jackson 5’s “I’ll Be There.” Jelly Roll even calls him a “gift from God,” while Sarah Michelle Gellar observes that he starts off a little nervous and urges him to let loose if viewers vote him through.
Eric’s scores underline just how tightly the race is calibrated. Judges give him 4.3 stars, viewers average 3.8 stars, and his total comes out to 4.08 stars. Opposite him, 10-year-old country singer Blair Kudelka leans into the show’s legacy by performing “Blue,” the song famously covered by “Star Search” alumna LeAnn Rimes. Blair’s résumé already includes playing Young Dolly Parton at Dollywood, but on this night her nerves show. She receives a 4.3-star judges’ score, a 3.6-star viewers’ score, and a 4.00-star total.
With that razor-thin margin, Eric Adrien Williams becomes the first category winner of Netflix’s Star Search and celebrates backstage with his mother Adrienne, while Blair’s “Blue” moment ends her run.
Dance: Movement 55 vs. Ladymetry
The Dance category brings out two very different crews. Movement 55, an eight-member group clad in matching leather, channels its “animalistic sides” with leaps, flips, and splits across the stage. Gellar, who reveals she is a dance mom, praises their “magical synchronicity.” Jelly Roll jokes that he will excuse himself from judging “anyone’s movement,” quipping, “I just got skinny enough to kind of move myself, and I’m still fat!”
Movement 55 earns 4.0 stars from the judges, 3.3 stars from viewers, and a 3.6-star total. Parisian crew Ladymetry follows, living up to a name that fuses “ladies” with “geometric shapes.” Using hats, hands, and legs to create intricate patterns, they inspire Gellar to rave, “I love a hat moment!” Chrissy Teigen tells them she is “blown away” and admits, “I could never,” a line she could arguably apply to anyone competing in any category.
Ladymetry matches Movement 55 with 4.0 judges’ stars and improves slightly with viewers at 3.6 stars, but their total comes in at 3.4 stars. Movement 55 advances, Ladymetry bows out, and the Dance category underlines how even tiny score shifts can decide a live competition.
Variety: TJ Salta vs. Fernando Velasco
Variety turns into a battle of magicians. Twenty-four-year-old TJ Salta, once billed as the youngest magician ever to headline on the Las Vegas Strip, builds an elaborate routine around the “universal language” of music. Audience members write the names of their favorite artists on pieces of paper, stuff them into envelopes, and shuffle them around the theater.
Salta has Teigen type a random number into a calculator and reveals that the exact number is already written on a piece of paper hidden in a balloon hanging overhead. Later, he has Jelly Roll supposedly beam a singer’s name into Teigen’s mind; she guesses Usher, and the card in her envelope also reads “Usher.” When Salta turns the number from the balloon upside down, it somehow spells “Usher” again. The whole thing may be needlessly complicated, but even Gellar admits, “I don’t understand anything that is happening!”
The audience is impressed. Salta’s judges’ score is 4.00 stars, the viewers’ score is 4.2 stars, and his total reaches 4.1 stars. His opponent, Fernando Velasco, delivers a classic high-risk illusion that starts 16 feet off the ground with the help of his assistant Selena. He disappears and reappears in a hide-and-seek style teleportation stunt that leaves Teigen saying she will be up all night trying to figure it out. Anthony Anderson, meanwhile, warns him about sneaking up behind him with the line, “I’m from Compton!”
Velasco’s judges’ score lands at 3.3 stars, viewers give him 3.1 stars, and he ends with a 3.2-star total. Salta moves on as the Variety winner.
Music Group: H3rizon vs. 2BYG
The final face-off of Night 1 is Music Group, and it proves to be the most contentious. R&B group 2BYG — also known as To Be Young and Gifted — tackles *NSYNC’s “It’s Gonna Be Me” with updated harmonies. At times, their vocals lock in tightly, but much of the arrangement feels off, and the choreography is more awkward sauntering than boy-band sharpness.
2BYG receives a 3.6-star judges’ score, a 2.8-star viewers’ score, and a 3.2-star total. Anderson even jokes that if the group wants a “husky” addition to help fill out its sound, he is available. Later, Dehnart confesses that during their performance he briefly wondered if he was listening to himself sing along to ‘NSYNC in his car, “that’s how bad the harmonizing was,” even as he points out that “they can actually sing” based on other clips.
Opposite them, girl group H3rizon — three “her”s on the horizon, hailing from Sydney with ties to Atlanta — storms the stage with a polished take on Sabrina Carpenter’s “Espresso.” Each member gets a spotlight moment, yet their blend feels effortless, and the choreography never falters. Where 2BYG looks tentative, H3rizon looks ready to headline.
