They only managed to adapt a third of the book. That is hardly going out on a high. It would have been better to just make this as a miniseries from the get go!

The article says they only adapted a third of the book. Absolute madness this was not a limited series to begin with. I’ll score it off my watchlist now it has been cancelled without a conclusion.

Nah, True Blood was an HBO show.

Showtime had Dexter, Weeds, Californication, and endless seasons of Shameless, Homeland, and Ray Donovan.

I really enjoyed both shows. American Gigolo was more OK than brilliant but I still felt it was a solid show. Let The Right One In was actually pretty good. A bit different from the movie but a fairly good and engaging show with fun twists and turns and characters with plenty of depth to them. It had some Dexter vibes to it. I went into it with low expectations but ended up really loving it. It is such a pity it never found an audience.

That is pretty much the viewership numbers for anything that is not Billions, Dexter, Your Honor, or Yellowjackets in the last 3 years.

I’ll absolutely miss both American Gigolo and Let The Right One In.

It does seem a fairly predictable year. Dahmer will almost certainly earn a limited series nomination at the expense of stuff like The English and This Is Going To Hurt. Masters of the Air is a lock as well if Apple air it in time.

I think you are spot on with the drama predictions but I still think it a shame they completely ignore shows like P-Valley from the networks that cannot afford to properly campaign those shows.

I will be interested to see if 1923 on Paramount garners any love. It has a gig budget and awards darling Helen Mirren in there with Harrison Ford. It has also been a big viewership hit by all accounts for Paramount+.

As for Comedy? I think Wednesday will earn a nomination even if Abbot Elementary, The Bear, and Ted Lasso look to be fighting it out for the actual win. Wednesday was a smash viewership hit and one of Netflix’s most popular shows ever. They will back it with a massive campaign as they have nothing else except the ultra niche Mo to get behind this year.

I’ll be sad to see the excellent Reservation Dogs likely getting ignored in Comedy.

The books series is basically set up to make the TV series in an anthology format. Each book focuses on the romance of a new Bridgerton sibling with the others just playing small supporting roles, making cameo appearances, or no appearance at all.

It is a typical romance book series format which does not tend to gel with serialised TV shows where folks expect the same cast for the duration of the series. Which is why folks are shocked the leads from previous seasons are not returning for later seasons. Their stories are done.

I definitely feel like they improved a lot over 2022. It absolutely helped that they increased the volume of original shows and got a healthy amount of Universal movies soon after their theatrical release.

They should be worth $5 a month! Crazy they are struggling to sell at that price.

Yet changing to original language with or without subtitles can be done in less than 20 seconds before you even start the show in question. Netflix provide a variety of audio and subtitled options or none at all and leave the choice of which to take up to the viewer. It is the ideal way to maximise accessibility of content. Everybody gets to watch in their preferred format.

They have aired The Crown, Ozark, Dahmer, 1899, Mo, Stranger Things, Russian Doll, Dead To Me, Inventing Anna, and From Scratch in 2022. That is a pretty solid roster of a diverse variety of prestige shows. The also had award recognised big viewership hits like Bridgerton, Emily in Paris, Cobra Kai, and Wednesday on top of that.

The Recruit is not Netflix’s attempt at a CW show, it is their attempt at an ABC show. It is why they got Alexi Hawley (Castle and The Rookie) to make it. Same as The Lincoln Lawyer was their attempt at an NBC or CBS show.

The go prestige cable with stuff like The Crown, 1899, Dahmer, The Watcher, Midnight Mass, Vikings Valhalla, The Sandman, etc.

They definitely go for the younger demo as well and do it pretty successfully with shows like Wednesday, Stranger Things, Outer Banks, Shadow & Bone, Ginny & Georgia, and Never Have I Ever.

If they have a recent flaw it is a lack of new ongoing non genre prestige dramas to replace The Crown and Ozark.

I was unsure about the movie in the early stages but the more I watched the more it hooked me. I ended up really enjoying it. Was the only Oscar contender from last year that still had me thinking about it the next day.

Well worth the acclaim it received during awards season last year.

The story was relatively straight forward but I felt like it was a tonally weird show. It was a drama but it did verge on being absurdist and comedic at times with falling outright into those things. The dialogue was also pretty stylised. I’m not saying that was a bad thing as I thought the dialogue and some of the acting were both fun but they were definitely a noticeable stylistic choice.

Weird show but definitely count me as a fan. Would love to see it get talked about more and agree that Blunt and Spencer should at least be in the award season mix for their performance on the show.

This is almost Rings of Power level budget! Paramount need to get a grip. Could probably have churned out three to four shows like Succession for that budget.

