21 ms·

I really hope they don't lose focus on the quality of their original content. I understand that not everything Netflix does is tailored to me, particularly due

I really hope they don't lose focus on the quality of their original content. I understand that not everything Netflix does is tailored to me, particularly due to Netflix' growing, increasingly mainstream audience, diverse and varying preferences, more ground to cover, etc. However lately Netflix' content simply seems to lack substance to me. It feels as if it's just the superficial result of throwing a promising combination of those very specific tags/categories the services is famous for onto the assembly line and ending up with a show or film that, while ticking all the boxes and not being bad at all, is still pretty far off the masterpieces of the medium. I'm not sure if classics like The Wire, The Sopranos or Mad Men could have been created with such a formulaic approach and I'm missing shows of that caliber on Netflix. Maybe the service should offer brillant content creators the freedom and opportunity to do the shows they want to do, instead of dictating the theme and framework.

night815 10y ago
What are some shows you like and don't like that Netflix made?
- thirdsun 10y ago
  House Of Cards was very, very promising in its early seasons. It almost felt like a future alltime favorite, but declined after Season 1. Better Call Saul is shaping up very nicely and Fargo turned out to be better than I expected. Other than that there are many solid shows, and even more mediocre and lackluster ones I don't enjoy. However, that's not exactly my concern - I understand that only a subset of the content might appeal to me. The problem is that the part that does isn't on par with the very best the medium has to offer and I'm not sure if Netflix' current approach to content creation is a good approach to raise the quality.
  - ssully 10y ago
    Neither Better Call Saul or Fargo are made by Netflix. BCS is an AMC show and Fargo I believe is FX.
    - thirdsun 10y ago
      Of course, you're right - in my country they are both Netflix-exclusives and it's easy to forget that it doesn't necessarily mean original content. Still, it emphasizes my point.
      - zerocrates 10y ago
        Do they brand them as "Netflix Originals" there? Netflix has an annoying tendency to do that in the US when they're merely the first or exclusive local distributor.
    - mercer 10y ago
      I find FX to be the best of the bunch for a while now, and I think it's precisely because they're like the non-ticking-boxes, less-formulaic weird little brother to the others: Atlanta, Fargo, Louie, Always Sunny, Better Things, and Legion. And that's not even mentioning the 'classics': Justified, Terriers (underrated, must-watch!), The Shield, as well as the earlier season(s) of Sons of Anarchy and The Americans.
      - iamatworknow 10y ago
        Not sure about the others, but Louis CK took a substantially smaller offer financially from FX as opposed to other networks because they were the only one that allowed him to do what he wanted with little interference, which certainly sounds like a positive thing for making original content.
  - autarch 10y ago
    Fargo is made by FX and Better Call Saul is AMC.
surge 10y ago
I can name at least a few shows that are at least on par with the ones named: House of Cards Orange Is the New Black Narcos Stranger Things The Crown You're also naming one of a kind series most of whom are HBO produced. Sounds like you just like HBO, but even HBO doesn't put out shows like that every year. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_original_programs_distributed_by_Netflix https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_original_programs_dist... That said, they have real numbers so there will be more of a bent for casual less involved shows that probably reach a wider audience. That said, I don't seem to have a problem finding high caliber shows, but I'm also a sucker for the Marvel shows, etc they've been producing and happy to watch those A&E shows on Netflix or Amazon Prime.
- waistland01 10y ago
  You're in the very small minority if you feel like House of Cards, Narcos, Stranger Things and The Crown are on par with The Sopranos and Mad Men. Orange is the New Black might have an argument to be put in the same atmosphere as those shows, but the others simply do not.
  - jorvi 10y ago
    Uhm, actually, you are the minority here. OTNB is the 'worst' of all of those Netflix offerings, and House of Cards eclipses both Mad Men and The Sopranos easily, although I'll cede that the later seasons are not as strong.
  - skinnymuch 10y ago
    Orange is the New Black is the one show that doesn't fit in with the rest for me. Consensus wise, it isn't any better than the other shows mentioned for Netflix. Again, consensus wise Sopranos and Mad Men are considered better but that they are rare shows.
jacquesm 10y ago
Netflix is where great stuff goes to die. Compare the Netflix versions of Black Mirror and Sherlock Holmes with the ones put out by the BBC. The Netflix stuff just drags on-and-on to fit their format.
- noir_lord 10y ago
  The Netflix version of Dirk Gently was substantially better than the BBC UK version even controlling for the difference in budget (however BBC America was involved).
  - jacquesm 10y ago
    Haven't seen that, thank for the tip.
    - noir_lord 10y ago
      It doesn't follow the books all that closely but does a delightful job of capturing the absurdity of Douglas Adams world in a way that translates well to the screen.
  - noja 10y ago
    If the Netflix version is better, how good was the BBC version? :/
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- chrisseaton 10y ago
  > Compare the Netflix versions of Black Mirror and Sherlock Holmes with the ones put out by the BBC Black Mirror was never made by the BBC, and all episodes of Sherlock were made by the BBC not by Netflix, so neither of your examples make any sense and don't allow you to compare what you are saying they would.