The scores reflect that gap. Judges award H3rizon 4.3 stars, viewers average 3.6 stars, and their total is 3.9 stars. The outcome feels like a foregone conclusion: H3rizon crushes the category, moves on to the next round, and instantly becomes one of the acts to beat on Star Search.
Star Search Night 2 Results: Harry Merlin Piper and Bear Bailey Join the Winners’ Circle
Night 2 expanded the field while keeping the same head-to-head structure, with four more category winners emerging from a new slate of 11 acts. Although full scores were not displayed in every recap, several key results stand out.
Variety Juniors – Harry Merlin Piper vs. The Force
In the Variety Juniors showdown, pint-sized performer Harry Merlin Piper faced off against youth troupe The Force. The contest ended with Harry taking the win, making him the first Variety Juniors champion of the season. The Force, despite strong energy, became one of Night 2’s first eliminations.
Comedy – JR De Guzman vs. Susan Rice
The Comedy category pitted stand-up JR De Guzman against veteran comic Susan Rice. After both sets, JR emerged as the Comedy winner for Night 2, while Rice was sent home. His advancement gives Netflix’s Star Search an early favorite on the comedy side of the bracket.
Variety – Duo Vespertilio vs. Macy & Tempo
Aerial act Duo Vespertilio went up against dog-and-trainer team Macy & Tempo in the Variety category. Macy & Tempo’s trick-filled routine delighted the live crowd, but when viewers and judges’ scores were combined, Duo Vespertilio secured the win. Macy & Tempo joined the growing list of talented early exits.
Music – Bear Bailey vs. Issy Saadeh
In the Music face-off, vocalist Bear Bailey outlasted pop artist Issy Saadeh to claim the final Night 2 victory. Issy’s performance in the music category impressed, but Bear’s blend of vocal power and emotional delivery put him over the top with voters and the panel. By the end of the night, Issy, Macy & Tempo, Susan Rice, and The Force were out, while Harry Merlin Piper, JR De Guzman, Duo Vespertilio, and Bear Bailey joined the season’s growing roster of returners.
With Night 2 in the books, Netflix’s live Star Search now has eight early winners spanning Junior Music, Dance, Variety, Music Group, Variety Juniors, Comedy, and Music.
Contestants, Judges, and What the First Two Nights Reveal
Across the first two nights, Star Search has already introduced a surprisingly broad mix of performers. Junior Music standouts Eric Adrien Williams and Blair Kudelka are just 11 and 10, but their résumés already include Broadway work and playing Young Dolly Parton at Dollywood. Dance winners and contenders like Movement 55 and Ladymetry bring professional-level formations from Los Angeles and Paris, while H3rizon blends Australian origins with an Atlanta music base.
Night 2 widens the lens even further, from Harry Merlin Piper’s Variety Juniors victory to Duo Vespertilio’s aerial work and the stand-up rhythms of JR De Guzman and Susan Rice. Macy & Tempo add a dog-act twist to Variety, and Issy Saadeh’s pop performance in the Music category builds a bridge from TikTok-era aesthetics back to the classic Star Search stage. Taken together, the first two nights underline Netflix’s promise of “a broader mix of performers, including musicians, dancers, comedians, and kids’ acts.”
The judges, however, remain a work in progress. Dehnart argues that Star Search’s “real misfire was the judging panel,” noting that the show might be stronger if Jelly Roll, Gellar, and Teigen occasionally stepped back and let the live scoring speak for itself. Still, their individual moments are already shaping the show’s personality—from Teigen’s warm enthusiasm to Gellar’s sharper critiques and Jelly Roll’s willingness to blurt out, “I’m so nervous right now, I think I gotta poop.”
At the same time, the combination of on-screen scoring and averaged home voting gives Netflix something broadcast rivals like America’s Got Talent and Dancing with the Stars have never fully cracked. Dehnart points out that co-showrunner Jason Raff brought some of his AGT storytelling instincts along, yet the intro packages here are shorter and less melodramatic, leaving more room for performances in a live, commercial-free hour.
What’s Next for Netflix’s First Live Competition Series
With two nights down and winners like Eric Adrien Williams, Movement 55, TJ Salta, H3rizon, Harry Merlin Piper, JR De Guzman, Duo Vespertilio, and Bear Bailey locked in, Netflix’s Star Search has started to define what a streaming-era live competition can look like. It is still a five-week experiment, and some of the early criticism—from long pre-performance packages to uneven judging—will need to be addressed if the show wants to stand alongside American Idol, The Voice, So You Think You Can Dance, and other talent franchises.
But the core idea is already clear. Star Search is back as a global, real-time talent hunt, and Netflix’s live voting system has turned fans into instant co-judges. As the season continues beyond Night 2, the big question is not just who will win but whether this format becomes Netflix’s blueprint for future live events. For now, Star Search has done exactly what a revival should do: honor its history while giving viewers a new way to decide who deserves those stars.
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