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King_Allant t1_iwsabhc wrote

>Amazon Prime Video’s “The Rings of Power,” seems to be lacking in staying power. One week after Nielsen measured debut of its eighth and final episode, the “Lord of the Rings” prequel series has dropped off of the overall chart, instead taking fifth place when compared to streaming originals alone.

Not exactly the return on investment that I imagine Amazon was hoping for.

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mtarascio t1_iwsmh2k wrote

Seeing these relayed as 'minutes watched' is a good indicator of how algorithm based development of TV is these days.

You can really feel the need ticking of boxes minute to minute on Netflix shows and movies especially.

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SnooTomatoes1445 t1_iwsmqzc wrote

I could barely watch the first few seasons of GoT and somehow loved it up until the end. (Come to think of it, maybe that was planned so you’d come back needing more because the end was that bad.) Yes there’s been two trilogies, but there wasn’t 10+ years of peoples lives watching 10+ hours in each season like there is with GoT. There’s no comparison at this point unless you compare season one of GoT.

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Metal64Game t1_iwsonej wrote

I was really feeling the tv drought for the past few years but House of the Dragon and Andor brought it back.

Had so much fun anticipating and watching each new episode for both.

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QuintoBlanco t1_iwsp3i6 wrote

These are just US numbers, but the interesting thing is that if you calculate minutes back into episodes watched and you look at more than just one week, House of the Dragon, Rings of Power, and She-Hulk* sort of have the same numbers.

*All original shows based on an existing popular franchise.

There seems to be an upper limit to how many people watch a show that's way below the possible number of viewers.

You can't buy a cultural event.

Having said that, I think HBO is extremely pleased. People were skeptical, but House of the Dragon revitalized the GoT franchise and is one of their biggest hits.

Anyway, Netflix habit of dropping a whole season at once sort of makes sense. The downside is that the hype fizzles after 14 days, but at any given time, Netflix tends to dominate.

That's free marketing.

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Estebanq t1_iwspke5 wrote

Really great numbers for House of the Dragon considering that the final episode was leaked like a day or two before sunday’s release.

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-GregTheGreat- t1_iwspvp4 wrote

A major caveat is that She Hulk and Rings of Power are streaming-only, while House of The Dragon has a large traditional live TV audience on HBO. Including that is a substantial boost to HOTD

But, in general it shows that internet discussions aren’t always fully representative. She-Hulk for example is far more popular then most make it sound

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OCGamerboy t1_iwsri1l wrote

Dreams didn’t make them kings, fans did.

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AfricanRain t1_iwstjn1 wrote

I saw people for years being adamant that LOTR was still a bigger franchise than GoT and I just don’t think you can argue it’s true anymore. Maybe word of mouth killed ROP but people just clearly like Westeros more than Middle Earth.

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space-sage t1_iwsu19q wrote

You should sit down right now and watch the movies. It would take like a full day but it’s a fun day.

My husband and I have wooden Gandalf pipes and we have LotR day every so often and just sit back with some Old Toby and be hobbits for a day.

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QuintoBlanco t1_iwsw7zi wrote

The overall numbers of House of the Dragon are better, and in my opinion it's the better show.

But for me the main take away is that it's very rare for shows to completely outperform the competition.

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ArsBrevis t1_iwsz9xa wrote

Ridiculous argument.

The difference in reception is NOT because of IP strength but the quality of the adaptation. As someone who read ASOIAF long before the HBO show, it was virtually unknown to the general audience prior to HBO GoT whereas the widespread popularity of Tolkien's legendarium spans decades.

Put it this way - a shitty LOTR show was able to keep fairly close streaming viewership figures to a critically and popularly well received GoT show. If that's not IP strength, what is?

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Beans186 t1_iwszpnj wrote

How many milliseconds?

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King_Allant t1_iwtap7p wrote

It means that the millionth show about Dahmer has maintained its popularity better than the most expensive blockbuster series of all time that ended almost a month later.

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Thongs0ng t1_iwtewmr wrote

ROP was supposed to the show that put Amazon Studios on the map, their bid for cultural relevance that HBO/Netflix got with Game of Thrones, Euphoria, Stranger Things, the Dahmer show I guess, etc.