1899 finished its four week run with 32.8 million equivalent complete viewings. I’ve tagged 30 million as the target for renewal. Which means 1899 is a bubble show. It should get renewed as it just past the cut-off mark and showed solid legs (which Netflix likes) but as you mention it was an expensive show with an estimate of $8 million per episode so that could work against it.

I feel like this is a real bubble show. I’m leaning towards saying they will renew 1899 but I’ll not be totally surprised if they do not. I’d also not be surprised if it did get a season two with the second season being announced as the final one.

I do hope they renew 1899. It was a good show and the ratings were OK. Deserves at least one more season.

I think the fate of 1899 will be very interesting for informing us on the renewal threshold for Netflix shows.

It is definitely a good sign that Lookism has charted two weeks in a row. Most anime miss the charts. Appearing in the charts is definitely good for its renewal chances. Sonic Prime also just turned in an excellent performance and looks a lock for renewal at this point. Poor Dragon Age doomed. Which is a pity as I quite enjoyed that one after it recovered from a sluggish opening episode to end up a fun D&D style fantasy tale.

I thought The Recruit was OK but it was definitely a tonally weird show. Felt like it was going after ABC and CW viewers at the same time and probably not managing to satisfy either demo. Also felt like a female skewing show that was trying very hard to appeal to males as well! It was a weird one.

The only thing I’m not worried about in regards to The Recruit is looks of the lead. Women love Noah!

A great week for Wednesday. Its 173960000 hours worked out at 25.8 million equivalent complete viewings. Only a -35.5% drop from last week. Through 4 weeks Wednesday is at 177.3 million equivalent complete viewings!

For comparison that second only to Squid Game (187.3 million) and well in front of third placed Stranger Things s4 (96.5 million). Stranger Things might top Wednesday in the hours viewed metric (due to having almost double the runtime of Wednesday) but Wednesday is now by far the biggest English language Netflix show in the equivalent complete viewings metric!

A decent week two for Harry & Megan. It worked out at 16.9 million in equivalent complete viewings. Very good.

Not a great debut week for Noah Centineo’s The Recruit. It opened to 7.2 million. Very soft and it is probably already in trouble and likely for cancellation. Both Resident Evil (10.2 million) and Fate: the Winx Saga s2 (8 million) opened higher than The Recruit and were cancelled. The only US drama debut show to open lower than this in 2022 and get renewed was The Lincoln Lawyer (5.5 million) but The Lincoln Lawyer was a weird show that performed super well in weeks two, three, and four! I think The Recruit will have to perform on the same level to have a hope of renewal. The week two numbers will be interesting. The Lincoln Lawyer had a fantastic 140% growth in week two!

Not much else happening. It was a bad week for the debut scripted shows. Paradise PD s4 (less than 2.5 million) and Glitter (less than 1.8 million) failed to make the charts while A Storm For Christmas did manage to chart with 3.7 million.

Firefly Lane managed 3.5 million in its third week. A 47% drop between weeks two and three. Some analysts point to that number being below 50% as something that Netflix value.

Nothing else worth noting. Next week we have Emily in Paris s3, The Witcher: Blood Origin, and Alice in Borderland to look out for. Though The Witcher spin-off will only get one day of release so we had better temper expectations for that one. No doubt it has a much bigger week 2.

This is airing on Paramount+. It will be fine. Over 60s are the target audience!

It was not doing “great”. The viewership numbers were awful. That is why Netflix cancel Warrior Nun.

You know you can still subscribe to the advertising free tiers, right?

There was also reports that even Amazon will cut back in 2023 after a terrible set of financials last quarter.

Especially if the volume returns to the level it is at right now as the services that survive gain the subscriber volume they need to support a higher volume slate.

I still say the Golden Age is past though as we are just exiting the period where streamers, broadcast, and cable were firing on all cylinders. Cable in particular is beginning to look like a wasteland for scripted outside of the premium networks and FX.

It is still a puzzle even using that particular bit of logic why those folks think networks ordering less TV shows will result in them personally finding more TV shows they enjoy!

You know what happened at HBO when AT&T ordered them to produce more TV shows? We got more great TV shows than ever before!

Finding a new home for Our Flag Means Death is not as much of an issue as one might think with the new leadership being very open to external sales. We just seen a similar example of this over at NBCU. They cancelled a Universal TV show on Peacock but we’re open to it continuing on at Netflix and happy to give Netflix the previous seasons of the show on a non-exclusive basis. Seems that selling a show rather than funding it fully yourself is something that would very much appeal to cash strapped WBD right now. Biggest issue is finding a new home! I definitely think WBD would be open to selling Warner TV shows under this current regime.