Greg Dixon: Few highlights in the stream

Netflix's Marco Polo is unspeakably bad. Photo / Supplied

So my mission, if I chose to accept it, was this: to go forth into the great unknown of the internet, into the daunting wilds of our new TV streaming services, and come back with tales of my adventures, good and bad.

There's been an awful lot written about these damn internet-based services since they were first announced and more ink still has been spilled with the arrival, finally, of Netflix, the alleged gold standard for these sorts of services, at least in the US and Europe.

And sadly I've bought the hype. Well most of it. Of the three major services now available - Netflix, Lightbox and Neon - I've signed up for the first two, though not the third, mainly because we feel we're giving Sky TV, which owns Neon, enough of our hard-earned already; plus the buggers at Neon seem mainly to be flogging stuff we've previously paid to see on Sky, but at the new extortionate rate of an extra $20 a month.

So two flash shiny services giving me a gazillion more hours of television to watch. And so far I'm feeling pretty "meh" about them both.

There's been a lot of huffing and puffing about the flash new shows available on these services. Lightbox is raving about giving us Better Call Saul and, this week, Wolf Hall, while Netflix has banged on about having the newest season of Orange Is The New Black.

Lightbox's Black Sails is supposedly a pirate drama, but is merely lost at sea.

Which is all very well. But frankly if I'm forking out between $10-13 a month every month for each service, I want more than that.

For that sort of money you want a decent and extensive back catalogue of shows and a good selection of second-tier premieres.

As it turns out there's a bit of crossover in the back catalogues of Lightbox and Netflix, which makes those second tier premieres all the more important.

And here, after my adventures so far, I'm thinking "meh" again.

On Netflix I happened on Marco Polo, possibly the most execrable of the Game of Thrones-style adventure shows that I've come across, at least so far.

It's kind of hard to work how you can make the story of the Venetian explorer Marco Polo this boring - this is a fellow who travelled from Europe to China in the 13th-14th century for God's sake - but this dimly light, ineptly acted and badly paced drama manages it. And the dialogue is hilarious.

"The blood of an adventurer courses through your veins! You will enjoy the greatest adventure of all."

Well not on the evidence of this show!

The equivalent of this camel-train wreck over on Lightbox is Black Sails, apparently a prequel to Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island. Ostensibly a pirate adventure set in the sunny Bahamas circa 1715, half the cast seems to think they're in a blood and guts drama, while the rest appear to believe they're appearing in the pirate equivalent of a Christmas panto, only with gratuitous nudity and lesbian sex scenes. It's lost at sea.

Is any of this value for money? It's too early to tell of course, but my initial feeling is that these streaming services are a little too much like the buffet restaurants parents used to take kids to back in the 1970s: sure $12.99 seems like a great deal for all you can eat, but only if they keep the garlic prawns coming and there's some pav left when you go up for dessert.

What I'm watching

Wolf Hall (Lightbox)

I am genuinely excited about seeing this adaptation of Hilary Mantel's much-praised and awarded novel. awarded novel.

The Guardian called it "sumptuous, intelligent, event television", which is good enough for me.

The Secret Life of Cats (8pm, tomorrow, TV One)
I'm picking this as the purr-fect Easter watch.

Fortitude (9.30pm, Mondays, SoHo)
The third-to-last episode screens this week and I'm still no closer to working out what is going on. Riveting all the same.

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