The Crown is a rare beast for Netflix - popular with critics and viewers alike.
The Crown is a rare beast for Netflix - popular with critics and viewers alike.
By Hank Stuever
Netflix is well on its way to having it all. In its quest to replace the old means of watching TV and going to the movies, the streaming behemoth with 100 million worldwide subscribers seeks to offer at least one of every sort of show a viewer might like, pushing toward a goal of 50 per cent original programming, but Netflix is still lacking one vital and admittedly ineffable thing, which goes by many names:
Sensibility? Aesthetic? Identity?
Netflix ain't got time for that. Its story started out as one of revolution, which has instead been overtaken by a case of quantity over quality. Now, rather than being known for a house style or a tastemaking effect on popular culture, it is becoming known for its raw desire to win the race, bragging about its latest deals and conquests.
From its best shows Orange Is the New Black, Master of None, The Crown all the way down to its dreck, Netflix has shown that it can make a lot of old-fashioned, mind-rotting American television.
Logging on to Netflix now means a visit the core of TV's overall rush to die of obesity. It's full of shows that one might have heard about, or intended to watch. The spirit is willing, but after one too many Marvel superheroes and self-absorbed dramedies, the attention span grows weak. That's because Netflix is better than anyone at triumphantly unleashing a new show, gathering a moment's buzz among the bingeing class, finding success with a niche of fans, and then moving on - with little lasting impact on the cultural conversation.
How many shows has Netflix made in four years that enter our minds by osmosis, if not necessarily by watching?
Robin Wright-Penn and Kevin Spacey in House of Cards.
The answer is perhaps three: Stranger Things, House of Cards and Orange Is the New Black. Three shows that are wildly different; entertaining and memorable for no shared reason or vision, except that they are riding the awesome wave of Netflix.
That doesn't mean that Netflix aims to only throw as much spaghetti against the wall as it can, just to see what sticks. The company craves the respect (and acclaim) that comes with artistic identity. Netflix's top executives - chief executive Reed Hastings and content chief Ted Sarandos - have talked about Netflix's need to take more risks, prodding creators to deliver edgier shows that will make viewers notice more than just the size of the menu and portions. And, having gained a reputation for impulsively renewing its shows, Netflix has lately cancelled a few (Girlboss, The Get Down, Sense8) in what could be a demonstration of network-esque discipline. This includes the swift axe given this month to Gypsy, which starred Naomi Watts as a therapist with serious boundary issues. Though Netflix infamously guards its viewership data from the public, it's hard to keep a stinker like that from smelling.
For now, Netflix stands mainly for the idea that more is more. Beginning with House of Cards in 2013, Netflix has delivered more than 200 original dramas, comedies, talk shows, culinary shows and what seems to be a concentrated effort to offer every stand-up comedian in America their own one-hour special.
Netflix also now boasts a considerable array of its own kids' shows - 33 originals at last count - in a heated battle with Amazon and HBO.
The scene from Orange is the New Black
With all this, why would Netflix ever stop to have an existential worry about its creative sense of self?
Because, as any Netflix subscriber eventually realises, the overall effect can be like wandering in a Walmart without aisles - a feeling that everything is indeed here, but a lot of it is sort of cheap. Will it ever be possible for us to sense that a show is - at its core - one that only Netflix could make?
Only days after Disney declared earlier this month that it would withhold some of its prized possessions from Netflix as a step toward launching its own streaming service, Netflix countered with the news that it has wooed producer Shonda Rhimes, the Scandal and Grey's Anatomy creator who conquered prime time at Disney-owned ABC. Rhimes's new shows will stream exclusively on Netflix.
That news came on the heels of another Netflix get, in which the company signed late-night legend David Letterman, who retired from CBS in 2015, to host a new, topically talky series next year; and the announcement in late July that Simpsons creator Matt Groening would be bringing his new animated series Disenchantment to Netflix.
Ballyhooing deals and shows that are more than a year away from being seen by viewers - that's so Netflix. That's what it's known for.
Left to its own devices, however, television will naturally race toward mediocrity.
Among Netflix's many ambitions, it has succeeded in convincing subscribers that it offers something better than broadcast and cable.
