Hacker Cinema
Maniac
2018 · TV series · 1 season
Created by Patrick Somerville, Cary Joji Fukunaga
ComedyDramaScience FictionFantasy
Two strangers are drawn to a mysterious pharmaceutical trial that will, they're assured, with no complications or side-effects whatsoever, solve all of their problems, permanently. Things do not go as planned.
15 positive1 negative8 neutralfrom 24 commenters
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26 comments on Hacker News
You should definitely watch Maniac: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maniac_(miniseries)
A few things clicked for me here:
The algorithms that show me “things to watch” are so utterly useless (and yes I’ve thumbs downed a whole lot of things but it keeps showing me crap). Especially bad is Netflix, I think once Stranger Things is done with the final season (5) I’m out. Which leads to:
It’s f’ing impossible to find things (especially on Netflix). The whole UI of a wall of rectangular cover art with a show name below with no additional information until you click it is seriously the worst UI ever designed, it didn’t work well for music and it definitely doesn’t work for video ESPECIALLY on the limited and slow interactions of a TV remote.
These points above partly explain low viewing figures for new shows: they are so utterly hidden from view, the first season barely has a chance to get started before it’s pulled because cost/viewer ratio is too low.
Moving on from that - I’ve stopped watching anything that’s not a wrapped up series or a limited series (Maniac or New Cherry Coke Flavor on Netflix come to mind).
Often before I even start watching something I’ll quickly Google for “<show name> cancelled” before I waste time watching it.
I completely agree with other commenters here about companies committing to a guaranteed number of seasons / episodes which wrap up the story neatly…
If you look at a great example: BATTLESTAR GALACTICA (reboot) - the writers knew exactly how long it would last, everyone committed to it and the story was told and it got critical acclaim. Once it showed its worth there was still room for “sequels”. “The plan” was a great example of how the exact same story could be told from another point of view.
Another thing that comes to mind is “the matrix” which as a trilogy came to a satisfying conclusion. The amount of money spent on Matrix 4 verses how utterly terrible it was (does anyone even talk about it any more?) show a good reason why things need a definite end.
That being said I’d probably watch a tv series that showed the matrix world from the machine world…
Just saying, what if this was an option in Uber Pool and one of the Uber Pool riders was to be an “Ad buddy” ? The “Ad buddy” gets to ride free and other riders get a discount.
For context, “Ad Buddy” is a fictional creation introduced in Netflix Maniac series. <https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5580146/>
This really comes down to opinion, and I happen to think there are comparable shows which have aired in the last year (Better Call Saul is as good as, if not better than Breaking Bad in my opinion)
But I think it's silly to argue about that ;) The golden age for you might not be the golden age for me, and most people. Personally, not having to sit through a million ads when I watch TV now makes the TV-watching experience leagues beyond what we had in the late 90s (and sure, we've had some phenomenal shows since Breaking Bad; I'd personally nod at Atlanta, High Maintenance, Maniac, Severance, Game of Thrones S1-5, Undone, and The Expanse)
But we also have access to everything from the 90s and noughts, without the ads and waiting for new episodes
The point I was making in the GP post was that people now have easy access to the long-form storytelling of TV shows, without interruptions and nonstop ads, in a way that didn't exist 10+ years ago. Whether or not you think the TV shows today are better than the ones from the late '90s, people nowadays are choosing watch more TV and less film.
It was possible to (cross)compile binaries on OS/2 that would run on both OS/2 and DOS. For example, it is possible to run the same Word 5.5 executable on both OS/2 and DOS. Everything was textmode but there is also a "pseudo-textmode" that allows, e.g, italics.
https://web.archive.org/web/20071012190431/http://pages.prodigy.net/michaln/history/os213/index.html
The power and energy efficiency of today's computers is wasted on commercial surveillance and draining advertising budgets. Let us pray that someone discovers a more effective means of advertising than the computer. The 2018 Netflix series "Maniac" seemed to hint at this alternate future.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maniac_(miniseries)
> Sometimes, I'd prefer some sort of limited series more than a movie. 'Maniac' was enjoyable for me because it had time to let things go slowly, despite taking course over what was probably 1 week in-universe.
