4 ms·

Worst news I've read in a long time. All series produced by Amazon based on books or comics I love have been a huge disappointment: The man in the high castle,

Worst news I've read in a long time. All series produced by Amazon based on books or comics I love have been a huge disappointment: The man in the high castle, preacher, American Gods... You can watch a whole season and what happened? Basically nothing. They stretch and stretch a couple of plots and that's it. My friends says that's ok, they create a specific atmosphere/mood with that...bullshit, it's just like when you get a present and you're actually more exicited about unwrapping that fancy colourful wrap that in the content. At least HBO (Game of Thrones) or Netflix (The expanse) tend to be more faithful to the content and things happen at a reasonable pace

SwellJoe 9y ago
American Gods is a Starz production, and Preacher is made by AMC. Only Man In The High Castle is Amazon-produced.
- ejosafat 9y ago
  Thanks for the clarification! There might be hope then
ben-schaaf 9y ago
Wasn't the expanse made by Syfy and Netflix only bought the rights to it?
- ejosafat 9y ago
  mmm....yeah, I think you're right
matwood 9y ago
As mentioned elsewhere Preacher and American Gods are not Amazon. Additionally, Bosch, which I think is Amazons best show, is based on a series of books.
brador 9y ago
The goal is to keep you subscribed. Finishing a plot or series goes counter to that aim.
- maxerickson 9y ago
  The incentive to tell good stories on streaming services is probably higher relative to traditional television. For traditional television the primary revenue stream is directly linked to the number of viewers; for subscriptions services of course they still want lots of viewers, but the revenue is more tied to the basket of content than to the single show.
VLM 9y ago
I think what you're describing is the difference between a soap opera that could, in theory, continue forever, versus a miniseries with a defined start and end. I'd love to see a snow crash miniseries that covers the snow crash series. I'm not so interested in soap opera style "General Hospital, but in the snowcrash setting" A mini series would cover the actual snow crash story, which is pretty interesting. On the other hand, a soap opera would be Hiro atarting as a beta orbiter and improbably having a romantic relationship of many ups and downs with YT or perhaps the rat thing becomes a long term pet or companion of YT, Rife would be the bad guy who always escapes to fight again next week, it could be pretty awful indeed. Another defining characteristic of miniseries vs soap opera is soap operas run out of creativity and crash over time, think of the arc of "breaking bad" or "Downton Abbey" where the first quarter or so used up all the creativity, then a long coast to miserable end. On the other end a miniseries would end like King's "The Stand" or the book version of snow crash, exciting till the very end.
- xefer 9y ago
  Ringworld could work well as an open-ended style series. The world is so vast there would always be some new area to explore. Plus the visuals could be pretty awesome. It could work along a similar vein to that show from the 70s, The Startlost, though with more connected arcs.
- ghaff 9y ago
  >soap opera Soap opera isn't really the term you're looking for. Soap opera (besides the literal meaning of daytime soaps) suggests lots of (possibly overblown) drama about emotional and melodramatic relationships. You're really just talking about TV series without fixed end points.
  - ghostbrainalpha 9y ago
    I think soap opera might still be correct. As you watch a Soap Opera it becomes apparent that all the drama has no real consequence, and thus becomes meaningless. That is why General Hospital can be on for 40 years or something at this point. You can watch for a year, skip a year, then come back. You missed a ton of events, but it doesn't effect what you take from the show. Once "the ending" becomes detached from the show, it is very difficult to manufacture meaningful drama. Some shows, like Seinfeld or Simpsons always return to a set point at the end of an episode. So they don't need a real ending. This is different than the soap opera. Because there is no illusion of an ending. You know the show isn't going anywhere and you experience just what it is in that moment. The soap opera is diabolical. As each episode ends, you are hooked, waiting for the next so you can find out "what happens", but there is no ultimate payoff. Just a never ending sequence of false promises. Soap operas are the worst offenders, who best illustrate the point. But any drama series without a fixed end point is guilty of the same crime. Take LOST, which began as a brilliant show, but as it was stretched out began to anger many people. When would it have become a full Soap Opera? 10 more seasons? My point is that it already was, just shorter than some others.
cloakandswagger 9y ago
This is why I never got the hype around Westworld. It's a fun concept, but the entire plot of season 1 could have been accomplished in two, maybe three episodes.
iammiles 9y ago
I might be alone on this one, but I enjoyed Amazon's Man In The High Castle more than Philip Dick's novel version.

