I'm beginning to dislike Netflix (re: Archive 81, 1899, Warrior Nun etc cancellations)

[Mercurius]

Um... you need a new "See 'n Say"? Sows don't moo. They oink.

Haha, true, true. I guess I saw "sow" and thought "cow."

You can't have one without some element of the other, but I saw that ending as being more Big Reveal than Cliffhanger. YMMV, of course. Either way, the first season's story had a beginning, middle, and end, and was intended to do so - the makers had plans for further seasons, but count on it during writing and production.

Well, that makes me reconsider giving 1899 a shot.

 

[Umbran]

Well, that makes me reconsider giving 1899 a shot.

My wife and I liked it. For an American audience the first couple of episodes are a little slow, but I think the time they took pays off in the long run.

 

[bloodtide]

It would seem like the subscription online model is not working out so well. It just does not provide a direct money stream. You sign up, and then the service has to make content forever.

Broadcast and cable had commercials to make money from, and even better you could charge more for a popular show. But it takes years for a show to become popular. Even hits like Seinfeld did not get popular until season 5, and became a number one show in season six. Five years is a long time....often far longer then anyone plans to even HAVE a streaming show around. For a streaming show to even get five seasons is rare, even if you count cartoons. Even the Walking Dead took five years to get really popular.

What could they do?

 

[Mercurius]

My wife and I liked it. For an American audience the first couple of episodes are a little slow, but I think the time they took pays off in the long run.

That's actually one of the things I like about Euro shows - the (generally) slower pacing.

 

[Mercurius]

It would seem like the subscription online model is not working out so well. It just does not provide a direct money stream. You sign up, and then the service has to make content forever.

Broadcast and cable had commercials to make money from, and even better you could charge more for a popular show. But it takes years for a show to become popular. Even hits like Seinfeld did not get popular until season 5, and became a number one show in season six. Five years is a long time....often far longer then anyone plans to even HAVE a streaming show around. For a streaming show to even get five seasons is rare, even if you count cartoons. Even the Walking Dead took five years to get really popular.

What could they do?

This is true of book series, as well. The majority of popular ones don't start as insta-hits; something like Name of the Wind is an exception, not the rule (and that was problematic because it was so hyped, and then so popular, and then the author fritzed the series).

I read Wheel of Time starting shortly after The Great Hunt (book 2) game out, and if I remember correctly, it didn't become really big until book 3, and not a cultural phenomena until around book 4. I could be wrong on specifics, but at the least I know it wasn't a huge hit at first - well received, but didn't really take off for a couple books.

TV series also sometimes become cult classics and more popular years after the initial series ended. Star Trek being the obvious example. That led to a revival, a mediocre first movie, and then an absolute gem of a second movie and enormous popularity for the next forty years and counting (with ups and downs).

 

[trappedslider]

I haven't had Netflix for years, they only had two shows that I liked "Between" and I only watched that to see how Jennette McCurdy did post-nickelodeon and the other was 'Travelers".

I couldn't get into Stranger Things.

 

[Mirtek]

Netflix Has Created A Self-Fulfilling Cancelation Loop With Its New Shows

A couple weeks ago, I remarked that Netflix now felt like it was “actively stealing time from me.” I can almost not even remember which cancelation I was talking about at the time, given that there have been so many, but I believe it was 1899

www.forbes.com

From this link:

"Something has broken with this model. It’s now created a system where creators should be afraid to make a series that dares to end on a cliffhanger or save anything for future seasons, lest their story forever be left unfinished."

I am not actually sure that I dislike this. Give me completed arcs, down with the huge cliffhangers. If it's successful you may later seize on stuff from earlier seasons. Or you may still end up with a small cliffhanger that's more a lead to something new rather than just leaving everything we just seen previously open and incomplete.

I think I'd enjoy such shows more.

This is true of book series, as well. The majority of popular ones don't start as insta-hits; something like Name of the Wind is an exception, not the rule (and that was problematic because it was so hyped, and then so popular, and then the author fritzed the series).