- endorphone 10y ago
  I can't speak to Sherlock Holmes, but Season 3 of Black Mirror is extraordinary. Nosedive could have been edited down substantially, but so could White Christmas or Fifteen Million Merits from the seasons before. I don't agree at all that there was any Netflix degradation. Abstract is triple-A. A Chef's Table is triple-A. Stranger Things is triple-A. We all have a sort of cynical habit of presuming that things once were good, and now they aren't. But Netflix has always been a mix of good and bad original content, especially when viewed from the subjective eye that what some of us think is great others think is terrible. They're trying to serve all markets.
jwl 10y ago
> However lately Netflix' content simply seems to lack substance to me. It feels as if it's just the superficial result of throwing a promising combination of those very specific tags/categories the services is famous for onto the assembly line and ending up with a show or film that, while ticking all the boxes and not being bad at all, is still pretty far off the masterpieces of the medium. That is very much the feeling I got from Stranger Things. It is solid in almost every way, but it also felt like it was written to maximize variables and checkboxes from a user survey. Add characters, references and stylistic choices to get the most 80's nostalgic feeling in the viewer as possible.
- seibelj 10y ago
  I loved Stranger Things, as a die-hard X-Files fan (and similar type shows and movies) it was perfect for me.
  - bitJericho 10y ago
    I felt that way too, until the ending. Every netflix show ends the same way. It was one checkmark too much. I really hope they start being a little more surprising.
    - nojvek 10y ago
      Iron fist was a giant disappointment. Netflix could have done a much better job. I don't know how much marvel is to blame though.
      - cavanasm 10y ago
        I generally enjoyed Iron Fist, but I definitely felt it was slower paced than any of the other Netflix Marvel series. It really felt like they were staging things for the Defenders (whenever that ends up coming out, although I hope this year).
        ribosometronome 10y ago
Retric 10y ago
TV and cable puts out a lot of shows, so their top 5% is going to be better than netflixes average. But, IMO Netflix's average is fairly decent. It can also take a while for a show to hit it's groove. http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GrowingTheBeard http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GrowingTheBeard
untog 10y ago
I believe that is literally how they made House of Cards - the original BBC show was relatively popular with people who also liked Kevin Spacey and work by David Fincher: https://thenextweb.com/insider/2016/03/20/data-inspires-creativity/ https://thenextweb.com/insider/2016/03/20/data-inspires-crea... I can't argue against that kind of logic but also agree that it leaves Netflix offerings quite flat. The Crown is also a very good show, but you can almost feel the cross-section of Downton Abbey and The Kings Speech as you watch. I don't think you'd see the algorithm come up with a show like Transparent, for example. IMO it's gotten worse with all this Marvel stuff. Maybe that's because I see it promoted more than other shows, but having tried a few they're pretty uninspired (and, for crossover purposes, all appear to share the same setting and overall feel). I know it isn't the case, but it feels like the algorithm has reached some sort of recursion loop: our viewers like gritty crime dramas starring superheroes, set in New York. So they'll love this new gritty crime drama starring a superhero, set in New York.
- thirdsun 10y ago
  It's ironic then that I regard House Of Cards' early seasons, particularly Season 1, as Netflix' best content to date. To me it felt as if they really aimed for a masterpiece. These days they seem to be fine with catering to popular categories, which might very well be the better approach when it comes to subscriber growth, but average to solid content straight from the Marvel template.
- piva00 10y ago
  I'm with you on the Marvel side, even more because they really push the formulaic cross-referencing of characters/situations. I can remember one line in "Luke Cage" from Barnett saying "I'm going back to Hell's Kitchen", sounds very cheesy in that context and kinda broke the suspension of disbelief when watching, even though I think that "Luke Cage" is one of the best Marvel series on Netflix right now.
  - zimzam 10y ago
    What's cheesy about that line? Hell's Kitchen is a real neighborhood in NYC.
crispyambulance 10y ago
> It feels as if it's just the superficial result of throwing a promising combination of those very specific tags/categories the services is famous for onto the assembly line and ending up with a show or film that, while ticking all the boxes and not being bad at all, is still pretty far off the masterpieces of the medium By definition "masterpieces" are very rare things. They're decidedly not assembly line material. I think Netflix and Amazon have done well against far more established media outlets. That said, if you really want "wall-to-wall" masterpieces, there's a streaming service for that: filmstruck (https://www.filmstruck.com/ https://www.filmstruck.com/). It has the entire magnificent criterion collection. The thing is, however, you have to think of it more as a library rather than an outlet for the newest stuff.
yeukhon 10y ago
