Hacker Cinema
The Tick
2016 · TV series · 30 min episodes · 2 seasons
Created by Ben Edlund
ComedyScience FictionFantasyActionAdventure
In a world where superheroes have been real for decades, an accountant with zero powers comes to realize his city is owned by a super villain. As he struggles to uncover this conspiracy, he falls in league with a strange blue superhero.
1 positive2 negative2 neutralfrom 5 commenters
Where to watch
No streaming data for this title.
8 comments on Hacker News
> shows are mostly watched within a year of its original air date.
This depends a lot on what else is available. One of the most successful shows on netflix this past year was Suits, a show that was released 12 years ago. Even before the strike old shows do very well on streaming services. Schitt's Creek gained huge popularity two years after it's original air date.
> So much choice that there isn’t any specific shows that people watch because everyone else is watching and will talk about it on Monday during lunch (a la Game of Thrones)
That's why streaming services have started to withhold episodes and only allow you see one episode a week. They want to control who is watching what and when. When people can watch whatever they want to on their own schedule they might not get around to shows immediately and advertisers don't like that. It also makes it harder to control the conversation on social media.
The Tick was canceled after it didn't get enough views just 6 weeks after release, but as you said, there is so much to watch right now, and so much else besides TV competing for our time, that those kinds of metrics are meaningless.
It'd be better for netflix to make sure their library is filled with quality and to have confidence that audiences will find those shows on their own time than to worry about how many people are watching the newest thing immediately and cancel anything that doesn't show immediate success.
Cable was a shit product and ads finally killed it off, but the networks missed that ad money and they missed having control of the culture. They still wanted the power to choose what people will watch and when.
Netflix gave people what they wanted, a single low price for everything and they could watch what they wanted when they wanted to without ads. People strongly preferred binge watching. The networks decided to kill off netflix by puling their content and running their own ad filled streaming services that doled out episodes once a week on a schedule again so that they could control what people were watching and when, maximize advertising, and better control the conversations on social media.
The same people who made TV shit in the first place have been trying to force us back to what they preferred. Now people spend as much or more on streaming services as they did on cable, they see tons of ads, and they have to wait around for permission to see new episodes on someone else's schedule. Streaming services threaten to cancel anything that doesn't get a ton of views the moment they permit viewers to watch them. Popular shows like The Tick were canceled based on views after just six weeks after release!
Steaming as an alternative to cable TV was sabotaged deliberately and netflix is so bad at producing content that they can't save us. Piracy is the future of ad free TV on your own schedule.
Any advice on how to appreciate the Expanse tv show?
I love backstory and worldbuilding sci-fi the Foundation Trilogy, The Man in the High Castle, For All Mankind, The Silo, The Tick, and Battlestar Galactica, but I can't seem to get immersed with The Expanse despite how much I try.
Is it a work that is better appreciated in the literary form instead of on television? Or did Syfy just jumble the first season?
> That feels somewhat naive. People don't only belong to one friendship group.
We did exactly that during pandemic lockdowns. We used a browser extension that let us sync our netflix viewing while we had a live chat running during the show. It meant we could all talk about the last episode during the week and people had something to look forward to. It's perfectly do-able unless you're actually trying to keep your friend groups segregated for some reason, like you've got friends that won't do anything with some of your other friends.
> Sounds like it works out for everyone, then:
It might, except that streaming companies are too stupid to take a long view on ratings. Amazon for example canceled The Tick because they didn't get enough views in the weeks immediately following release. By the time I (and many many others) got around to watching and enjoying it, they'd already made up their mind that it was a failure.
When platforms withhold episodes I'm moving on to something else and it could be a long time before I make it back around to them. If they chase me away from a show and I have to find one that respects my time and that one has got 5-6 seasons, or if instead I pick up a video game that I'll put 150+ hours into it could easily be months before I get back to whatever they are heavily promoting and tracking this instant, assuming something new doesn't catch my interest and take priority.
Release whole seasons at once, and people who want to time gate can start right away and take longer to finish, while people who binge can finish in a weekend and everyone else can go at their own pace, but in any case it's more eyeballs within the same timeframe.
> But a lot of people around me just haven't gotten around to it because of the holidays
Amazon's the tick was canceled, based on views, before I even got around to seeing it. Media companies need to get it through their heads that we're done watching TV and movies on their schedule. I've got far to much competing for my time and I'll get to things when it's good for me. That's what drove people to VCRs, then DVDs, then DVRs, then streaming.
