Hacker Cinema
Alpha House
2013 · TV series · 30 min episodes · 2 seasons
Created by Garry Trudeau
Four Republican senators share the same D.C. house rental, and face re-election battles, looming indictments, and parties -- all with a sense of humor.
4 positive2 negative3 neutralfrom 9 commenters
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9 comments on Hacker News
> Our culture as produced in books/film/tv/music is dominated by left leaning beliefs.
This could either be a conspiracy comprising of every author of every medium...
OR
It's because stories need sympathetic characters, and current Republican values aren't sympathetic.
I'm not trying to be divisive or flippant, though I'm sure this will be the effect. But success in media is driven by believable sympathetic characters (alternatively explosions), the only two that currently come to mind was John Goodmans character in Alpha House, and Ron Swanson (clearly libertarian) in Parks & Recreation, both of whom are very sympathetic characters, that put people before politics, and neither of whom would accept the last couple of years of their party's behavior.
TL;DR: It's either caused by a vast conspiracy, or the effect of what works in story telling, whichever you think is more reasonable.
>Amazon has wanted to put sports rights on its Amazon Prime video service,
Amazon wants me to cancel my Prime Video Service....
I would have rather gotten Season 3-n of Alpha House than Football or any other sports.. If they start investing in sports over premium content they can count me out...
I have been a prime member almost from the beginning of prime, I own 6 fireTV devices, and a few Kindle's, I am deep in the Amazon eco system, I will rip them all out over sports..
I dropped cable TV originally because I grew tried of most of my payment going to subsidize sports, and having my channels interrupted with "Live Sports"
There isn't much confusion at all if you don't have any filters then it's clearly marked on the thumbnail of the video. When you search you can select filters. Depending on the app you use (browser, amazon firetv, mobile, smart tv etc.) you also (at least on my browser, phone and tv) select in the settings to filter out paid content.
Amazon has damn good originals: Alpha House(please make season 3!!!), Hand of God, Bosch, Mozart in the Jungle and TMITHC as well as some of it's new pickups like Sneaky Pete and Patriot (the Patriot pilot and premise was amazing) are much better than most Netflix offers(which for the most part offers allot of esoteric comedy / stand up shows and well orange is the new black which I've never bothered to watch). At least to my subjective tastes before the Marvel ("webinatic universe?!") shows came about Netflix only had The House of Cards (and well Marco Polo) as far as originals go.
I had high hopes for the original series, but couldn't watch a single one past 2-3 episodes, including Alpha House (which had the great pilot with Stephen Colbert). They just didn't have the writing quality for me. They were like some average network show.
The broadcasters aren't monopolies, not in an age where the broadcast medium itself (as distinct from the content) is increasingly irrelevant. Only 7% of households rely on over-the-air TV: https://www.ce.org/News/News-Releases/Press-Releases/2013-Press-Releases/Only-Seven-Percent-of-TV-Households-Rely-on-Over-t.aspx.
The networks continue to matter because they offer products that people want to buy (movies and TV shows). These products are so compelling, that very few people have managed to offer compelling alternatives. E.g. people don't just want a doctor show, they want "House." They don't just want a sitcom, they want "How I Met Your Mother." It's not "innovation" to simply figure out new ways to take popular products and distribute them to consumers without paying the creators.
I applaud Netflix and Amazon for going down the path of real competition. Shows like "House of Cards" and "Alpha House" are rare alternatives to the media offered by established companies that actually receive good critical and audience reception.
They are attempting to produce movies and TV shows, though they're not having the creative or commercial success that Netflix has.
This may have something to do with motivation, and with the resources committed accordingly. Netflix is a TV and movie company, and it saw original content as a life-or-death strategic imperative. So it gladly spent $100M on "House of Cards," right off the bat. Amazon is a much larger, more diversified retailer, for whom TV and movies are but one small slice of a much bigger pie. Amazon hasn't taken this area as seriously as Netflix has, possibly because it doesn't consider the mission to be as central to its very existence. Its output, to date, has been fairly unimpressive and unambitious. ("Alpha House" and "Betas" have high-caliber casts and writing staffs, but word on the street is that the shows were ordered and rushed into production as a competitive answer to Netflix's recent successes.)
Horrible compared to what? For that price, you could buy one second-rate DVD per month. Or buy half a season of TV episodes for streaming. Or half a ticket to a movie theater. Or 3 weeks of Netflix/Hulu/etc -- Prime is cheaper even if you allocate $0 in value to the shipping perks. For that price Prime is giving you thousands of movies and TV series, including some awesome original programming (Betas, Alpha House). It's hard to argue there's not $6/mo of value there if you can find just one thing a month to watch.
Aww. Just as I started watching their expensive TV shows! Alpha House season one was really good.
I also liked the shipping - but now that I have seen Paris at $75 will I want it at $110?
> Now, the first three episodes of "Alpha House" are up for all customers to watch without charge. Remaining episodes will become available weekly, every Friday, only for Amazon Prime customers.
meh.