> However lately Netflix' content simply seems to lack substance to me. I want to echo this as well. One thing about American TV content is that the story plot is very repetitive in nature. Netflix and other similar providers' original contents are very much either a superhero or a crime chaser plot. Furthermore I also dislike breaking content into seasons. It keeps audience around so more money but I am just very inpatient when it comes to TV content. In China / Hong Kong, most drama do not release in parts. So say there are 40 episodes it will have 40 episodes completed when the drama is aired. When you drag your drama plot beyond season 3 the story gets boring. Walking Dead, House of Cards, Orange is the New Black, Blacklist, dragging on. I want some more refreshing content. This is why I love cartoon contents like Bob's Burger or watching documentary. I get some breathing room.
- geodel 10y ago
  Also I find as much the complex plot in different shows, the politics or beliefs of protagonists remain incredibly uniform and simplistic to the cartoonish level.
  - iamatworknow 10y ago
    I'm at the point where I feel like I can't start watching any new show because I will be able to predict everything that happens before it happens, making the whole thing feel like a waste of time. The storytelling is boring and the foreshadowing is more like foreshouting due to how obvious they make it. Case in point, I never read the books and I put off watching Game of Thrones for a very long time until my brother finally convinced me to give it a shot a few months ago. When he came to me asking about how shocked I was about what happened at the end of the first season I literally laughed in his face because it was telegraphed from episode 1.
    - yeukhon 10y ago
      Yeah, I hate the foreshadowing. Sure thing super hero cartoon we know the bad guys will lose at the end, but cartoon makes things more interesting.
sandworm101 10y ago
Part of the problem is that they are combining US and British (bbc) tv production schemes. The US focuses on market data, the box ticking. But this requires ongoing feedback during production. That's why US pilots are so different than the eventual series. The bbc selects a show for production run without data or pilots. They rely on expert opinion to greenlight a far shorter initial run. If a show is a miss it disappears after six episodes. Netflix is doing both, resulting in shows that lack market feedback during a long season (iron fist) yet also seem to be boxticking (stranger things). This is a tricky path and while sometimes it works (stranger things) often it doesnt (ASOUE).
dagw 10y ago
I'm missing shows of that caliber on Netflix. I quite like that Netflix isn't focusing on mega hit prestige shows like those you mention, but rather seem to focus quirky niche shows like Dirk Gently, A Very Secret Service and The Expanse that aren't to most peoples taste.
- DanBC 10y ago
  Who makes A Very Secret Service?
  - dagw 10y ago
    Don't know, but it's presented as a Netflix branded "Netflix Original Series".
    - DanBC 10y ago
      But they do that with a bunch of stuff that they haven't made. They do it with the BBC shows that they carry.
      - dagw 10y ago
        True, but their willingness to seek out and plaster their names all over these shows (and no doubt pay for the privilege) is a good indication that it is the sort of thing they seem to be into.
- jessaustin 10y ago
  The Expanse is great but it's made by [EDIT, thanks 'winthrowe:] some other studio. Syfy were right to buy it because it is so much better than anything Syfy have ever created... whatever was done right here, they should try to do some of it.
  - winthrowe 10y ago
    It's not made by Syfy, the top rights belong to Alcon; Syfy just is the exclusive American distributor.
kochthesecond 10y ago
Narcos could be up there for me. But it is also tailored to my love of Goodfellas.
Shivetya 10y ago
my concern is letting the normally diverse catalog dwindle in favor of more original content. They did seem to go a bit overboard for me in the superhero stuff but I can live with it and some was interesting. I just don't want keep not finding shows I expect or have seen before. I like older TV series and cannot see the costs in getting even stuff from further back. Is there no market or is there a service I need to look at?
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
olavk 10y ago
How about Making a Murderer? That one had plenty of substance.
- thirdsun 10y ago
  Yes, fair point. That's the kind of content I actually did enjoy a lot.
gdilla 10y ago
Sure, but these shows are still produced and written by the same industry insiders that made the Wire and the sopranos. The ideas may be more data informed, but good art is still good art because it's produced by great artists. Counterpoint is there's plenty of episodic crap on broadcast TV with lots of cancellations. Netflix seems to have a much better track record.
sametmax 10y ago
Daredevil and Jessica Jones were a pleasure to watch. Not cult TV shows, but how many of those appear in a lifetime ?
- clubm8 10y ago
  That's the thing... Netflix is skilled at producing "good" shows but not necessarily "great" shows. The third season of Black Mirror is pretty much the only content that I'll rewatch over and and over like I would, say, The Wire. But if I want to veg out and watch something "pretty good" stuff like Master of None and Love are decent.
  - sametmax 10y ago
    I hear you. How ever how long netflix have been producing content ? Which content producer can be said to regularly produce exceptional content ? I would say none. It's usually a blip on a consistent and durable production of good content on the long run. And a matter of taste too. I consider SG1 and Buffy my top 10 while a lot of people would just find them "meh". We need also to consider that netflix content has one quality: it's refreshing. The OA, Luke Cage, 3% all had personal taste.
    - jon-wood 10y ago
      I've never seen an HBO show I didn't think was excellent. The Pacific wasn't as good as Band of Brothers, but that's not exactly a damning statement.
tptacek 10y ago
What makes you think "the classics" weren't produced in the same way? The Sopranos was originally pitched as a network TV show.