SwellJoe 9y ago

American Gods is a Starz production, and Preacher is made by AMC. Only Man In The High Castle is Amazon-produced.

ejosafat 9y ago
Thanks for the clarification! There might be hope then

ben-schaaf 9y ago

Wasn't the expanse made by Syfy and Netflix only bought the rights to it?

ejosafat 9y ago
mmm....yeah, I think you're right

matwood 9y ago

As mentioned elsewhere Preacher and American Gods are not Amazon. Additionally, Bosch, which I think is Amazons best show, is based on a series of books.

brador 9y ago

The goal is to keep you subscribed. Finishing a plot or series goes counter to that aim.

maxerickson 9y ago
The incentive to tell good stories on streaming services is probably higher relative to traditional television. For traditional television the primary revenue stream is directly linked to the number of viewers; for subscriptions services of course they still want lots of viewers, but the revenue is more tied to the basket of content than to the single show.

VLM 9y ago

I think what you're describing is the difference between a soap opera that could, in theory, continue forever, versus a miniseries with a defined start and end. I'd love to see a snow crash miniseries that covers the snow crash series. I'm not so interested in soap opera style "General Hospital, but in the snowcrash setting" A mini series would cover the actual snow crash story, which is pretty interesting. On the other hand, a soap opera would be Hiro atarting as a beta orbiter and improbably having a romantic relationship of many ups and downs with YT or perhaps the rat thing becomes a long term pet or companion of YT, Rife would be the bad guy who always escapes to fight again next week, it could be pretty awful indeed. Another defining characteristic of miniseries vs soap opera is soap operas run out of creativity and crash over time, think of the arc of "breaking bad" or "Downton Abbey" where the first quarter or so used up all the creativity, then a long coast to miserable end. On the other end a miniseries would end like King's "The Stand" or the book version of snow crash, exciting till the very end.

xefer 9y ago
Ringworld could work well as an open-ended style series. The world is so vast there would always be some new area to explore. Plus the visuals could be pretty awesome. It could work along a similar vein to that show from the 70s, The Startlost, though with more connected arcs.
ghaff 9y ago
>soap opera Soap opera isn't really the term you're looking for. Soap opera (besides the literal meaning of daytime soaps) suggests lots of (possibly overblown) drama about emotional and melodramatic relationships. You're really just talking about TV series without fixed end points.
- ghostbrainalpha 9y ago
  I think soap opera might still be correct. As you watch a Soap Opera it becomes apparent that all the drama has no real consequence, and thus becomes meaningless. That is why General Hospital can be on for 40 years or something at this point. You can watch for a year, skip a year, then come back. You missed a ton of events, but it doesn't effect what you take from the show. Once "the ending" becomes detached from the show, it is very difficult to manufacture meaningful drama. Some shows, like Seinfeld or Simpsons always return to a set point at the end of an episode. So they don't need a real ending. This is different than the soap opera. Because there is no illusion of an ending. You know the show isn't going anywhere and you experience just what it is in that moment. The soap opera is diabolical. As each episode ends, you are hooked, waiting for the next so you can find out "what happens", but there is no ultimate payoff. Just a never ending sequence of false promises. Soap operas are the worst offenders, who best illustrate the point. But any drama series without a fixed end point is guilty of the same crime. Take LOST, which began as a brilliant show, but as it was stretched out began to anger many people. When would it have become a full Soap Opera? 10 more seasons? My point is that it already was, just shorter than some others.

cloakandswagger 9y ago

This is why I never got the hype around Westworld. It's a fun concept, but the entire plot of season 1 could have been accomplished in two, maybe three episodes.

iammiles 9y ago

I might be alone on this one, but I enjoyed Amazon's Man In The High Castle more than Philip Dick's novel version.