Hacker Cinema
One Day at a Time
2017 · TV series · 30 min episodes · 4 seasons
Created by Mike Royce, Gloria Calderón Kellett
In a reimagining of the TV classic, a newly single Latina mother raises her teen daughter and tween son with the "help" of her old-school mom.
2 positive2 neutralfrom 4 commenters
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4 comments on Hacker News
Oh, I remember a show which took place in an apartment in a public housing project - "Good Times". Takes place in Chicago. Two parents, three children ages 11-17.
OTOH, the TV series "227" took place in middle-class apartment complex in D.C. (Wife, husband, 14-year-old daughter.)
"One Day at a Time", working-class mother with two teenage daughters in Indianapolis.
I haven't watched much TV since the 1990s. A friend suggests "Wizards of Waverly Place", with a family (two adults, three teen children) in an apartment in Manhattan.
Anyway, at least on TV it does not seem like apartments are associated with low-income ghettos. They are much more strongly associated with cities.
This habit of cancellation is, for me, the biggest failure of the lot. Some of their shows were very high quality and quite unique: One Day At A Time, The OA, The Baby-Sitter’s Club. You know what else all of these shows have in common? They were cancelled at the top of their game.
People forget that many huge shows, e.g. Breaking Bad, Battlestar Galactica, only became hugely popular several years into their run. The Wire is even more extreme: it only really became huge after the last episode was broadcast. But in each of those cases, someone made the call that a high-quality show was worth running, either because they hoped it would find a wider audience or because they believed it enhanced their brand.
I've never really understood the economics of these shows. Many of them look very expensive, comparable to movies in the tens-of-millions-of-dollars range, and even more screen time (a 12-episode season being six times as long as two-hour film).
And since they don't have commercials, the only revenue they bring in is the subscriber fee. At that price it would require millions of viewers to be drawn to them, and it just doesn't seem cost-effective.
I know not all of those shows cost that much; I imagine One Day At A Time probably cost less than a million per episode. Still, a lot of them seem like they cost as much as a mid-range film, and bring in less than a movie ticket's revenue.
What am I missing? Nothing, apparently, according to the article, since they're canceling it all. (But boy, I was really looking forward to the rest of I'm Not Okay With This.)
>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.