The numbers, amongst every other indicator, imply that it did….adequately. Ok. Decent. Solid even. But it’s not the Next Big Show that Everyone Is Talking About.

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Flynn58 t1_iwtftk5 wrote

None of those shows put HBO or Netflix on the map. HBO was put on the map by Oz and The Wire, and Netflix was put on the map by House of Cards and Orange is the New Black. HBO and Netflix were already household names for premier television by the time Game of Thrones and Stranger Things came out, let alone Euphoria and Dahmer.

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GenericAustin t1_iwtgaru wrote

Game of Thrones is another level of popularity compared to the wire, and Stranger Things is another level of popularity compared to House of Cards or Orange is the New Black. That is what Amazon was looking for, the next Game of Thrones

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Thongs0ng t1_iwtgw9i wrote

I was using those shows as rough examples to make my point, not a point by point run down of every culturally relevant show both services have put out lol.

Plus I’m talking about shows that entered the cultural zeitgeist, not necessarily just critically acclaimed shows.

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Brotherbondy7731 t1_iwthgig wrote

The fact that streaming services are reporting minutes viewed and not total views anymore to come up with more impressive numbers makes me think no one is even watching an episode to the end anymore

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rasputinforever t1_iwtkq6i wrote

Why minutes, just to say you got a Billion of something?

Pointless snark aside, HoD was so surprisingly great, glad it is getting it's due.

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Western_Camp7920 t1_iwtt3vm wrote

It's the first week it made it to first.
Las week HotD was growing and ROP, on contrary.
I think HodT had the power to make a very good final with good storytelling. Well done!

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redbullrebel t1_iwtuwcq wrote

House of Dragons was so bad, but i guess it feeds well into the woman fantasy. oh nooo another problem birth!

for men there was little to enjoy. except that sentence from that little boy who said. i lost an eye but i gained a dragon.

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Endemoniada t1_iwtvg2a wrote

Then there’s also Severance and Bad Sisters, both some of the biggest highlights for me this year, apart from the shows already mentioned. And he’ll, the year isn’t over, and the latest season of The Crown just came out.

There’s so fucking much great TV out there right now, my biggest problem is finding time to watch it all.

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Crytash t1_iwtxl6f wrote

Sopranos was way bigger than the wire and in terms of influence i would argue Sex and the city was bigger too (it basically speadheaded several tropes that became overused over time), good of you to remember Oz though.

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reddishcarp123 t1_iwtyp8u wrote

>Because the shows have different airing schedules and are in different formats, these comparisons aren’t exactly apples to apples. “House of the Dragon” also had the benefit of a new episode bumping its viewership during this period, and overall has 10 episodes to count versus “The Rings of Power’s” eight, giving it more available minutes for streaming in the first place.

You forgot to include this

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reddishcarp123 t1_iwtyqzc wrote

>the fact Bezos was personally involved makes it flopping even more delicious

How is it "flopping" exactly when most press & solid statistical data are saying the exact opposite?

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reddishcarp123 t1_iwtyxm7 wrote

>The difference in reception is NOT because of IP strength

Yes it is lol, the data completely shows that LoTR is literally more popular with those that grew up watching it while GoT is more popular with teens & non-fantasy watchers. You're argument is completely invalid & meritless.

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Radulno t1_iwu66ok wrote

Also, Amazon is already on the map as being one of the biggest companies and website on the planet lol. People know about Amazon and Prime more than any show can do it.

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fangboner t1_iwu89nm wrote

I know the show is extremely popular, and 1 billion minutes is a lot of minutes. However using this kind of metric is meaningless to me and I suspect most people. How does this compare to other shows? How many people have hbo, the only legitimate place to watch it? 1 billion minutes isn’t a measurement literally anyone uses. It just sounds impressive and good clickbait bullshit for the PR bots to push on to the internet.

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pm_me_reason_to_livx t1_iwu9xip wrote

> Ridiculous argument

I know /u/AfricanRain is gettin' downvoted here, but from what I've seen, it might not be a ridiculous argument to make at all.

> The difference in reception is NOT because of IP strength but the quality of the adaptation.

