Zac Efron vs. Selena Gomez: Which former Disney star has the better utterly random TV show?

Vulture

"To be a Disney Channel star during the early aughts was to be comfortable playing with both extreme absurdity and extreme banality," says Rachel Handler. "Disney churned out dozens of high-concept shows and movies, the premises of which included: abandoned mermaids, cloning oneself, the travails of high-school theater, body-swapping, enjoying hockey, living in space, owning a horse, and battling a sentient house. For many years, Selena Gomez and Zac Efron — two of the Disney Channel’s early mainstays — each represented one end of the channel’s vast spectrum: on Wizards of Waverly Place, Gomez played the young daughter in a family of down-low wizards who lived in New York City; in the High School Musical franchise, Efron played a normal human boy who just wanted to play basketball while also doing amateur theater. I’d like to think that, if nothing else, this time spent navigating the destabilizing world of Disney prepared Gomez and Efron to take on their current projects, both of which are equal parts insane and quotidian and have absolutely nothing to do with their previous work. Beginning today, Gomez will be hosting an HBO Max cooking show titled Selena + Chef. Over on Netflix, Efron is hosting Down to Earth With Zac Efron, a travel show about sustainability. Fascinatingly, both admit up front that they are entirely unqualified to be hosting their respective series." ALSO: Selena Gomez is a blank slate on Selena + Chef: both inoffensively charming and relatable in her sweats.