Hacker Cinema
Transparent
2014 · TV series · 30 min episodes · 5 seasons
Created by Joey Soloway
An LA family with serious boundary issues have their past and future unravel when a dramatic admission causes everyone's secrets to spill out.
5 positive3 neutralfrom 8 commenters
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8 comments on Hacker News
It's such a superb show.
Something I realized watching Detectorists is that there aren't many realistic adult drama shows (or American movies) these days that aren't about crime or similarly extreme subjects, or that aren't historical dramas.
Detectorists is technically a "dramedy", of course, but it's basically a realistic, truthful depiction of everyday life, with some observational humour thrown in here and there.
For some reason Hollywood has indoctrinated the world into thinking that fiction can't be true to life, because life is somehow boring.
A similar American drama that comes to mind is Lodge 49, which is absolutely fantastic. On Becoming a God in Central Florida has a similar vibe, and is also excellent.
Off the top of my head, I'm struggling to think of many other shows. Better Things, Transparent, Togetherness, Succession, Mozart in the Jungle… any other good ones?
It's interesting that everyone is talking about the newly produced original series on HBO and competitors. I wasn't thinking of those; Netflix and Amazon between them have many of the great films ever made in any country, plus many 3rd party series that are great (nobody has mentioned Broad City, the best comedy TV in history, and there are shows like (EDIT: Man in the High Castle,) The Americans and Transparent, which many people love though I haven't watched them). It takes some digging to find them, but that's ok; my Netflix and Amazon queues are filled with films better than any HBO series IMHO, except The Wire, and are so large that I won't live long enough to watch them all.
I'm a bit surprised by that comment. I actually find Prime to have pretty good content and typically better movies than Netflix (who's movie library has been shrinking pretty drastically over the years).
If you haven't already watched it, I'd highly recommend Season 1 and 2 of "The Expanse" on Prime. There are a lot of pretty great shows on there as long as you don't rely on DC/Marvel shows for all your entertainment. Other shows that are reasonably acclaimed are:
- The Man in the High Castle
- Avatar: The Last Airbender
- The Nightmanager
- Mr. Robot
- Boardwalk Empire
- Downton Abbey
- Sneaky Pete
- Orphan Black
- Dr. Who
- Veep
- The Good Wife
- Transparent
- Hannibal
- Deadwood
- Curb your Enthusiasm
- The Wire
- Six Feet Under
- The Sopranos
This is a general trend in media as a whole today - sequels, reboots, remakes/remasters, derivatives of other popular media are just as bad in television and video games. The only saving grace of "TV" is Netflix, Amazon and HBO who are more willing to take the risk on new IP.
The last AAA video game I purchased that wasn't based on an existing IP or derivative of a specific formula (see: Ubisoft) was Titanfall. The last movie I saw for myself (and not my daughter) that wasn't based on existing IP I can't even remember, it must have been Grindhouse (Planet Terror / Death Proof). Meanwhile, the last serialized "TV" content I've watched that wasn't a new season of an existing show or a spinoff was Transparent, before that there was Orange is the New Black, House of Cards, etc.
I would love for some fresh ideas in the available content out there, but it seems like executives are especially adverse to risk considering the budget it takes to make "current-gen" visuals in blockbusters or AAA video games - and I wonder if that is why serialized shows are where most of the "fresh" content is considering people expect lower production values out of a 20 episode season of 45 minute episodes.
Prime Video, and some of the other non-shipping Prime services, are really getting on my nerves. They can't be cheap to operate and generally have a limited-enough selection that I don't bother checking them anymore (for example, the only notable books on their Kindle Lending Library service are Harry Potter and The Hunger Games, while everything else pushes you to the for-pay Kindle Unlimited). Add to that the awful UI work they do (they mix Prime and non-Prime, for-pay video, the completely confusing Amazon Music interface, etc), and it's a boondoggle they need to seriously re-think.
The flip-side of that is they do run some programming that likely wouldn't find a home anywhere else (Transparent is excellent, and I highly recommend watching it if you'd like something to challenge your world-view).
> Look at TV before Netflix/iTunes/etc. came along.
I think that undermines your point: Netflix and iTunes are paid content channels. TV used to be freely broadcast over the airwaves (still is, but used to be too) and needed to earn money exclusively from advertising.
Netflix and iTunes were not the beginning of that trend. It started when cable TV came along, and began selling subscription access to content like HBO, Showtime, etc. which have no ads. The differentiator with Netflix and iTunes was the ability to stream TV over the Internet, and consequently pay for it without bundling it into cable, and paying for individual shows/movies a la carte.
It's also taken a while for Netflix and Amazon to begin offering their own premium content. HBO has been in operation since the 1970s, though to be fair its critical mass really began in 1999 with The Sopranos. Netflix introduced streaming TV in 2007 and received its first real primetime Emmy nominations for its own content in 2013 (House of Cards)
In 2015, HBO received 126 Primetime Emmy nominations (Game of Thrones), the most of any network, a spot HBO has held for 15 years in a row according to NYT. That year, Netflix received 34 nominations and the nascent Amazon Studios garnered 12 (Transparent).
I use Amazon (and Netflix) on my PS4 and I've never been confused about which video is free and which requires payment.
If the video is free, the button says "Watch now" or something.
If the video isn't free, there are one or two buttons saying "Buy SD for $XX.XX" and "Buy HD for $XX.XX".
The reason I personally like Amazon Video is that if a movie or TV show isn't free, 99% of the time they have it available for purchase, so I can still watch it. If Netflix doesn't have a movie or TV show, there's no recourse within Netflix, I have to go to another site or open a different app.
Also, to me Amazon's Transparent was on par in quality with Netflix's originals. I don't really use Amazon for their original content at the moment though.
Amazon has a number of self-produced shows. Also, they have an interesting "pilot" season where they put out the first episode of a half dozen or so shows and then let people vote on which one get produced into a full season.
The quality of them is on an uptick as well. 'Transparent' has been getting a good deal of critical attention and 'Tumbleleaf' an old school by hand stop-motion animated production is just incredibly high quality.