I even had totally forgotten that this exists. If Doors of Stone would come out tomorrow I wouldn't even wand to read it, I just forgotten so much of the first two novels I read in what feels like an entirely different lifetime ago that I could not enjoy the third books (and certainly won't find the time to re-read from the beginning)

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Personally I cancelled my Netflix for a rather worse thing than their dreadful habit of cancelling shows. Rather they gave Graham Hancock a glossy, fairly high-budget documentary series!

For those who don't know who Graham Hancock the full wikipedia article can be found here: Graham Hancock - Wikipedia

But to summarize, he's a conspiracy-theory nut case who promotes totally fake archaeology that basically says there used to be a older better (whiter) civilization spread across the entire world, then it got wiped out by something. His "theories" (which are baseless and evidence-free), align tightly with 1800/1900s white supremacist theories about human history (particularly along the lines of "the non-white natives of this region could never have done such a thing!"), and basically portray archaeology and archaeologists as lying and attempting to cover up the "truth".

And why did Netflix do that, why would they drag this somewhat forgotten (he was big in the '90s) conspiracist figure back to light in 2022? Because Hancock's son is Senior Manager of Unscripted Originals at Netflix.

Great! Nepotism leading the to direct and intentional promotion of racist conspiracy theories.


Re: the lesser sin of cancelling shows, I think the main issue I have with it from Netflix particularly is that they seem to very much adopt a "throw it against the wall, see what sticks!" attitude to shows, and the end result of this is that the "feel" of Netflix is far worse than other channels re: cancellations. @Umbran is very much correct to point out a lot of shows get cancelled across all networks, and so on, but certainly Netflix' vibe here is very different to Apple+, Disney+, or even Prime, where you're not getting so many intriguing shows thrown at you, only to be immediately snatched away. It's also clear to me that, the metrics Netflix uses for determining what shows to keep are incompatible my own viewing habits, because Netflix has explained (on a number of occasions), that unless people immediately binge-watch an entire show, that's seen as a major negative indicator. I mean, one might argue Prime has gone too far the other way at times - some shows have inexplicably kept going, season after season, despite questionable quality, but honestly, that feels better to me.

 

[wicked cool]

At times streaming is a barren wasteland but for the most part I come back to Netflix time after time

1899 was just ok and didn’t stick around in top 10 on that channel Not as good as dark and it’s why it got cancelled. Try Babylon Berlin. Also a German show and it’s on its 4th season
Hulu/Disney/HBO/Apple./prime All have 1-5 good shows at a time.
Netflix still has the best menu/interface. Netflix saves my recents it seems like forever. Some of the others drop off after a while

The mandalorian got a tv preview spot on Monday night football and it’s a tv show. And it’s not even the same network

 

[amethal]

I even had totally forgotten that this exists. If Doors of Stone would come out tomorrow I wouldn't even wand to read it, I just forgotten so much of the first two novels I read in what feels like an entirely different lifetime ago that I could not enjoy the third books (and certainly won't find the time to re-read from the beginning)

I friend of mine came across Name of the Wind last year. He was really enjoying it, and mentioned how much he was looking forward to reading the rest of the trilogy as well ...

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

At times streaming is a barren wasteland but for the most part I come back to Netflix time after time

1899 was just ok and didn’t stick around in top 10 on that channel Not as good as dark and it’s why it got cancelled. Try Babylon Berlin. Also a German show and it’s on its 4th season

OMG. Babylon Berlin. So good.

If you don't fall in love with it during Episode 2 of Season 1 (the Cabaret scene) you have no soul.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Also?

Lars Erdinger.

I kinda sorta noticed him first in Babylon Berlin.

Then I REALLY noticed him in Irma Vep.

And I just watched White Noise, and I was like ... OH YEAH. Lars again.

Hear me now and believe me later- he's the spice that makes everything better. He's like ... well, he's my German Nic Cage.

 

[TheSword]

I could cry that The Kingdom was cancelled after season 2. Great cast, cool story, excellent pacing and direction. The film was nice but after 4 years I’ve given up on a Season 3.

OA was another one that was canned just as it started to get interesting. It makes me wary about investing time in series like From because the payoff is so slow.

