Effective satire has to dig underneath the skin of its target to get at an unspoken truth. The Studio, the latest prestigious comedy series from AppleTV+, has its sights set on some of the lowest-hanging fruit available – Hollywood – but rarely has anything insightful or biting to say that hasn’t already been said over the years. It’s the kind of star-studded affair where it feels like co-creator and star Seth Rogen has pulled together as many famous friends and previous collaborators as an attempt to poke the eyes of the system the show is skewering, but plays it safe in order to ensure everybody’s reputation escapes intact. Though it’s more handsomely mounted than its modern contemporaries – 30 Rock and The Other Two, to name a few – The Studio lacks those series’ key insights and specificities.

Some of this would be more forgivable if the characters at the center of The Studio were as three dimensional as any of the films they profess to love. This mostly manifests as Matt Remick (Rogen), the newly minted head of Continental Studios, who wants to be remembered as a champion for cinema. But his attempts to make the next Rosemary’s Baby or Annie Hall are hampered by executives who value the almighty dollar over any kind of artistic integrity. “We make movies, not films” is a common refrain hurled at Matt from any of the stockholder-loving executives responsible for keeping him in check.

Fortunately his staunchest ally is Quinn (season 1 MVP Chase Sui Wonders), his faithful assistant who’s promoted as an executive once he levels up. Unfortunately he frequently has to get the approval and cooperation of fellow creative executive Sal (Ike Barinholz), the marketing team led by Maya (Kathryn Hahn), and any number of bumbling dolts and oversized egos festering at the fringes of the Hollywood system.

Where The Studio shines is in its comedy-of-errors plotting, as each episode presents a kind of self-contained ecosystem where Continental is simply trying to pull itself back from the brink of disaster in any number of ways. One episode sees Matt visiting the set of Sarah Polley’s latest film as they try to achieve the perfect one-take sequence, but Matt and his love of technically precise filmmaking often gets in the way. The season premiere sees Matt trying to please his corporate overlords by making a Kool-Aid movie, but trying to make something with artistic merit by bringing in a big-name director (whose appearance and motivations I won’t dare spoil).

Yes, real-life celebrities and filmmakers like Sarah Polley, Olivia Wilde, Zac Efron, Anthony Mackie, Parker Finn, and Ron Howard make cameo appearances as themselves throughout The Studio, and while it’s always fun to see these figures often poking fun at their own outsized personas, it gets in the way of the show really skewering the Hollywood machine in a deep way. One can easily envision series creators Rogen, Evan Goldberg, Peter Huyck, Alex Gregory, and Frida Perez getting these A-listers on board by ensuring they’ll be able to have fun without making them look too unsavory.

But all of this celebrity exposure comes at the expense of knowing these characters and what makes them tick besides their very basic character traits introduced in the first episode. It’s not until episode 5 (a season highlight) when we finally see Quinn and Sal outside of work, and even then, we don’t necessarily learn anything new or intriguing about them. Thankfully none of the main personalities venture into unlikeable territory, mean-spirited as they can be, but they all have some manner of redeeming qualities to them.

All of this may sound like dour stuff, but The Studio is at least an easily digestible watch. Episodes hover around the 30 minute mark, and feature a number of frequently hilarious jokes uttered by genuinely funny personalities. Insults – of which there are plenty – may not reach the gloriously depraved levels of Veep, but they’re refreshingly original. Rogen and Goldberg, who direct each episode, keep the pace going at breakneck speed; each episode unfolds as a series of impressively complex oners that weaves throughout the scenes. Even when you’re not totally engaged with The Studio‘s plot developments, it’s hard not to be rapt by the show’s technical prowess.

If a second season comes along for The Studio, it can hopefully provide Rogen, Goldberg, and the creative team the opportunity to deepen our understanding of this world and to hone in on the satire. As it stands, the show is perfectly fine, even when it stands in the shadows of comparable series. If they simply wanted to make a silly, breezy show about Hollywood and movie-making, The Studio succeeds. But it’s hard not to want more from what ultimately amounts to unrealized potential.

The Studio premieres on AppleTV+ on March 26 with two episodes, with subsequent episodes releasing each Friday.