Hacker Cinema
Bloodline
2015 · TV series · 60 min episodes · 3 seasons
Created by Glenn Kessler, Daniel Zelman, Todd A. Kessler
A dramatic thriller that explores the demons lurking beneath the surface of a contemporary American family. The Rayburns are hard-working pillars of their Florida Keys community. But when the black sheep son comes home for the 45th anniversary of his parents' hotel, he threatens to expose the Rayburns' dark secrets and shameful past, pushing his siblings to the limits of family loyalty.
5 positive1 negativefrom 6 commenters
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6 comments on Hacker News
Taste is not subjective. The critics (cc Metacritic, >>> Rotten Tomatoes) are usually right about TV/film.
Decent Netflix TV: Maid, Unbelievable, Ozark, Narcos, Bloodline, Mindhunter, Black Mirror, Sweet Tooth.
They average like one decent TV show every 18 months. It's an absolute disaster.
> Can somebody tell me a new Netflix serie that comes close to House of Cards?
I enjoyed HOC, especially the earlier seasons. A few shows (none of them new though) available on Netflix that I found equivalently good, each got better as they went:
Bloodline[0] - starts slow & builds, I didn't expect to like it as much as I did. Very under the radar, very good.
The OA[1] - similar to bloodline, in that I didn't expect to like it & it got better with each episode/season as the story progressed.
Colony[2] - got cancelled so ends on on cliff-hanger (an exhilarating one), but if you like sci-fi/aliens it'll deliver.
[0] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3520702/
[1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4635282/
[2] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4209256/
Mad Men didn't even have an audience when it aired (<2 million viewers most episodes), and airs on a network that likely won't exist in 5-6 years (or at least won't be producing new content), so it's not super clear to me what your point is about those shows as evidence of how a network grows. The way a network grows is by producing content people want to watch, whether that's disposable content made to last a minute or content made to last the test of time. HBO isn't growing because people are subscribing to watch Sopranos re-runs.
Past reporting suggests churn in most subscription content services is very low, so your Netflix cancellation may be unusual. I'd also add that exclusive content is one part of the story, but there's also a lot of licensed content that's very good on Netflix as on other services.
But for what it is worth, I would rank the following Netflix originals to be "top tier" within their genre -- some of these genres lend themselves more to rewatching than others, and some are closer to my taste than others, some held up in quality through their run more than others, so in a sense I am ranking shows based on their peak quality --
Orange is the New Black; Bloodline; Stranger Things; The Crown; Gilmore Girls AYITL; The OA; A Series of Unfortunate Events; Mindhunter; The Haunting of Hill House; Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt; Master of None; Love; Lady Dynamite; Santa Clarita Diet; GLOW; American Vandal; Maniac; Bojack Horseman; F is for Family; Disenchantment; Hilda; Dark; The Rain; Elite; Chef's Table; Making a Murderer; Shot in the Dark; Wormwood; Wild Wild Country; Salt Fat Acid Heat; Queer Eye; The Curious Creations of Christine McConnell; My Next Guest Needs No Introduction; Lilyhammer; Terrace House; Alias Grace; The End of the Fucking World; Collateral; Wanderlust; Longmire; Black Mirror; Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee.
In addition to these, the following shows are Netflix originals in my region, indicating that although someone else initially funded them, Netflix bought them for exclusive distribution here, and also meet the above requirements:
Babylon Berlin; Bodyguard; Casé; Crashing; Cuckoo; Derry Girls; The Great British Baking Show; Happy!; Happy Valley; The Investigator; Peaky Blinders; River.
I have pretty broad taste in TV and watch a lot of TV while I am programming or running data analysis, so maybe the breadth of stuff I include here is surprising to most. But to the extent your post is a useful anecdote about how Netflix has no great shows, I'm responding to your challenge to "Name one show" that would meet that criteria.
(These are TV shows only, not films. I haven't really liked many Netflix original films although there are a few I would say are great, like Okja and Roma)
I don't think any of those shows are on the same level as the top tier HBO ones. The only show that I think reaches it is Breaking Bad (AMC). I actually think the best netflix ever did was with Bloodline (S1 only). House of Cards, while fun to watch, was quite one dimensional. And HBO deserves a lot of credit for supporting The Wire like it did (despite low viewer counts), and continuing to do so, more recently with Show Me A Hero. Shows that will not be popular for the general market but are good shows with a story worth telling. Quoting The Economist:
And second, because as drama “Show Me a Hero” excels. Younger viewers may find this hard to believe, but once upon a time American studios made films for adults, with nary a dinosaur, superhero or hunger game in sight. Directors such as Elia Kazan, Sidney Lumet and Spike Lee dealt with serious moral questions, and made urban realism riveting. Messrs Simon and Zorzi are their successors, but their work is richer, more sophisticated—and better.
If this is indeed forced by content creators, I think it is counter productive. They will just give more incentive to Netflix (and Amazon and others) to create they own content, as third part content lose them money.
Perssonal view: the "Original Netflix Content" sign already give me a more value perception. Between a recycled TV show and a new one by Netflix, I always chose the new on by Netflix. So far I watched all of: Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Making a Murderer, House of Cards, Narcos, Sense8, Bloodline, Orange is the new black, Master of None, Better Call Saul.
And I'll probably keep watching the next seasons of all of them.
Outside of Netflix, I only follow the very best ones (IMO): Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad (that's over) and Walking Dead.
What this means? I consume only the very best hits that these other content creators produce. For casual, day-to-day entertainment, that covers 90% of the time, I stay with Netflix.
I assume they know the hook point based on a decrease in drop off rate after x episodes. I'm surprised Netflix doesn't use this to their advantage to entice people to wait a few episodes before giving up. If the person didn't tune in for a while, they could get a reminder saying: just so you know, we found most people get hooked after the 4th episode, so you may want to give it another try! For example, I gave up on Bloodline after the 3rd episode and I would have probably checked out the next one if I knew it was the hook point.