Really enjoying Midnight Club so far though. They keep just enough coming to keep me paying the subscription - though granted by parents and brother all have the access.

 

[payn]

Re: the lesser sin of cancelling shows, I think the main issue I have with it from Netflix particularly is that they seem to very much adopt a "throw it against the wall, see what sticks!" attitude to shows, and the end result of this is that the "feel" of Netflix is far worse than other channels re: cancellations. @Umbran is very much correct to point out a lot of shows get cancelled across all networks, and so on, but certainly Netflix' vibe here is very different to Apple+, Disney+, or even Prime, where you're not getting so many intriguing shows thrown at you, only to be immediately snatched away. It's also clear to me that, the metrics Netflix uses for determining what shows to keep are incompatible my own viewing habits, because Netflix has explained (on a number of occasions), that unless people immediately binge-watch an entire show, that's seen as a major negative indicator. I mean, one might argue Prime has gone too far the other way at times - some shows have inexplicably kept going, season after season, despite questionable quality, but honestly, that feels better to me.

I think the weekly release against dump is very dependent on the writing. I think HBO excels and is the standard when it comes to making a series with a weekly drop. Netflix team seems to do well with the drop at once binge style writing. Each ep just flows into the next and there isnt a really good stopping point. Prime wants to be a weekly releaser, but they are absolutely garbage at it.

Every Amazon series and season has what I have come to call the Prime template. Three episode drop that sets up the show and season. Also the best content you are going to get. Then, you are treated to weekly releases of four or so episodes where its all wheel spinning and zero development. Finally, you have a final episode that has to do so much heavy lifting that it moves at break neck speed to get to the reset point for the next season. This template appears in countless amazon series im about ready to give up on them.

So, I get favoring one or the other, but some producers definitely do it better than others.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Every Amazon series and season has what I have come to call the Prime template. Three episode drop that sets up the show and season. Also the best content you are going to get. Then, you are treated to weekly releases of four or so episodes where its all wheel spinning and zero development. Finally, you have a final episode that has to do so much heavy lifting that it moves at break neck speed to get to the reset point for the next season. This template appears in countless amazon series im about ready to give up on them.

wheel of time ....

WHEEL OF TIME.

Seriously, nailed it. I watched Wheel of Time. I don't mind a slow burner of a show ... I rather enjoy it. But I watched that show, and I was really warming to it, and then that last episode?

That was more of a Wheel of WTF? I felt like it had two seasons of plot crammed into it. The pacing of that show was terrible. Beyond terrible. It would be like if White Lotus Season 2 has the first six episodes dealing with the couples arriving the first day, and the last episode was everything that happened afterwards (episodes 2-7).

 

[eyeheartawk]

wheel of time ....

WHEEL OF TIME.

Seriously, nailed it. I watched Wheel of Time. I don't mind a slow burner of a show ... I rather enjoy it. But I watched that show, and I was really warming to it, and then that last episode?

That was more of a Wheel of WTF? I felt like it had two seasons of plot crammed into it. The pacing of that show was terrible. Beyond terrible. It would be like if White Lotus Season 2 has the first six episodes dealing with the couples arriving the first day, and the last episode was everything that happened afterwards (episodes 2-7).

You know what's funny about Wheel of Time? The ending of the show is actually clearer about what happens at The Eye of the World than the book is. And it's still about as clear as mud.

 

[payn]

wheel of time ....

WHEEL OF TIME.

Seriously, nailed it. I watched Wheel of Time. I don't mind a slow burner of a show ... I rather enjoy it. But I watched that show, and I was really warming to it, and then that last episode?

That was more of a Wheel of WTF? I felt like it had two seasons of plot crammed into it. The pacing of that show was terrible. Beyond terrible. It would be like if White Lotus Season 2 has the first six episodes dealing with the couples arriving the first day, and the last episode was everything that happened afterwards (episodes 2-7).

Want to talk about bad final episodes? I just watched Tulsa King last week. I wasnt super interested but my old man liked it and he is old and I want things to bound over so I jumped in. Taylor Sheridan is very overrated as a showrunner, but I admit marble mouthed Stallone is pretty charismatic in this grade C Sopranos. However, they did 9 episodes and the last episodes is like 32 min but resolves about 2 hours of stuff in the laziest of writing. No idea what happened here but it was very amateurish.

