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As a TV critic, it’s always a delight to find a show is better than you think it will be. That refreshing feeling is something I encountered last week while I was binge-watching YouTube Red‘s latest series, Step Up: High Water. The teen drama has everything I could ever want from a Step Up series — great acting, smart writing, beautiful cinematography, a plot that went beyond the typical dance movie, killer music, and of course jaw-dropping performances. It’s a good show and one that I encourage everyone to check out, especially now that the first four episodes of the series are streaming for free. However, as I was gasping at plot twists and dancing in my seat, I couldn’t help but feel nervous about the show’s fate. Step Up: High Water is a good show. The jury’s still out on YouTube Red.

As a streaming service, YouTube Red is a very good, if not fairly expensive one (it’s $9.99 a month compared to Netflix’s $10.99 a month and Hulu’s $7.99 but with fewer original shows). Based on my personal experience, the streaming service seems to have load times that either rival or surpass Netflix, and the picture and sound are always crystal clear. Its content is also on the rise. In addition to the many YouTube celebrities who have special YouTube Red deals, the platform also has shows from Dan Harmon and Dwayne Johnson. YouTube Red should be in a great position to bridge the gap between streaming-friendly millennial audiences and Gen Z viewers. However, YouTube Red will always be connected to YouTube, and right now, YouTube isn’t in the best spot.

Though YouTube’s status as the default video streaming platform for the internet has been cemented, YouTube the company is one that has been plagued by scandals recently. YouTube’s PR problems really started to gain momentum early in 2017 after the Wall Street Journal investigated several of PewDiePie’s anti-Semitic videos. Of the videos mentioned in the article, one featured two paid men holding a sign that says “Death to all Jews” and another featured an actor dressed as Jesus saying, “Hitler did nothing wrong.” Disney cut ties with the creator after this scandal, and YouTube Red cancelled PewDiePie’s series. Then there was the bizarre controversy around YouTube’s children’s content. Channels that featured seemingly innocent videos and nursery rhymes quickly led to more sexually charged and violent content featuring children’s characters. This trend can be followed back as far as December of 2015, but in 2017 it became a more noticeable trend with several different sites covering these videos. YouTube claimed that it solved this problem by creating a whole new platform for kids called YouTube Kids, but as recently as this week disturbing videos have still been found in YouTube’s children’s section. This week also featured an apology from another scandal-plagued YouTube star — the prankster personality Arya Mosallah. In his flagged video, Mosallah pretended to throw acid in people’s faces, a serious form of attack that has increased in recent years. And then there’s Logan Paul.

The YouTube celebrity went viral this year after filming a dead body he found in Japan’s Aokigahara forest, which is also known as the “suicide forest.” Sporting a green hat from the Toy Story franchise, Paul almost gleefully details his reaction to seeing the body, even using a screenshot of the suicide victim in his thumbnail for the video. In response to public outrage against the video, YouTube kicked Paul off the YouTube Red series Foursome and put his new movie The Thinning: New World Order on hold. Even if you know very little about the world of YouTube celebrities, you likely know Logan Paul’s name, and that’s a very bad thing for YouTube Red.

The fledgling streaming service doesn’t just have to compete with competitors like Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, and Apple when it comes to original content. It also has to overcome its own reputation. YouTube’s free option has recently been working to overcome the obstacles that come with its Wild West platform, instating stricter procedures for monetization all throughout last year. But, as my colleague Meghan O’Keefe phrased it during her breakout piece on YouTube Red at TCA 2018, with so many scandals in the recent past, it’s difficult to see YouTube’s promises as more than “platitudes about how they needed to ‘protect the community of creators, users, and advertisers.'”

And it’s a shame because YouTube Red has produced something truly great with Step Up: High Water. With this new series, the streaming service has created a show that can confidently stand next to some of Netflix, Hulu, or the CW’s offerings. There is potential and space for YouTube Red to become a must-watch TV platform. The fact that a YouTube Red subscription comes with an ad-free YouTube experience should be a sizable incentive for anyone. I’m not sure how the streaming service will manage to achieve that. Playing up the diversity of its programming and embracing the very talented performers who have naturally found a home on YouTube’s platform feels like a great start. YouTube has always understood a certain demographic or viewers better than any other platform. Also, the platform’s upcoming originals —Impulse, Youth & Consequences, and Best Shot — all sound promising. However, to reach the level of prestige TV YouTube Red seems to want to achieve, it needs to first overcome itself.

Stream Step Up: High Water on YouTube Red