Tony
Welcome to IIS and well done on buying a scope.
You have encountered the first thing that new observers find out, that a telescope is not a guarantee of seeing views like the wonderful images we see in the media.
As mentioned stars are points. They are so far away that even the most powerful telescopes in the world cannot resolved a disc on more than a handful of them. But if you think about it, that is something marvelous in itself. If you find Betelguese in the night sky and you check it out all you see is a point of light. But this is an object so vast that if it was to replace the sun, it would extend to way past the orbit of Mars!
With planets you are lucky ATM. There are 3 planets easily observed right now. Jupiter is lowish in the North West sky. It is the brightest object in that part of the sky. Mars is near Spica in Virgo and is a fairly bright red object in the eastern sky. Saturn rises fairly late in the evening so you will need to be patient for it to rise high enough to observe and is a moderately bright, faintly yellowish point sitting north of Scorpio's claws.
With higher power eyepieces, be careful. More power also magnifies any atmospheric distortions which are even more apparent when the planets are low. This can make them harder to observe successfully. Patience and good conditions are needed for planets!
Cheers
Malcolm