 

[Mercurius]

Personally I cancelled my Netflix for a rather worse thing than their dreadful habit of cancelling shows. Rather they gave Graham Hancock a glossy, fairly high-budget documentary series!

For those who don't know who Graham Hancock the full wikipedia article can be found here: Graham Hancock - Wikipedia

But to summarize, he's a conspiracy-theory nut case who promotes totally fake archaeology that basically says there used to be a older better (whiter) civilization spread across the entire world, then it got wiped out by something. His "theories" (which are baseless and evidence-free), align tightly with 1800/1900s white supremacist theories about human history (particularly along the lines of "the non-white natives of this region could never have done such a thing!"), and basically portray archaeology and archaeologists as lying and attempting to cover up the "truth".

And why did Netflix do that, why would they drag this somewhat forgotten (he was big in the '90s) conspiracist figure back to light in 2022? Because Hancock's son is Senior Manager of Unscripted Originals at Netflix.

Great! Nepotism leading the to direct and intentional promotion of racist conspiracy theories.


Re: the lesser sin of cancelling shows, I think the main issue I have with it from Netflix particularly is that they seem to very much adopt a "throw it against the wall, see what sticks!" attitude to shows, and the end result of this is that the "feel" of Netflix is far worse than other channels re: cancellations. @Umbran is very much correct to point out a lot of shows get cancelled across all networks, and so on, but certainly Netflix' vibe here is very different to Apple+, Disney+, or even Prime, where you're not getting so many intriguing shows thrown at you, only to be immediately snatched away. It's also clear to me that, the metrics Netflix uses for determining what shows to keep are incompatible my own viewing habits, because Netflix has explained (on a number of occasions), that unless people immediately binge-watch an entire show, that's seen as a major negative indicator. I mean, one might argue Prime has gone too far the other way at times - some shows have inexplicably kept going, season after season, despite questionable quality, but honestly, that feels better to me.

LOL, I completely disagree about your take on Graham Hancock - which is clearly lacking in any actual exposure to his ideas, beyond (I'm guessing) a cursory viewing of a few minutes of his documentary. Hogwash, in other words!

It is ironic that you accuse him of "baseless" theories and then (baselessly) accuse him of....white supremacy? If you actually read his books or saw any of his interviews, you'd realize he's not at all a white supremacist, nor does he ever say anything like "there's no way non-white people made this." Nor does he say anything about a hypothetical antediluvian civilization being "more white" or white at all. Yes, there was a trend among some 19th century alternate theorists to posit racists ideas, but does that mean all such theories are racist? That's just bad logic.

Not to mention, the guy is married to a Malaysian woman, Santha Faiia.

There's an irony, here. Hancock questions the official narrative which is itself based on the 19th century idea of the Myth of Progress, and a clear arc of "savagery to civilization" which, of course, culminated with (white) European high society of that era. Hancock is saying that history may occur more in cycles - like the ancients believed it did.

Oh, and Hancock got a series because he's a popular author - lots of people read his books, he's a regular on Joe Rogan, etc etc. I'm sure his son working for Netflix helped, but the show is popular, so obviously it was merited.

Anyhow, regardless of whether you're open to alternate theories or not, I don't see why it is so offensive that they're out there. It is really worrisome how intolerant some have become of different ways of thinking. People have different views on things, many of which aren't represented by the mainstream. Should streaming services only cater to "official" narratives? ("mainstreaming services?"). Or is diversity of perspectives still accepted? And what's wrong with considering alternate views on human history, especially when so such of history--especially prehistory--is theoretical?

I mean, by your logic--cancelling Netflix because they have a show on that has ideas you don't agree with--you might as well put me on the ignore list, because I like and read Graham Hancock, and probably lots of other things that you'd find to be "conspiracy theories" and "nutty."

 

[Undrave]

I canceled my account last February when they were raising rates and at the same time that thousands of others stopped using Netflix. I was only watching maybe one movie per month, so it was never worth it, due to my lack of using it. But then they became caustic with some of their releases, and I didn't want to support that...