Maniac is an excellent example. If it were a film, much of it would be cut down, and the movie likely would have had a singular focus on Jonah Hill's Owen character. The show, in having more time to breathe, realized relatively early on (by episode 3 or 4) that Emma Stone's Annie character had a far more compelling story to tell, and shifted its focus accordingly.
Sometimes, I'd prefer some sort of limited series more than a movie. 'Maniac' was enjoyable for me because it had time to let things go slowly, despite taking course over what was probably 1 week in-universe.
I may also be different from the usual audience, in that I try to avoid binging anything. Hour-long episodes are great for my WFH lunch break, and to pad some time in the evenings if I so desire, but I prefer to commit to watching a movie if I know I have the time.
Molly's Game was a nice and long movie, but at over 2 hours long, I feel like it could have had potential at being a miniseries. But also, maybe not? Who knows how much meaningful material was left on the chopping block.
On YouTube some years ago, there was a kid in Australia who made a series of videos where his Mum would try a different OS in each episode. IIRC, most were Linux distributions.
With respect to computers, people can learn to use anything. With computers, most people exercise little choice. Most do not care about computers or software (i.e., they are not like you, dearest HN reader). These things are just a means to an end. They learn what they are forced to learn to do what they have to do. I once read the majority of "smartphone" owners do not even install any "apps". This sort of indifference is not something the "tech" crowd will ever acknowledge, but that does not make it less real. There is life outside of "tech" hype, lots of it.
In the 1980's I watched many people who cared nothing for computers (i.e., not people like you, HN reader) use text-only programs to get things done. The lack of obsessively manipulative "UI" did not stop anyone from using computers back then.^1 Unlike today, not everyone had to use computers. Those that did used what they were forced to use.
1. I reckon it wouldn't stop them today either, if that was what they were forced to use. But we will never know. For a fun example of how things might have turned out differently, check out this Netflix series from 2018: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maniac_(miniseries)
Reminds me of the miniseries Maniac. It portrays an "alternate future" without Javascript, etc., where targeting advertising is in fact taken to these extremes, including the "Pinkertons" idea.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maniac_(miniseries)
The OA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_OA, Tales from the Loop https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tales_from_the_Loop, Maniac https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maniac_(miniseries), Utopia (2014 British TV series) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8Vu3Hyv_Vk&list=PL_jIDr2tZiuRHlp-bLwYNgWaFAp6dR7_Y
IIRC on HN itself there was an article about a service where you could just hire someone to (pretend to be) your friend / significant other, to pretend to your families you're not some lonely shut-in and you're doing all right. The requests were quite varied.
It's dystopian as fuck but it fulfills a need, apparently.
The Netflix miniseries Maniac has something similar, a company called Friend Proxy where you can hire someone to act like a friend of yours. It's a really interesting take on the cyberpunk genre, it's worth watching.
Yet they still can't properly render 21:9 content on a 21:9 display. You get a shrunk picture with black bars on all sides. Even their "Originals" or N-Series or whatever they call it now have this problem.
Here's hoping someone from Netflix is in the comments and can act on it, because their support system hasn't done anything in the 2 years since I brought it to their attention.
edit: Actually, I tried to track down the film used in the new encoding (I think it's The Dirt from the signs and dates seen in the frame captures) so I could screenshot for comparison. It actually worked in 21:9 fullscreen.
Was it the new encoding? I saw this problem up until this past week, most recently on Maniac but I checked that show and it's no longer an issue.
From the post I suspect it was this adding in extra blacks at top and bottom on 21:9 content in the old method:
> with fixed 4K resolution bitrates — 8, 10, 12 and 16 Mbps — regardless of content characteristics
But I truly don't know what it was. I just know that video no longer ignores 40% of my screen real estate by watching on a 21:9 monitor since sometime last week.
THANK YOU! That has been annoying me for years.
But Please add 3440x1440 to your testing. It's not shown in those charts.
Are you saying Netflix hasn’t made quality shows that will last through 2039? I’d like to know which company you think has made close to the amount of quality shows Netflix has since 2014. Here’s part of a list I have for a content project. No company comes close to this output in recent history.