Is it really? Even if it's a bad show, I expected ROP to garner a lot more online discussion than it ultimately did. That one post made here awhile back about how there was basically no talks of ROP on twitter especially when compared to HOTD was very accurate. ROP was dead as fuck on twitter. Not that there weren't any tweets about it... but for the most part, it never had a huge buzz, people just didn't seem to care that it was something that existed. That's the vibe I was getting.

Casually using Tik Tok and Instagram, I got the same vibes. Users mentioned, memed, made videos about, and discussed even Euphoria more than they did ROP. I just think for younger audiences LOTR might be irrelevant to be honest... because even if it was bad, quality wouldn't stop it from having cultural relevance, even if that cultural relevance comes due to mockery. We've seen it many times before.

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MadeByTango t1_iwudr11 wrote

“Minutes streaming” is an absolutely worthless metric to anyone that isn’t a streaming executive, and it’s not important across a show but across each viewer. It’s not the same as viewers watched, which was helpful to understand the popularity of a show relevant to other shows in the same time slot, because that would determine which shows stayed or were cancelled. “Minites viewed” gives us zero idea if a show is a success, or how well supported it is, because all shows have variable lengths and episode counts, especially in streaming. What’s the value of a billion minutes if 60% of that viewing bailed out after trying the pilot? Why should they count towards a shows success when it releases weekly episodes? What we saw with this specific show was largely viewer counts stay stagnant or even drop week to week (unless it was recovering from a previous heavier down week).

Why are they releasing minutes viewed now instead of total viewer counts? They were making it clear to everyone they started with 10 million live viewers and 29 million total viewers. They ended with less:

> The Game of Thrones prequel ended its first season with 9.3 million viewers across all platforms, down a bit from its early episodes but still the best first-night showing for an HBO season or series finale since GOT’s series ender in May 2019.

The show did well because it’s Game of Thrones. At best it maintained that audience, but it didn’t grow it over the season. House of the Dragon is a good example of both why “minutes viewed” is a poor metric, but it also appears to be a great example of how the weekly episode appointment viewing model doesn’t actually improve total viewership, and without being the one or two shows a year that gets lucky and finds hype for most of them the audience dwindles as the show goes on. With serial TV, you gotta start at the beginning. Episodic shows can grow with new audiences joining each week and not being lost. If you’ve missed the first episode of HotD, there is no point turning on HBO on a Sunday night for the next several months.

I’ll get buried because this sub is HBO’s target audience, but these numbers and this article are worthless, only intended to put “billions viewed” in the headline next to their show to try and get more viewers. We’ve gotta be smarter as a community about what we reward here, especially since every other comment thread is people complaining about the Hollywood media. These are threads that make this sub run that way. We can stop upvoting and submitting this crap, and maybe they’ll go back to real viewership numbers so we know if a show has a chance to not get cancelled. Because that’s what they are really battling: their two biggest and best shows of the last decade, GoT and Westworld, are ending terribly, either rushed or canceled. HBO has a massive trust problem growing. I don’t want to start any new series by them until I see them finish some, same expectation I’m putting on Netflix shows after Santa Clarita Diet and Teenage Bounty Hunters. When you start a serialized show you make a promise to your audience to finish the story. These streamers keep breaking that promise, and their audiences are responding with lower viewership. We gotta stop supporting the current PR driven headlines if y’all want that to change.

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retropieproblems t1_iwuhd6j wrote

It’s a great show but at this point I’d say the Wire is overrated. People hear it’s the best show of all time and just regurgitate it to sound interesting since it’s not that widely known of a show (outside of Reddit). It was the “cool” answer to best show of all time 10 years ago, but better shows have been made since.

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reddishcarp123 t1_iwuhy6j wrote

Again how exactly is a flop when actual facts & data say it isn't? You guys haven't even provided one shred of evidence that the show isn't a success other than "Nuh huh cause I say so" & it's honestly pathetic.

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myyummyass t1_iwuhzln wrote

Besides the ones you listed; we've had better call saul, two seasons of atlanta, Barry, we own this city, severance and probably some other stuff I’m forgetting all this year. All of those are high quality super well executed tv shows. It really is a golden age for tv shows.