night815 10y ago

What are some shows you like and don't like that Netflix made?

thirdsun 10y ago
House Of Cards was very, very promising in its early seasons. It almost felt like a future alltime favorite, but declined after Season 1. Better Call Saul is shaping up very nicely and Fargo turned out to be better than I expected. Other than that there are many solid shows, and even more mediocre and lackluster ones I don't enjoy. However, that's not exactly my concern - I understand that only a subset of the content might appeal to me. The problem is that the part that does isn't on par with the very best the medium has to offer and I'm not sure if Netflix' current approach to content creation is a good approach to raise the quality.
- ssully 10y ago
  Neither Better Call Saul or Fargo are made by Netflix. BCS is an AMC show and Fargo I believe is FX.
  - thirdsun 10y ago
    Of course, you're right - in my country they are both Netflix-exclusives and it's easy to forget that it doesn't necessarily mean original content. Still, it emphasizes my point.
    - zerocrates 10y ago
      Do they brand them as "Netflix Originals" there? Netflix has an annoying tendency to do that in the US when they're merely the first or exclusive local distributor.
  - mercer 10y ago
    I find FX to be the best of the bunch for a while now, and I think it's precisely because they're like the non-ticking-boxes, less-formulaic weird little brother to the others: Atlanta, Fargo, Louie, Always Sunny, Better Things, and Legion. And that's not even mentioning the 'classics': Justified, Terriers (underrated, must-watch!), The Shield, as well as the earlier season(s) of Sons of Anarchy and The Americans.
    - iamatworknow 10y ago
      Not sure about the others, but Louis CK took a substantially smaller offer financially from FX as opposed to other networks because they were the only one that allowed him to do what he wanted with little interference, which certainly sounds like a positive thing for making original content.
- autarch 10y ago
  Fargo is made by FX and Better Call Saul is AMC.