House of Cards launched February 2013 (7 seasons, finished)
Orange is the New Black launched July 2013 (7 seasons, finished)
Stranger Things launched July 2016 (3 seasons, 1-2 more)
—
Dark (2 seasons, 3rd is last)
Glitch (2 seasons, 3rd might never come)
Russian Doll (1 season)
Haunting of Hill House (1 season, anthology)
American Vandal (2 seasons)
Black Mirror (anthology, last season not that good)
The Crown (3 seasons)
When They See Us (mini-series, 2019)
Unbelievable (just came out)
—
Glow (3 seasons)
Kimmy Schmidt (4 seasons, finished)
Arrested Development (they tried, hard to get it all back together after years of being done)
Sex Education (1 season)
Bojack Horseman (5 seasons?) #animated
Mindhunter (2 seasons)
The OA (2 seasons)
Maniac (mini-series)
Wet Hot American Summer (2 seasons, but season 1 is the top notch one)
F is for Family (3? seasons) #animated
Big Mouth (2? seasons) #animated
—
Documentary mini-series
—
Staircase
Making a Murderer
Evil Genius
The Jinx
Wild Wild West
——-
There’s more I’m missing and I didn’t include a number of shows Netflix helps finance but isn’t the main financier or producer or original place of distribution. Shows like Glitch.
Yeah, all we have so far is the names attached and a few words said on a big stage. We know very little about the shows, and obviously the people working on it will try to make it sound as good as they can. If I had a penny for every time some actor hyped up a movie or show that ended up being awful...
And I agree, Netflix goes for a wider breadth, but they have a significant number of quality and original content. Shows like Maniac, Our Planet, Russian Doll, Master of None, Ozark, Stranger Things, American Vandal and so on. There's something on there for everyone, and enough that you're never out of shows to watch.
The article viewpoints are probably right, Netflix and Amazon need a few more hits that people trust.
The Office was a big fallback show and Netflix needs a few of those of their own. Stranger Things probably fits that.
The Witcher might change things for quality on Netflix.
Netflix shows have high production quality in terms of cinematography, lighting, sound, color, sets, on location etc. Writing and big draw actors aren't there just yet, though they have a bunch of that going and started that way with House of Cards. Stranger Things was new actors except a couple like Winona Ryder, the writing was better and it was successful. Maniac and Sabrina are also pretty good in this area. Bojack Horseman has a cult following. Dark is amazing. Black Mirror was a great acquisition. I Am Mother was pretty good and premiering Annihilation was a steal. Russian Doll was excellent. Animation like Death, Love & Robots, Voltron, Castlevania and more are solid. Those are all the model to go for. What is missing in most shows is writing and casting/actors draw to make a staple series that becomes a fallback like the article mentions.
> Consumers turn to a trusted source when they don’t know what to watch on their streaming service
> Subscriptions like Netflix and Amazon Prime offer plenty of critically-acclaimed, award-winning content. But the thing is, viewers have to pick which movies and series they’ll watch, and observers say many are getting burned out from all that decision-making.
Now with The Witcher the writing is based on a really solid book series, they have a big name actor Henry Cavill that has read the series and it looks great. It could be their Game of Thrones.
Amazon is also trying this with Lord of the Rings and Wheel of Time.
These shows if they are done right, will get rewatched for a long time and draws in the mega fans that are influencers.
Netflix is doing pretty good with stand up comedy, maybe even the leader now. They paid Dave Chappelle and will forever be thanked for that by comedy content consumers.
Netflix and Amazon need some big hits like the coming epics, and they need some good staple shows like the Office, Parks and Recreation, Brooklyn 99 (Netflix should have bought this), Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Friends, Seinfeld, Curb Your Enthusiasm and more. When they have that they equal the content competition that has that trusted good quality. They need a few more of these always watchable fallbacks.
They are both still chasing HBO, HBO is still the top in consistently good content and shows.
Personally I love the competition, some real funding and creator freedom is being unleashed, some are big hits, some are average and some not so good, but I like the amount of content and like the vibe of where Netflix is headed. Their new intro splash where the N goes into color bands is even great, matches their really colorful catalog.
This article has incredible annoying spacing (one sentence per paragraph). Is this meant to read like an unrolled Twitter thread?