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donmongoose t1_iwumgai wrote

Ignoring the obvious metrics, one of the aims of RoP was to become a water cooler show, the issue is, no one wants to talk about it because it's just not that good.

As for press and data - Do you really trust mainstream reviewers and press writers? They will literally praise a pile of doggy poo if the company that made it is big enough to give them perks or future business. Regarding data - streaming metrics are highly prone to manipulation, keep in mind minutes watched is one such and if an embedded video on prime starts playing, you bet thats counting towards that figure.

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NGG_Dread t1_iwun4xu wrote

Rings of power not even on the list lmfao, such a dogshit show.

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donmongoose t1_iwundxg wrote

I think you're massively underestimating just how much Tolkein fans hated RoP, not to mention how many "normies" could recognise that even at a basic level, the show failed. The fact anyone even bothered watching it and doing reviews does suggest that the LotR franchise is still up there near the top and it'll take more than one piss weak season of TV to change that.

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HickRarrison t1_iwuosor wrote

I personally saw lots of social media activity for ROP, mostly because the algorithms know I like LOTR. But yeah, definitely not as much as Stranger Things or Euphoria or HOTD.

You're right about younger audiences -- I'm Gen Z myself and I don't think any of my friends care about anything LOTR related. I don't think that's necessarily an indicator of viewership, because from what I've seen the overall viewership numbers for ROP are fine.

I think it says more about LOTR's target demographic -- it skews a lot older than those other shows. The movies are 20 years old, and the books are nearly 70 years old. And they aren't exactly light reading for kids. High fantasy in general is also a pretty niche genre compared to the fantasy in GOT/HOTD.

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backinredd t1_iwustk9 wrote

I really really wanted this show to be good because of how much internet was hating on it even before the trailer was out. It’s just so bland, boring with no pay off. Gorgeous shots and nothing else. I am yet to watch last twenty minutes of the finale. I just couldn’t finish it.

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RecommendsMalazan t1_iwuudd9 wrote

>no one wants to talk about it because it's just not that good

Well that's a broad statement...

Personally, I still talk about it at work sometimes, with coworkers who didn't follow it as it released but are watching now.

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wildwalrusaur t1_iwuvpj9 wrote

>ROP was supposed to the show that put Amazon Studios on the map, their bid for cultural relevance that HBO/Netflix got with Game of Thrones, Euphoria, Stranger Things, the Dahmer show I guess

They shouldn't have shortened and canceled The Expanse then

Easily the best thing they've made. And it had lot of chatter even amongst people I haven't known to watch scifi generally.

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Game-Boy-Color t1_iwuy3v0 wrote

I leave House of the Dragon on for my dog when I’m at work.

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kinglendawg t1_iwv07ep wrote

I started reading the Song of Ice and Fire books in 2019 and took an (extended) break in 2020 just because I didn’t have the time/interest to read, at least until Winds of Winter release was officially announced.

Season 1 of HotD re-vitalized my interest in this universe; began reading again since it wrapped and haven’t put them down again.

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SandyBoxEggo t1_iwv2r0h wrote

Don't do what that person said with the Extended Editions. I love that shit because I've seen them all dozens of times, but the theatrical trilogy was made as it was for a reason. Your first viewing should be that version.

If you're in love with the theatrical trilogy, the Extended Editions will be a very wonderful treat for round two. I just think the pacing and structure suffer for a fresh viewer.

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Corteaux81 t1_iwv354o wrote

Not in my opinion. I'm as big as ASOIAF fan as you'll ever meet, and the first four seasons were almost perfect television - but The Wire still stood just above that to me.

The Wire still #1 for me.

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GarlVinland4Astrea t1_iwv4pgv wrote

ITT a bunch of people who have no idea what the economics are behind the show that just change the goal posts of what success means because they don’t like a show.

This sub has some of the most desperate and toxic television viewers

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GarlVinland4Astrea t1_iwv55s2 wrote

It was Amazon’s biggest show of all time and every single metric that was a big success for them. The only people claiming it wasn’t are people who are just arbitrarily saying “it cost a lot so I think it should do more” without any real knowledge of the economics behind it.

