1
The cinematography is a 10.
Billy Bob Thornton may be an anorexic weirdo, but he's one of America's best actors.
Nina Arianda is about as good as Billy Bob, she deserves to be hired ad infinitum in Hollywood, she proves that being in the gossip columns has got nothing to do with talent.
But the script sucks!
The last season of "Goliath" was so bad, I figured this one had to be better, especially since it was billed as the last one. But there are dream sequences so long and obscure you don't feel inferior for not understanding them, but angry at the producers for including these bogus episodes that contain so little.
Yes, I'm watching for the plot. And there's nothing worse in streaming television than doing this.
You see in 1999 we had a revolution, it was called "The Sopranos," it shifted the needle on visual entertainment completely. "The Sopranos" was better than any film in the theatre. And it focused on what the studios did not, character study, real people, human interaction. It showed life as it is today, kids manipulating parents, clergy who are schnorrers, it took a while to gain traction, but it was irresistible. Don't let people tell you it's not the best TV series ever, if you haven't watched it, do, it still holds up, it still resonates.
Sure, "Larry Sanders" came before. Even "Sex and the City." But they did not revolutionize a whole medium. It only takes one.
It's about shooting high. Lowbrow hits don't take you very far. The more intellectual, the more the reward, that's what you want in a flagship. It doesn't even matter how many people watch it, it's how many people TALK ABOUT IT! When you dumb down entertainment the joke is on you. Kind of like new music production amongst the three major labels. They're playing to an ever smaller audience as the rest reject music completely or listen to catalog. Imagine if Universal was actually releasing hit music, not something that plays to a minority, but everybody, its stock price would climb even higher! You've got something like Adele's "21," an LP that did TEN TIMES the business of its contemporaries. But have we gotten any more "21"s? No. Just more of the same dreck we're told is good even though the public is rejecting it. If 70% of the listeners would rather stream oldies, how addictive can the new music be?
So HBO used "The Sopranos" as a stepping stone, to build its platform with other unique, limit testing shows, like "Six Feet Under." It kept pushing the envelope. And then Sunday night became about HBO, at least in the days before streaming. And in the heyday of premium cable you only needed ONE HIT! One show would keep people subscribing. But now you need a plethora of product, because streaming television is the hottest artistic medium and the public's appetite is insatiable.
2
So Amazon thinks since Video is free with Prime, that's good enough. Free is no longer a big enough enticement, not in a world where there's endless product, endless diversions. You've got to pull the audience in, push was only for the three network world of fifty years ago.
So what does Amazon do? Release endless mediocre product that inhabits a world somewhere between network and pay cable. Is there a huge demand for this? No, people want something different, they want you to capture the zeitgeist!
And then Amazon has one hit show and they cancel it.
"Bosch" took a long time to gain traction, because of the crummy interface at Amazon with its plethora of pay product. The service's homepage resembles Amazon itself, where you can't find what you want for the ads, where you can see the company trying to steer you off course as you search for the product you want to buy. Amazon is beholden to its advertisers, its stockholders, whereas Netflix is not.
Netflix has the best interface, has first mover advantage and is the biggest producer of new product. And what built Netflix's reputation? HOUSE OF CARDS! A brilliant show that like "Bosch" took a while to gain traction but was an irresistible watch, educational and informative as well as thrilling. That's how you do it.
Oh, you tell me Amazon has commissioned an extravaganza, a remake of "Lord of the Rings." Talk about insurance, then again it's hard to strike gold twice, how many films can you count the second, never mind the ones thereafter, better than the first in a franchise series? I can think of one, "Godfather II." Some say "French Connection II," but I disagree. We learned this from great musicians, repeating yourself is death, you can never measure up and the audience abandons you. So first the Amazon "Lord of the Rings" must be as great as the movies, which is highly doubtful, then it's got to convince people to watch it, good luck!
But it's worse, even if the new "Lord of the Rings" is great, it won't have much of a halo effect on the service. "Game of Thrones" was a phenomenon, but it seems many of those who watched it canceled HBO right thereafter. HBO specializes in family drama, not spectaculars, that's for the big screen, and like popular music, only a slice of the public.
"Goliath" is a David Kelley show, he was retired for a while, he should have stayed that way. He's a middlebrow hack, the only great thing he ever did was marry Michelle Pfeiffer, he's network, he certainly isn't cable, never mind streaming. Hulu put its eggs in Kelley's basket with "Nine Perfect Strangers." It was better than his usual fare because he didn't write the underling material, but the reviews have been positively mediocre, no one is signing up for Hulu just to watch it, there is no word of mouth, and in the streaming world word of mouth is everything, you can't deliver a hit via publicity or advertising.
So Amazon is buying MGM. The volleyball of movie studios. Sure, it'll get whatever catalog is left, the great stuff was sold long ago, but unless it turns over the reins to the brass of the storied company, don't expect much, and the truth is after getting their check executives in Hollywood move on, they want to find another deep pocket to squeeze.
The most talked about show on streaming television is "Ted Lasso." But that's all Apple TV+ has got. Most people are watching for free. If anyone's paying, they're going to stop after the series ends. And Netflix has proven you need a broad swath of product, you finish "Ted Lasso" and then what...it's not like Apple TV+ has got a deep catalog, it's got essentially nothing at all.
And it's not like the paradigm wasn't already established. Netflix had plowed the way, you just had to imitate Netflix. But Amazon was and still is oblivious, needing to reinvent the wheel itself, poorly, because it's not learning from history.
As for Disney... It had children's content no one else possessed and it then pulled a masterstroke, pricing way below people's expectations.
HBO Max? The exclusive shows on the service, even when great, and there are a couple, like "Love Life," get no traction. Now there's "Hacks," but then what? People watch HBO Max to stream the product from the pay channel. As far as people who subscribe directly to HBO Max, the number is de minimis, there's not enough new product, never mind the price being outrageously high.
As for the other streaming competitors? Dead in the water. They just don't have the shows, they need to merge and create an alternative, try to gain an audience while people are still willing to check things out, when the excitement still revolves around streaming television, and it won't be forever.
Now don't count Prime Video out, because of all the subscribers who get it for free, with the membership they've got for quick delivery. But first, there needs to be an interface overhaul. Feature free product, as in included with Prime, at the top. And then, below a very clear line of demarcation, just the icons of pay services you can subscribe to through Amazon. Don't mix the product people can access with no further payment with that they have to pay an additional fee for.
But even more, do your best to create halo product, which despite "Ted Lasso," is usually highbrow, nearly intellectual. Then again, "Ted Lasso" works because it's actually the opposite, Ted is akin to Forrest Gump, someone brain damaged and unique, sunny all the time, that's something we don't see on a regular basis.
Amazon has a long history of launching products and improving them over time. But it also has a long history of launching products and killing them, especially when the company is not breaking new ground, when it is competing with others.
I watch streaming television because it represents the zeitgeist of today. I don't need entertainment, I don't want to watch just to see the ending of the story, I want to connect with real life, get a reflection of myself and my society. It's visceral. Something music specialized in which has been abdicated. As for the wannabes asking for a chance, the truth is it's a very high bar, creating top-notch entertainment product, and while we're looking for newbies, experience counts, at least in streaming television we don't have the ridiculous ageism of music.
Streaming television is a professional business.
Amazon Prime Video is run by amateurs
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