Content wise: I recently cancelled my Netflix again because despite a flood of new shows, all feel incredibly generic and formulaic. I like shows across genres, from teenage romance to sitcom to thriller, and I am looking forward to watching e.g. Narcos new season when it hits, there are also great one-offs like Maniac.
I just don't believe in the strategy of flooding their platform with their own content at this volume. Or rather, the type of content. If I remember correctly, plots and artistic decisions are made by committee, and it just shows very hard how plots are made to be subtly educational, not offend, just a lowest common denominator of what the data says.
Not sure it works. After finding myself browsing through too many evenings in a row, I always cancel until something I know I want returns for a new season, then resubscribe for a month.
HBO has some big-ticket items, but Netflix is more consistent in dropping new series for me to try. It's still my go-to place for content since there's more than I have time to watch. I just looked up their list of original content[1] for refresh my mind, and quite a few were extremely good in my opinion.
- House of Cards: I only got a little into the second season before I got busy, but what I saw was high quality and interesting.
- Orange is the new Black: My wife still loves this series
- Stranger Things: An honest to god phenomenon. The second season was weaker IMO, but I'm not sure how it could be as good as the first. That's a high bar to hit.
- The Crown: I caught a lot of it as my wife watched. Pretty good, even if a blond Doctor Who was somewhat distracting.
- A Series of Unfortunate Events: The kids liked this, as some of them are going through the books.
- Altered Carbon: Refreshingly good science fiction. Main character casting a little odd, since it's more obvious now than it was when I was younger how odd and slightly off-putting it is to cast someone with the physique of Arnold Schwarzenegger as a science fiction lead. At the same time, it's now fitting (or a trope) because of all the science fiction he helmed in the 1990's.
- Lost in Space: Interesting, but ultimately spoiled slightly by the contrived plot. Better writing and this would have been extremely good rather than worth watching, but slightly disappointing.
- The Haunting: A nice interweaving of stories, and creepy series. I liked the ending. I have friends who didn't.
That's just from the drama section of the list. There's plenty in the other sections too, such as Maniac and Russian Dolls which I watched recently that were good, and documentary section has a bunch of good things I've seen as well. Some of he Marvel series' were pretty good too (season one of Jessica Jones was excellent on so many levels).
That's a small fraction of what they released. Looking at the list now, there's no way I would cancel Netflix before Hulu, and probably HBO also. There's things I want to watch on those (for different reasons), but now that I examine it, it's clear that I use and value what Netflix is giving me way more than the other two.
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_original_programs_distributed_by_Netflix
>WRT Netflix, their stated strategy was that their access to data was going to allow them to create superior content
I would argue that Netflix has and does do this except for a different definition of superior. They aren't really trying to make a single show with broad market appeal. An algorithm isn't going to help with that anyway. What an algorithm can do is find niches to serve. Netflix has done a good job of creating these smaller shows that have an intense appeal to a small number of people. Gather enough of those shows together and eventually you have everyone covered. It is basically just targeted advertising except with TV shows.
HBO might have GOT that everyone watches, but Netflix has Black Mirror, BoJack Horseman, GLOW, You, The Crown, Russian Doll, Narcos, Maniac, Ozark, One Day At A Time, Big Mouth, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, and numerous other shows that have received critical acclaim and everyone probably watches at least one of those.
It boils down to preferences. I personally feel the quality of HBO’s shows & series is dramatically higher than even the peak quality of Netflix or Prime original offerings. They are simply nowhere close. They’re not even playing the same sport.
Pretty much every Netflix darling I’ve spent time to watch (Stranger Things, House of Cards, Russian Doll, Maniac, Bird Box, Roma) has been a huge disappointment.
By comparison with HBO, I only feel that way about True Detective Season 2 and Crashing (the Pete Holmes show). Other shows have variation of course and some are more interesting or less to me, but none of them have been sincerely big disappointments, while nearly every single darling that Netflix puts out is pretty crap.
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)
Highly subjective and therefor probably not welcome here, but since this was the comment I saw first:
My Top Netflix Shows:
- Better Call Saul
- Bojack Horseman
- Mindhunter
- Fargo
- Maniac
- The End of the Fucking World
- Master of None
- American Vandal
My Top Netflix Movies:
- Beats of No Nation
- Roma
- Annihilation
- Okja
And where I think your list is wrong:
- 13 Reasons Why
Very problematic show[1]. I found Netflix' response to the criticism lacking and season 2 doubles down on the mistake. Even if one can ignore that, I think the writing and characters are still insultingly thin.
