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Netflix's The OA: Part II


AncalagonTheBlack

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Terrible news.  It was great to read that they knew exactly the story they wanted to tell and where the seasons were going to get placed w/in that story.  Fucking Netflix.  Why do they even bring on these weird shows if they're just going to cancel them if they don't get massive viewer ratings?  I really hope they can find another home, but damn.... this sucks

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What a disaster. Those last few minutes of S2 were amazing and really got me excited for whatever was coming next. 

Its definitely not a show for everyone but I was hoping word of mouth would bring it more success. I certainly stopped watching it after the first episode and only online buzz got me back into it. 

I mean what is Netflix's strategy here. Right now I feel like they are show flinging shit at a wall and seeing what sticks. They've gone from producing mostly high quality entertainment to seemingly endless mediocre knock offs of other shows or crappy movies I have zero interest in watching. Right now I'm not even sure if my subscription is worth it. 

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7 hours ago, SpaceChampion said:

Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!

Couldn't have said it better myself.

 

3 hours ago, Heartofice said:

I mean what is Netflix's strategy here. Right now I feel like they are show flinging shit at a wall and seeing what sticks.

Sounds about right.

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This is really disappointing. I agree with the above comment about not understanding the strategy. Why produce a weird niche show like this in the first place? 

Also, this is a bit curious because from a cost perspective I can't imagine this show was busting any kind of budget. Half of the first season was filmed in that basement/dungeon set.

Maybe Bezos and co. will pick it up.

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7 hours ago, Heartofice said:

I mean what is Netflix's strategy here. 

They supposedly have something like 12 Billion dollars and counting in debt. So I assume it was something like:  "FUCK, we cant pay for all this."

They used to be the main streaming service. Then they lost most of their content and bet heavily on their original programming. Which was really hit or miss and apparently just not driving subscribers.  Plus a new season of Stranger Things is great, but how long does that last when you can binge it in a weekend? 

So they are just trying to cut costs at all costs, I bet. They're probably going to have to start showing ads soon. It's also not hard to imagine a world where Stranger Things Season 4 is released episodically, or in chunks. 

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Netflix's strategy has up to recently been creating an enormous library of original programming to draw in subscribers. This meant they threw all sorts of things at the wall, with their algorithm telling them that there were a lot of niches not being served.

But the thing is, this year, Netflix had its first negative subscriber quarter. They are virtually saturated in the U.S., and it will be an increasingly hard job to get subscribers to jump on. So while they are pursuing that, I think they're going to start triaging a bit and deciding that some of their weirder things, no matter how well liked by their viewers, aren't sufficiently capable of grabbing new subscribers (besides the OA, the Santa Clarita Diet comes to mind). Very niche programming is going to start falling more and more by the wayside, and we're going to see more of this: 1 season, 2 season runs where they wait to see if something goes beyond a niche fandom to break big, and if it doesn't, it's gone. And even if it does, it may be done in season 3, as after that point the shows become much more expensive for them.

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People always rush to blame the network, but they’re just companies like any other. They have to make money, and we can assume the ratings for season 2 were poor. We can’t expect charity from them to keep making our favourite things.

I am really disappointed after the season 2 finale (hopefully the end sees the light of day, maybe a comic book or whatever) but my instinct is always “it’s a shame nobody watched this” rather than “Netflix are stupid”.

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I wonder if we might end up going back to the bad old days of network television where shows were cancelled at the drop of a hat when ratings were not encouraging enough.

Whats worse is that Netflix has the ability to make judgements early by being able to see exactly how many people watch their shows or drop out early. 

Will they eventually just focus on being an entirely Adam Sandler movie service in the future?

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25 minutes ago, DaveSumm said:

People always rush to blame the network, but they’re just companies like any other. They have to make money, and we can assume the ratings for season 2 were poor. We can’t expect charity from them to keep making our favourite things.

I am really disappointed after the season 2 finale (hopefully the end sees the light of day, maybe a comic book or whatever) but my instinct is always “it’s a shame nobody watched this” rather than “Netflix are stupid”.

I agree it ultimately boils down to viewing figures/buzz but I'd argue Netflix steal has some responsibility there too. The issue with binge releases and shows being available to watch "forever" means there's no incentive to watch right away (until it becomes clear that not watching right away leads to cancellation). This show has been on my "to watch" list since the season one trailers appeared but i haven't watched it. Why? There are too many any other shows (even if i just single out Netflix) and it kept falling down the list because there was always something newer coming out where i felt "i may as well be current with this show". There are so many shows that are lost because of the general white noise of releases.

But i can see why Netflix have flooded the market, they need to have enough material for a subscriber to justify continued monthly subscriptions and a constant stream of new shows does that. It also seems like Netflix now prefers having new shows over keeping existing shows around. Probably because new shows get subscribers whereas returning niche shows don't. But that's going to become an issue if we start getting as many cancellations as new shows.

Maybe if Netflix weren't making so many shows they'd have enough money to give shows a chance and there'd be less internal competition on the network. This is probably true of their early days when there wasn't a ton of releases.