Same here! I would spend months without watching it. Especially after She-Ra ended. I had Amazon Prime (mostly for the StackTV bundle here in Canada, which I would totally pay if it was independent of Prime) for a while, but I canceled because of their awful employment conditions and anti-union tactics.

I got cable TV and rather than take a deal with multiple specialty channels I just got a piece meal deal for a single channel (the one that had the shows I picked StackTV for) and I'm fine with it.

If I'm not watching content on Youtube, I'm watching Tubi (and now PlutoTV is in Canada too) or pirated Japanese Children's Shows... and I still got a solid collection of physical media I can tap in and that I continue to expand, because I'd rather OWN stuff.

I am not actually sure that I dislike this. Give me completed arcs, down with the huge cliffhangers. If it's successful you may later seize on stuff from earlier seasons. Or you may still end up with a small cliffhanger that's more a lead to something new rather than just leaving everything we just seen previously open and incomplete.

Oh yeah, I think Netflix should be planning more of their shows with a self-contained story. Every year I watch the new Ultraman show on Tsuburaya's Youtube channel and those are 25 episodes single story one and done seasons. Sometimes they get a movie after the show, and the characters often appear in other projects in the franchise, but the main story has a beginning middle and end you can enjoy on its own. And it's great! No need to wait seven years to be disappointed by the end of Game of Thrones! if it's bad, I can just shrug and come back the next year for the next season!

Ultraman Z won the 2021 Seiun Award for best in media, the division that covers TV, cinema, video games, and more.

It's also clear to me that, the metrics Netflix uses for determining what shows to keep are incompatible my own viewing habits, because Netflix has explained (on a number of occasions), that unless people immediately binge-watch an entire show, that's seen as a major negative indicator.

Augh. Binge watching is just terrible. It kills any sort of hype or community around a show and I find it really difficult to hold my attention that long. Move to a weekly release schedule with no breaks, and create an official Netflix Message board where people can engage one another about the show! Drive interaction to the roof!

 

[payn]

LOL, I completely disagree about your take on Graham Hancock - which is clearly lacking in any actual exposure to his ideas, beyond (I'm guessing) a cursory viewing of a few minutes of his documentary. Hogwash, in other words!

It is ironic that you accuse him of "baseless" theories and then (baselessly) accuse him of....white supremacy? If you actually read his books or saw any of his interviews, you'd realize he's not at all a white supremacist, nor does he ever say anything like "there's no way non-white people made this." Nor does he say anything about a hypothetical antediluvian civilization being "more white" or white at all. Yes, there was a trend among some 19th century alternate theorists to posit racists ideas, but does that mean all such theories are racist? That's just bad logic.

Not to mention, the guy is married to a Malaysian woman, Santha Faiia.

There's an irony, here. Hancock questions the official narrative which is itself based on the 19th century idea of the Myth of Progress, and a clear arc of "savagery to civilization" which, of course, culminated with (white) European high society of that era. Hancock is saying that history may occur more in cycles - like the ancients believed it did.

Oh, and Hancock got a series because he's a popular author - lots of people read his books, he's a regular on Joe Rogan, etc etc. I'm sure his son working for Netflix helped, but the show is popular, so obviously it was merited.

Anyhow, regardless of whether you're open to alternate theories or not, I don't see why it is so offensive that they're out there. It is really worrisome how intolerant some have become of different ways of thinking. People have different views on things, many of which aren't represented by the mainstream. Should streaming services only cater to "official" narratives? ("mainstreaming services?"). Or is diversity of perspectives still accepted? And what's wrong with considering alternate views on human history, especially when so such of history--especially prehistory--is theoretical?

I mean, by your logic--cancelling Netflix because they have a show on that has ideas you don't agree with--you might as well put me on the ignore list, because I like and read Graham Hancock, and probably lots of other things that you'd find to be "conspiracy theories" and "nutty."

I dont know anything about Hancock, but being a regular on Joe Rogan isn't any way to demonstrate somebody is legit.