- Ozark
Not bad at all. But also not nearly as good as Breaking Bad. If we didn't live in this gilden television age, I might've found it worth my time
- Altered Carbon
Visually very entertaining. But it's definitely pulp.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/13_Reasons_Why#Social_impact
Someone recently commented elsewhere that they were tired of paying for streaming access to a bunch of shows nobody wants to watch, and they wanted access to the most popular movies/network shows/whatever.
I didn't comment then, but FWIW: some of the best shows available are now streaming originals from Netflix, Prime, etc. If you haven't checked out specifically any of the Netflix originals, you're missing out. It's a complete replacement for the non-sports watcher.
As posted in response elsewhere below, here's a list of Netflix's best work:
- Stranger Things - Narcos - The OA - The Haunting of Hill House - Marvel series. All of them! - GLOW - Ozark - Altered Carbon - American Vandal - 13 Reasons Why
Also good:
- Atypical - Love - Flaked - Maniac - Master of None - Chef's Table - Making a Murderer
This is by no means a complete list, you can find that here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_original_programs_distributed_by_Netflix
I tried to skim through it and provide my own short list of what I really liked, so this is just one person's opinion.
It's a show about confronting your past, accepting loss, and growing past your old self.
I'm fascinated by the lukewarm response this show's received. It feels so refreshing to have a show a) tell you what it's going to do and then b) do it. It spends the first three episodes establishing the characters and the conceit, and then follows through on everything a narrative is supposed to follow through on.
Every major character has a "core trauma" that they must confront and move past. They ingest pills which put them into dreamlike states where they can fuse their trauma with mythological encounters, which lets them face their problems head on in a more abstract sense. Just about to the letter how Joseph Campbell explained the purpose of myths and legends.
Even the non-dreaming characters face larger-than-life scenarios they must overcome in order to overcome their own core problems. Without spoiling it, Dr. Mantleray (Justin Theroux) has a hilarious and way over the top problem that he confronts in an equally ridiculous manner.
Which reminds me of another facet of this show: it's not afraid to let you (or make you) laugh. Unlike Bojack's Flip McVicker, who says before his premier, "This show contains no intentional humor."
It's a tonic for people tired of Prestige TV. The "it gets good" syndrome, where we have to wait a whole season for any kind of "payoff" to hours of wheel-spinning, setup, and dissolution. I'm tired of mysterious characters doing weird things and waiting eight episodes to find out why. Plot is not a puzzle. I want to know the characters, to care about them, to know in clear terms what they want and watch them struggle to achieve that. Which, I think, Maniac delivers on.
Netflix has created some of the best TV shows I have watched in the past few years.
Strangers things, Maniac, The End of the F*ing World, Narcos, On my block, Master of none, El Chapo, Ozark, Glow, Disenchanted, Black mirror, Dare Devil, 13 reasons why, Jessica Jones, The Punisher, A series of unfortunate events, The OA, Orange is the new black
Those are just some of the ones I can recall at the moment.
Only other shows that I use popcorn time to watch are Game of thrones and Homeland.
This is literally Ad Buddies in the TV show Maniac.
I’d probably do it. They’re open about what data they collect and what they use it for, which is better than many of the websites I use
> our everyday argot, our thrumming lifeblood: not just on Twitter (the ur-anxious medium, with its constant updates), but also in blogger diaries, celebrity confessionals (Et tu, Beyoncé?), a hit Broadway show (“Dear Evan Hansen”), a magazine start-up (Anxy, a mental-health publication based in Berkeley, Calif.), buzzed-about television series (like “Maniac,” a coming Netflix series by Cary Fukunaga, the lauded “True Detective” director) and, defying our abbreviated attention spans, on bookshelves.
Is there a good more-factish article about this? I'm the type of person who wants to read words like "thrumming". For an article about anxiety, the prose seems to be designed to produce further anxiety. Anxiety about anxiety is probably the most dangerous kind.