Meh…I’d take The Shield, Deadwood, and Succession over that trio so definitely not universally recognised.

Comedy in general. Only HBO&HBO Max and the Hulu/FX teams seem to be having any consistent success with comedy. Everybody else either has an ultra high cancellation rate or barely ordered them anymore.

Remember when Showtime used to do comedy? Now they have one show and it has not even been renewed yet!

Ending was OK. Wrapped up most the ongoing season story arcs but definitely left some personal drama that would have carried into a 4th season of the show. You can definitely watch it and not feel like it ended on a massive cliffhanger though!

They cancel them quite regularly since the change of leadership a few years ago. I’m not sure Showtime as a network will last much longer. They are already talking about closing the cable channel.

I thought the problem for Amazon was investing billions into buying companies that have absolutely tanked and the write offs have been happening all of 2022?

Yeah…but those shows had built in audiences who loved watching them from their glory days on broadcast. Girls5Eva was a show nobody watched on Peacock (a service practically nobody subscribes to!) so it is a very different proposition. Netflix will have to sell this show like it is a brand new show. They can do it as they did just as much with You and Cobra Kai.

I’ll definitely be interested to see if Girls5Eva can breakout on Netflix. I’d not bet on it as new sitcoms generally bomb on Netflix. Very rarely you get a Cobra Kai or Emily in Paris that becomes a big hit. The list of misses is very large.

Bit of a strange pick-up by Netflix but at least we finally have a Peacock original getting a third season even if it had to move to a new platform to achieve it!

Sounds like they cancelled a very expensive Green Lantern show and just told Berlanti to make one on a CW budget instead!

I watched pretty much all the TV shows I’m interested in watching years ago when they actually aired. Chances are if I was super interested in watching a TV show or movie I’d not have waited years to do so.

If I was interested in watching a specific show again I’d be happy to sub for the month but I’m more into watching new TV I’ve not already seen before. Next big rewatch I’ll do will likely be Justified (in anticipation of the new limited series) but that ain’t on HBO.

I’m saying the catalog is not worth the extra $8 a month vs TV+. It is the best library of content in the industry but I’m not paying an extra $8 a month to rewatch shows I’ve already seen when there is so much great new content getting made here and now.

Yeah. TV+ delivers similar quality programming in a similar or higher volume at half the price.

For November HBO Max has The White Lotus, Titans, Pennyworth, and Sex Lives of College Girls. For November TV+ has Shantaram, Echo 3, The Mosquito Coast, Mythic Quest, and Acapulco.

Tell me again how HBO is better value nowadays than TV+? TV+ beats them on volume and matches them on quality and still costs half the price.

Even with the price increases it is still under half the price of HBO Max. TV+ gives you an equal or greater volume of new TV shows weekly than HBO Max. All they are missing is the Warner and HBO library but that is not worth the extra cash.

They did mention The Sandman as a show that performed well at their quarterly report so that bodes well for its future!

Yeah…it is not looking good for The Midnight Club. I’d not expect a renewal for that one. Always sad to see decent quality TV shows fail to find a good audience!

I definitely think the weird 3D animation style is turning people off. I started it on a whim and was really impressed by the story quality. A cool mix of space horror and introspective morally ambiguous sci-fi.

Some of the animation was simplistic but very pretty. It was specifically the character designs I found a bit ugly. Glad I gave it a go though as I got used to the animation style fairly quickly.

It is worth noting that The Watcher is a monster hit. The 125 million hours works out at 22.4 million equivalent complete viewings. That actually pips the 22.2 million Dahmer managed during its first week! These numbers place The Watcher on Bridgeron s2 level and absolutely make it another of Netflix’s biggest shows of 2022. Be interesting to see if it can grow and hold as well as Dahmer in the coming weeks.

As for Dahmer? It got 13.9 million in week 4. Superb hold. It gives it 93.4 million equivalent compete viewings through 4 weeks. That is on par with Stranger Things s4 and Money Heist. Only show significantly bigger than Dahmer for Netflix is Squid Game!

Two massive hits in the space of a month for Murphy and Netflix!

Elsewhere The Midnight Club recovered a bit but still only managed 5.5 million eqv’s. That gives it only around 8 million through 2 weeks. It is DOA.

The Empress (4.9 million) and High Water (7 million) continue to hold and perform well in their second and third weeks but all the new foreign language shows have failed to make an impact. Even The Playlist which I figured might be a breakout hit.

The Dahmer companion docu-series racked up another 9.2 million equivalent complete viewings this week. It has been a big success for Netflix and dropping it two weeks after the Dahmer drama series was very beneficial for them.

Animated sci-fi show Exception failed to chart. I quite enjoyed this one so that is a real pity! It felt like a limited series though so if you are thinking about watching it do not let the fact that it is sinking without a trace in the viewership charts hold you back from giving it a go.

Netflix is actually profitable nowadays. That is significant because it has an ARPU about twice as high as Amazon Prime but Prime has a content budget less than half of that of Netflix. My guess is that is enough to make Prime very close to break even levels.

No doubt Apple are losing a ton of cash. They spend almost as much as Amazon on the service, charge a lot less, and have practically no subscribers. They do have the cash to lose money for a while and continue to build the service at a time when others are struggling with sluggish growth and economic tailwinds.

You might be right that either of those streamers might have been an alternative home for The Sandman but I’m not sure Amazon would have given $160 million to an IP as obscure as The Sandman. They do spend big but usually only on IP or top tier creatives. Apple probably would have though as they do spend top dollar on completely original IP or more obscure IP like The Sandman.

No. It is still awaiting renewal.

Same thing happening right now with Westworld…

The Sandman would never have been made on any other service. Rumours have it costing over $160 million for the first season! It was a hit show but it really needed to be a mega hit rather than a show that just did slightly better than Keep Breathing, Anatomy of a Scandal, and Never Have I Ever.

It probably will get renewed as long as they can get the budget down for a second season.