One exception: Peter Morgan’s old-school (in every sense) docudrama about Queen Elizabeth (played so far by Claire Foy and Olivia Colman, with Imelda Staunton set for the final seasons). The “10-hour movie” storytelling model has been bad for most Netflix dramas. Inspired by star Maria Bamford’s struggles with bipolar disorder, it was weird, sad, and surreal as it bounced through multiple eras of her life, including the future. Perhaps no series symbolized this creative ethos more than Lady Dynamite. In its earlier years, Netflix built a large stable of shows whose individual audiences may not have been huge, but which were designed to be some viewers’ all-time favorites. But those who did watch found a lot to cherish in the ways the show modernized aspects of the novels - in one episode, the shy Mary Anne (Malia Baker) stands up to ER doctors who keep misgendering her latest charge - while staying true to their coming-of-age heart. Martin’s beloved book series about a group of middle-school girls who start up their own babysitting business. Though adaptations of famous IP are all the rage right now, Netflix somehow couldn’t find a big enough audience for this warmhearted take on Ann M. Even at a time when it feels obligatory for a prestige drama to do long, continuous shots, the Hill House episode presented that way was a marvel. Horror filmmaker Mike Flanagan has graced Netflix with an unofficial franchise featuring many of the same actors (see also The Haunting of Bly Manor and Midnight Mass), starting with this crackling adaptation of the Shirley Jackson novel about a family that can’t escape the history of the haunted house where they lived (and some of them died). A comedy as sweet as it is silly, it explores a wide range of sexual and romantic relationships. But when the kids at his school start having relationship difficulties, Otis, his queer best friend Eric (Ncuti Gatwa, in a star-making performance), and Otis’ crush Maeve (Emma Mackey) start up a bootleg sex clinic to help their classmates get satisfaction. Shy teenager Otis (Asa Butterfield) has been miserable growing up with a single mom who’s an outspoken sex therapist (Gillian Anderson). YA has been a fruitful category for Netflix, particularly this rollicking Britcom. Some have been well-executed versions of familiar TV forms, while others have seemed so wholly new that it’s hard to imagine them existing in the pre-streaming era. ![]() In the nine-plus years since House of Cards debuted and changed the streaming originals landscape, some excellent shows have escaped the algorithm’s clutches and made their way onto our screens. And when few Netflix shows feel as essential as what can be found elsewhere, that’s how you get to a huge subscriber loss being presented as relatively “good” news.īut it hasn’t all been intentional mediocrity for Netflix. The suits trusted that the superior caliber of their user interface, the power of their recommendation algorithm, and a heavy emphasis on serialization and cliffhangers would make people want to keep watching more and more Netflix, no matter what. Still, some of it seems to be the result of an ethos among Netflix executives to aim not for great shows, but for ones that are just good enough. So what happened? How did Netflix go from wiping Blockbuster off the map to potentially becoming a business school cautionary tale in its own right? Some of it is simply competition once every entertainment conglomerate realized it needed its own streaming service to survive, Netflix ceased to be everyone’s first choice for where to spend their home-entertainment dollars. Things have gotten so rough for the floundering streamer that it’s planning to introduce a cheaper, ad-supported plan next year to attract new subscribers (or, at least, to keep from losing more). Now, though, many of its most-watched library titles, like The Office and Friends, have moved to streamers owned by their respective corporate parents, while the most buzzed-about originals of the last couple of years also tend to come from non-Netflix streamers, whether it’s Apple TV+’s Ted Lasso and Severance, Disney+’s The Mandalorian, or Hacks on HBO Max. Netflix was once out so far ahead of the competition that it may as well have been the entire streaming video business for a while. ![]() ![]() How is this good news? Because the company had previously projected it would lose two million. ![]() In its latest earnings call, the streaming giant announced that it had lost almost one million American subscribers over the second quarter of 2022. Netflix finally got some good news last week - sort of - after a long stretch of the bad kind.
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