Aka it’s a vague claim that has nothing to back it up by people in a sub that didn’t like the show before it was released

Also Dahmer is on the biggest streaming platform in the world and it outdid many more expensive shows, that’s more about how much of an out of nowhere hit and a testament to its success.

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GarlVinland4Astrea t1_iwv7qe8 wrote

There’s literally no metric that says it’s a flop lol. If it’s a flop HOTD is a flop since they had similar viewership lol.

Imagine ignoring reality this much because you hate a show lol.

Some of you are really funny with how far you are willing to make yourselves look ridiculous

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GarlVinland4Astrea t1_iwvaqkp wrote

Only the last two seasons were getting better ratings than peak Sopranos. That’s the thing. It went on longer so it had more years to build and it didn’t really become their most popular show until everyone started disliking it

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AtsignAmpersat t1_iwvbl7p wrote

I enjoyed it and I’m looking forward to the next season, but compared to GoT, there was a considerable drop off of nudity. Like it’s not necessary but it seemed deliberate.

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inthearticleuidiot t1_iwvfjny wrote

I don't get why Nielsen doesn't just include a metric that's "minutes viewed" divided by "half hours blocks of content" released so far. It won't fully account for all the variable runtimes we have now without advertising blocks, but it's still much better than this if the whole idea is to compare shows against one another.

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capitalistsanta t1_iwvjv75 wrote

Don't get why they don't let LOTR go at this point. They already won, and you have something like GoT that takes the fantasy spot up in a lot of people's brains. I haven't even heard good things about this. TV was built on the backs of original programming, nowadays it's based too much in nostalgia.

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theyusedthelamppost t1_iwvk4hh wrote

> It’s not the same as viewers watched, which was helpful to understand the popularity of a show relevant to other shows in the same time slot

Indeed it was. The world was easier to understand back when all networks agreed to air their shows on a comparable format. But nowadays with Netflix doing full binge releases and other studios doing weekly releases at a variety of times (HBO Max 9pm EST, Amazon midnight, Disney+ 3am) the old metric doesn't work anymore.

If you want to measure streaming audience in "number of viewers" then let me ask you this: Say Netflix released 8 episodes at once with 8 hours of run time. How much watch time should an account need in that week to be considered a viewer?

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Fahqbyach t1_iwvktfs wrote

People are desperate for well Made content. Netflix keeps churning out hallmark-level shows so people clamor to watch anything else. HotD is poorly paced, melodramatic, unsophisticated and skips over many of the details and world building that made GoT so good but people watch it because there’s so little else

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Lil_Mcgee t1_iwvlnp6 wrote

I wouldn't say it's overrated. Whether it's the greatest of all time is always gonna be a matter of subjective opinion but it's definitely in the running, there'd have to be many more excellent shows for it to not even be a contender.

I can't think of another show that is as well written whilst also having so many moving parts. It's an incredibly dense show with a vast interconnecting web of characters that touches on a fuck load of relevant societal themes and tells dozens of compelling human stories whilst doing so. That's not the only measure of quality but it's an area where it really does have other shows beat in my opinion.

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lightsongtheold t1_iwvnud2 wrote

I just read a great article that tagged House of the Dragon averaging 14 million over its run via Nielsen. For comparison Rings of Power did 14.5 million via Nielsen and She-Hulk did 12.2 million. Netflix’s bigger shows of late The Watcher did 14.9 million while Dahmer did around 15.1 million in similar Nielsen metrics.

Andor is not done yet but is only averaging around 4.5 million. Around a third of what both Boba Fett and Obi-Wan averaged.

Credit to Frédéric Durand’s newsletter for the data.

One thing with noting with House of the Dragon is those are the streaming numbers only. It averaged another few million per episode on linear HBO.

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patrofan t1_iwwdh27 wrote

Do they use the same way of speaking as in the other series? Using loads of swear words, f words, and all those things?

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NaRaGaMo t1_iwy9ed8 wrote

>Also ROP was the biggest Amazon show ever

Yes when you are competing against Paper girls, I know what you did last summer, Terminal List etc with 500mill+ budget you tend to become no.1

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