surge 10y ago

I can name at least a few shows that are at least on par with the ones named: House of Cards Orange Is the New Black Narcos Stranger Things The Crown You're also naming one of a kind series most of whom are HBO produced. Sounds like you just like HBO, but even HBO doesn't put out shows like that every year. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_original_programs_distributed_by_Netflix https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_original_programs_dist... That said, they have real numbers so there will be more of a bent for casual less involved shows that probably reach a wider audience. That said, I don't seem to have a problem finding high caliber shows, but I'm also a sucker for the Marvel shows, etc they've been producing and happy to watch those A&E shows on Netflix or Amazon Prime.

waistland01 10y ago
You're in the very small minority if you feel like House of Cards, Narcos, Stranger Things and The Crown are on par with The Sopranos and Mad Men. Orange is the New Black might have an argument to be put in the same atmosphere as those shows, but the others simply do not.
- jorvi 10y ago
  Uhm, actually, you are the minority here. OTNB is the 'worst' of all of those Netflix offerings, and House of Cards eclipses both Mad Men and The Sopranos easily, although I'll cede that the later seasons are not as strong.
- skinnymuch 10y ago
  Orange is the New Black is the one show that doesn't fit in with the rest for me. Consensus wise, it isn't any better than the other shows mentioned for Netflix. Again, consensus wise Sopranos and Mad Men are considered better but that they are rare shows.

jacquesm 10y ago

Netflix is where great stuff goes to die. Compare the Netflix versions of Black Mirror and Sherlock Holmes with the ones put out by the BBC. The Netflix stuff just drags on-and-on to fit their format.

noir_lord 10y ago
The Netflix version of Dirk Gently was substantially better than the BBC UK version even controlling for the difference in budget (however BBC America was involved).
- jacquesm 10y ago
  Haven't seen that, thank for the tip.
  - noir_lord 10y ago
    It doesn't follow the books all that closely but does a delightful job of capturing the absurdity of Douglas Adams world in a way that translates well to the screen.
- noja 10y ago
  If the Netflix version is better, how good was the BBC version? :/
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
chrisseaton 10y ago
> Compare the Netflix versions of Black Mirror and Sherlock Holmes with the ones put out by the BBC Black Mirror was never made by the BBC, and all episodes of Sherlock were made by the BBC not by Netflix, so neither of your examples make any sense and don't allow you to compare what you are saying they would.
endorphone 10y ago
I can't speak to Sherlock Holmes, but Season 3 of Black Mirror is extraordinary. Nosedive could have been edited down substantially, but so could White Christmas or Fifteen Million Merits from the seasons before. I don't agree at all that there was any Netflix degradation. Abstract is triple-A. A Chef's Table is triple-A. Stranger Things is triple-A. We all have a sort of cynical habit of presuming that things once were good, and now they aren't. But Netflix has always been a mix of good and bad original content, especially when viewed from the subjective eye that what some of us think is great others think is terrible. They're trying to serve all markets.

jwl 10y ago

> However lately Netflix' content simply seems to lack substance to me. It feels as if it's just the superficial result of throwing a promising combination of those very specific tags/categories the services is famous for onto the assembly line and ending up with a show or film that, while ticking all the boxes and not being bad at all, is still pretty far off the masterpieces of the medium. That is very much the feeling I got from Stranger Things. It is solid in almost every way, but it also felt like it was written to maximize variables and checkboxes from a user survey. Add characters, references and stylistic choices to get the most 80's nostalgic feeling in the viewer as possible.

seibelj 10y ago
I loved Stranger Things, as a die-hard X-Files fan (and similar type shows and movies) it was perfect for me.
- bitJericho 10y ago
  I felt that way too, until the ending. Every netflix show ends the same way. It was one checkmark too much. I really hope they start being a little more surprising.
  - nojvek 10y ago
    Iron fist was a giant disappointment. Netflix could have done a much better job. I don't know how much marvel is to blame though.
    - cavanasm 10y ago
      I generally enjoyed Iron Fist, but I definitely felt it was slower paced than any of the other Netflix Marvel series. It really felt like they were staging things for the Defenders (whenever that ends up coming out, although I hope this year).
      - ribosometronome 10y ago