The key thing is that viewers need to know what the criteria is for keeping a show alive. Do we have to watch it within the first few weeks? Is it better to binge it than to watch it over several weeks? Does it help if we click like for the show or ask for the next season? It's a new way of watching TV and I'm in the dark as to how they want me to watch.

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Well according to this Netflix doesn't like shows that run for more than 3 seasons as it becomes a little too costly due to how their deals are structured:
https://www.businessinsider.com/netflix-favors-tv-shows-with-10-episode-seasons-report-2019-3?r=US&IR=T

Obviously we don't know the finances but clearly it doesn't make sense to renew a show that wasn't being hugely viewed and wanted to push itself over 5 seasons. 

 

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I understand, but for such a niche show, they could tell the showrunners ''Listen we love the idea, we want to back you but we will probably not give you more than 3 seasons, so make plans for 3.'' 

 

And maybe try to push the show a little bit ? 

 

Honestly I am more upset about this than if Stranger Things had been the one cancelled lol

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Just an observation, and I could be (and probably am) wrong....  But this often seems to happen when shows take too long between seasons... especially when the time gap is between S1&2.... for instance, I doubt Taboo will get a S3... we'll see, of course...  but after how S1 was so popular, I would bet dollars to donuts that the lag time killed this show... 

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8 minutes ago, Martini Sigil said:

Just an observation, and I could be (and probably am) wrong....  But this often seems to happen when shows take too long between seasons... especially when the time gap is between S1&2.... for instance, I doubt Taboo will get a S3... we'll see, of course...  but after how S1 was so popular, I would bet dollars to donuts that the lag time killed this show... 

That fits with sense8 too. It's always more pronounced with binge release shows as even with an annual release you have to wait at least 51 weeks for the next season assuming you get through a season in a week. Take Jack Ryan and disenchantment it feels like over a year since they were out but it's only just been a year and i think both have lost some momentum because of the gap. "Man in the high castle's" season 2-3 gap killed the show for me.

I think this might be why Netflix is playing around with releasing seasons in parts eg with cartoons and comedies to keep them in mind. Amazon is doing it too with shorter seasons and greenlighting follow-ups prior to airing eg "the boys" and "the expanse" which hopefully translates to less gaps between seasons.

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It seems integral to Netflix now, but I do wonder why they decided to always drop 100% of a series at once. Surely releasing a 12-13 episode series weekly guarantees at least 3 months subscription from a viewer of that show? And slightly reduces the gap between seasons? 

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28 minutes ago, DaveSumm said:

It seems integral to Netflix now, but I do wonder why they decided to always drop 100% of a series at once. Surely releasing a 12-13 episode series weekly guarantees at least 3 months subscription from a viewer of that show? And slightly reduces the gap between seasons? 

I think the streaming nature of Netflix suits the ability to binge watch tv shows, whereas you can drip feed shows on normal TV.  

Right now I will almost never watch a show until the whole thing is out and I can watch them all in one go. The only one I've done that with recently is GoT.. but then you kind of have to with that.

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1 hour ago, Heartofice said:

I think the streaming nature of Netflix suits the ability to binge watch tv shows, whereas you can drip feed shows on normal TV.  

Right now I will almost never watch a show until the whole thing is out and I can watch them all in one go. The only one I've done that with recently is GoT.. but then you kind of have to with that.

There's no reason you can't drip-feed shows on a streaming service either. In the UK, Netflix airs Better Call Saul and ST: Discovery weekly and both shows do well. They could wait until they have the whole season (which they do/did with other shows like Archer, expanse etc) but I guess it's telling when they know a show is popular and airing in the US first that they want the episodes out ASAP because they know a lot of keen fans will otherwise find other ways of watching.

I think shows that have a lot of buzz/mystery surrounding them work fine in weekly installments as people want to see it so they can discuss/avoid spoilers. I'd argue the fact it is weekly helps generate the buzz as it allows a week of speculation and discussion eg GOT and Westworld. If Westworld was a netflix release there wouldn't have even been time for people to wonder about who the man in black was - the answer would have been out immediately, no big deal.

To be fair, netflix doesn't do that many of those types of show and tends to go for what feels like drawn out films. Although I do think "the haunting of hill house" would have been an even bigger success if it had been released over several weeks as their would have been a lot more media speculation about what was happening.

 

On an OA related question though - would it be worth trying the show knowing it ends with season 2? I'm not too encourage if the show ends with no sense of resolution but if it's a great show I'll at least give it a go. Who knows, an uptick in watches might tempt them to offer an olive branch of a movie-length finale like they did with Sense8?

 

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56 minutes ago, red snow said:

On an OA related question though - would it be worth trying the show knowing it ends with season 2? I'm not too encourage if the show ends with no sense of resolution but if it's a great show I'll at least give it a go. Who knows, an uptick in watches might tempt them to offer an olive branch of a movie-length finale like they did with Sense8?

 

I mean I think its a great and interesting show, but with no explanation or resolution it seems quite empty and pointless to watch it now.

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11 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

I mean I think its a great and interesting show, but with no explanation or resolution it seems quite empty and pointless to watch it now.

Probably need to hold on and see if they are granted an option to do a finale. Might be hard if they had 3 more seasons planned and they may choose to leave as is rather than rush an ending

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