They're still trying to stuff the genie back into the bottle. They often withhold episodes, choosing to dole them out once a week so they can longer maintain and better control social media coverage/adverting. I already wait until a season is fully released before I start watching (it's saved me from a lot of disappointment already).
> I just wish everybody and their mom would put on that show now even if they don't actually watch it, so maybe the numbers change and they reverse their decision.
Streaming services need to accept that the times and their viewers have changed. I'm not going to let them make me feel pressured to jump on every episode of something I enjoy the moment they release it, and I'm not going to spend my time trying to manipulate their numbers and hope that somehow that gets me what I want. Time is short and I've got plenty of better things to do than play games for the sake of clueless streaming companies.
I don’t understand something about showbiz.
Tons of fans of shows like The Tick and Limitless have wanted it to continue. They would watch it, and so on. Someone made a decision to pull the plug.
Similarly, I have never seen anything other than gushing reviews and can’t-wait expectations of the Cadillac Ciel since the 2011 pebble beach show, but then the company never produced it, instead creating some sort of coupe. The Ciel was only ever seen in that Entourage movie.
The phenomenon of not listening to the fan base is real. But here is my question...
WE ARE IN THE AGE OF DECENTRALIZATION AND DEMOCRATIC GOVERNANCE. Why not have a platform where people raise money for shows, and whatever budget that is, the show makes episodes for it? Like Patreon meets kickstarter, or Patreon with a loan component for future shows.
That way, the only way a show would get canceled is if it went bankrupt and was unable to pay its loans from its Patreon-like revenues.
More generally, some company has the infrastructure (which is centralized for now, like Netflix) and we have to rely on it being magnanimous enough to let the public have a say. Teams to create shows come together as gigs anyway. We explored using such business models for software back in 2016:
https://qbix.com/blog/2016/11/17/properly-valuing-contributions/
But today, can’t you just use the Web multicasting for publishing/streaming the end result, or hosting it on some networks as a commodity hosting, and then production of the show would be funded using cryptocurrency?
How expensive would it be to acquire rights to a Netflix show that was canceled? Why would they not simply give it away for some equity in the new crowdfunded show? It would be like IPOing a show after piloting the first couple seasons. It would become a business model.
Why would this not work to bring back fan favorite shows, and create communities around them too? Why do we NEED centralized stuff like Netflix AT ALL?
If done right, I think those ads could feel more like previews at the movies. I think the problem that Amazon gets into is that they show the same one over and over and it feels like an ad.
How would I fix it? 1) create a setting that allows people to turn it off. 2) Don't hide or delay the skip button. 3) Make them really previews. Previews do a good job of intriguing and entertaining. Some of Amazon's ones just feel like ads which more just tell you that something is available - I'm thinking of The Tick ones in particular. 4) Don't repeat a preview within a 36 hour window. When a preview is new, it can be interesting. Even an ad can be interesting once. When I see the same ad over and over and over, it gets ridiculously annoying. One of the worst things about online video ads is that I can watch a show and get the same ad 10 times in an hour. I've watched HGTV and gotten the VW-man-cave ad literally twice in a row during the same ad break. The ad stops and then it starts again because it's the next ad. Amazon isn't as bad as that, but I don't want the same ad for the same content starting every episode I watch. I've seen it, don't beat me to death with it. 5) Also mix in some previews for non-exclusive content. Amazon has Indiana Jones. Throw in a preview there. Show people your library.
Still, one ad for another piece of content doesn't feel the same. Once in the program, there's no interruption. Amazon isn't making money by you watching more content (unless you count continuing to pay for Prime because of its value).
I often appreciate good previews. It's something I think can be missing. How do I decide to try a new show? I really want a good preview that gets me interested. Shows can start slow, but a preview can show me that I should try it.
Again, I think there are some adjustments that could be made to make them less annoying and possibly even welcome for most people. I think the biggest problems are the annoying ad-like properties - delaying the skip button, repeating the same preview over and over, etc. And I think if you allow opt-outs, that's more than fair.
If I were guaranteed not to see the same preview more than once in a 36-hour period and there was no delay on the skip button, I'd keep them.
I know Chairface did in an episode of The Tick... he only managed to write "CHA" though.