Retric 10y ago

TV and cable puts out a lot of shows, so their top 5% is going to be better than netflixes average. But, IMO Netflix's average is fairly decent. It can also take a while for a show to hit it's groove. http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GrowingTheBeard http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GrowingTheBeard

untog 10y ago

I believe that is literally how they made House of Cards - the original BBC show was relatively popular with people who also liked Kevin Spacey and work by David Fincher: https://thenextweb.com/insider/2016/03/20/data-inspires-creativity/ https://thenextweb.com/insider/2016/03/20/data-inspires-crea... I can't argue against that kind of logic but also agree that it leaves Netflix offerings quite flat. The Crown is also a very good show, but you can almost feel the cross-section of Downton Abbey and The Kings Speech as you watch. I don't think you'd see the algorithm come up with a show like Transparent, for example. IMO it's gotten worse with all this Marvel stuff. Maybe that's because I see it promoted more than other shows, but having tried a few they're pretty uninspired (and, for crossover purposes, all appear to share the same setting and overall feel). I know it isn't the case, but it feels like the algorithm has reached some sort of recursion loop: our viewers like gritty crime dramas starring superheroes, set in New York. So they'll love this new gritty crime drama starring a superhero, set in New York.

thirdsun 10y ago
It's ironic then that I regard House Of Cards' early seasons, particularly Season 1, as Netflix' best content to date. To me it felt as if they really aimed for a masterpiece. These days they seem to be fine with catering to popular categories, which might very well be the better approach when it comes to subscriber growth, but average to solid content straight from the Marvel template.
piva00 10y ago
I'm with you on the Marvel side, even more because they really push the formulaic cross-referencing of characters/situations. I can remember one line in "Luke Cage" from Barnett saying "I'm going back to Hell's Kitchen", sounds very cheesy in that context and kinda broke the suspension of disbelief when watching, even though I think that "Luke Cage" is one of the best Marvel series on Netflix right now.
- zimzam 10y ago
  What's cheesy about that line? Hell's Kitchen is a real neighborhood in NYC.

crispyambulance 10y ago

> It feels as if it's just the superficial result of throwing a promising combination of those very specific tags/categories the services is famous for onto the assembly line and ending up with a show or film that, while ticking all the boxes and not being bad at all, is still pretty far off the masterpieces of the medium By definition "masterpieces" are very rare things. They're decidedly not assembly line material. I think Netflix and Amazon have done well against far more established media outlets. That said, if you really want "wall-to-wall" masterpieces, there's a streaming service for that: filmstruck (https://www.filmstruck.com/ https://www.filmstruck.com/). It has the entire magnificent criterion collection. The thing is, however, you have to think of it more as a library rather than an outlet for the newest stuff.

yeukhon 10y ago

> However lately Netflix' content simply seems to lack substance to me. I want to echo this as well. One thing about American TV content is that the story plot is very repetitive in nature. Netflix and other similar providers' original contents are very much either a superhero or a crime chaser plot. Furthermore I also dislike breaking content into seasons. It keeps audience around so more money but I am just very inpatient when it comes to TV content. In China / Hong Kong, most drama do not release in parts. So say there are 40 episodes it will have 40 episodes completed when the drama is aired. When you drag your drama plot beyond season 3 the story gets boring. Walking Dead, House of Cards, Orange is the New Black, Blacklist, dragging on. I want some more refreshing content. This is why I love cartoon contents like Bob's Burger or watching documentary. I get some breathing room.

geodel 10y ago
Also I find as much the complex plot in different shows, the politics or beliefs of protagonists remain incredibly uniform and simplistic to the cartoonish level.
- iamatworknow 10y ago
  I'm at the point where I feel like I can't start watching any new show because I will be able to predict everything that happens before it happens, making the whole thing feel like a waste of time. The storytelling is boring and the foreshadowing is more like foreshouting due to how obvious they make it. Case in point, I never read the books and I put off watching Game of Thrones for a very long time until my brother finally convinced me to give it a shot a few months ago. When he came to me asking about how shocked I was about what happened at the end of the first season I literally laughed in his face because it was telegraphed from episode 1.
  - yeukhon 10y ago
    Yeah, I hate the foreshadowing. Sure thing super hero cartoon we know the bad guys will lose at the end, but cartoon makes things more interesting.

sandworm101 10y ago

Part of the problem is that they are combining US and British (bbc) tv production schemes. The US focuses on market data, the box ticking. But this requires ongoing feedback during production. That's why US pilots are so different than the eventual series. The bbc selects a show for production run without data or pilots. They rely on expert opinion to greenlight a far shorter initial run. If a show is a miss it disappears after six episodes. Netflix is doing both, resulting in shows that lack market feedback during a long season (iron fist) yet also seem to be boxticking (stranger things). This is a tricky path and while sometimes it works (stranger things) often it doesnt (ASOUE).

dagw 10y ago

I'm missing shows of that caliber on Netflix. I quite like that Netflix isn't focusing on mega hit prestige shows like those you mention, but rather seem to focus quirky niche shows like Dirk Gently, A Very Secret Service and The Expanse that aren't to most peoples taste.

DanBC 10y ago
Who makes A Very Secret Service?
- dagw 10y ago
  Don't know, but it's presented as a Netflix branded "Netflix Original Series".
  - DanBC 10y ago
    But they do that with a bunch of stuff that they haven't made. They do it with the BBC shows that they carry.
    - dagw 10y ago
      True, but their willingness to seek out and plaster their names all over these shows (and no doubt pay for the privilege) is a good indication that it is the sort of thing they seem to be into.
jessaustin 10y ago
The Expanse is great but it's made by [EDIT, thanks 'winthrowe:] some other studio. Syfy were right to buy it because it is so much better than anything Syfy have ever created... whatever was done right here, they should try to do some of it.
- winthrowe 10y ago
  It's not made by Syfy, the top rights belong to Alcon; Syfy just is the exclusive American distributor.

kochthesecond 10y ago

Narcos could be up there for me. But it is also tailored to my love of Goodfellas.

Shivetya 10y ago

my concern is letting the normally diverse catalog dwindle in favor of more original content. They did seem to go a bit overboard for me in the superhero stuff but I can live with it and some was interesting. I just don't want keep not finding shows I expect or have seen before. I like older TV series and cannot see the costs in getting even stuff from further back. Is there no market or is there a service I need to look at?

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

olavk 10y ago

How about Making a Murderer? That one had plenty of substance.

thirdsun 10y ago
Yes, fair point. That's the kind of content I actually did enjoy a lot.

gdilla 10y ago

Sure, but these shows are still produced and written by the same industry insiders that made the Wire and the sopranos. The ideas may be more data informed, but good art is still good art because it's produced by great artists. Counterpoint is there's plenty of episodic crap on broadcast TV with lots of cancellations. Netflix seems to have a much better track record.

sametmax 10y ago

Daredevil and Jessica Jones were a pleasure to watch. Not cult TV shows, but how many of those appear in a lifetime ?

clubm8 10y ago
That's the thing... Netflix is skilled at producing "good" shows but not necessarily "great" shows. The third season of Black Mirror is pretty much the only content that I'll rewatch over and and over like I would, say, The Wire. But if I want to veg out and watch something "pretty good" stuff like Master of None and Love are decent.
- sametmax 10y ago
  I hear you. How ever how long netflix have been producing content ? Which content producer can be said to regularly produce exceptional content ? I would say none. It's usually a blip on a consistent and durable production of good content on the long run. And a matter of taste too. I consider SG1 and Buffy my top 10 while a lot of people would just find them "meh". We need also to consider that netflix content has one quality: it's refreshing. The OA, Luke Cage, 3% all had personal taste.
  - jon-wood 10y ago
    I've never seen an HBO show I didn't think was excellent. The Pacific wasn't as good as Band of Brothers, but that's not exactly a damning statement.

tptacek 10y ago

What makes you think "the classics" weren't produced in the same way? The Sopranos was originally pitched as a network TV show.