As April showers inexorably turned into May showers, I found myself focused on – not what was leaving streaming but rather that which had recently arrived. Both Netflix and Amazon have upped their game a bit in highlighting what’s new on their services as well as what is coming down the pike. As a result, I was anticipating a few new entries to come with the turn of the calendar’s page.
Or should I say, old entries.
Continuing my Victorian experience from last month, I’m starting to see unfinished series and movies returning to my library for another bite at the apple. At least until I had the chance to see the purge list for May form up, I made my priority to pick up from where I had previously left off.
C’est à moi
I’ll admit that I was pretty excited when Versailles returned; albeit this time to Amazon. Even more exciting, while Amazon offers only1 Season 2, this actually works for me. Although many would be frustrated with this choice, you may recall that I had already completed Season 1 and started with the next. This restriction fits perfectly with my needs.
Versailles continues to excel as a period/costume drama. Better still, the second season moves away from the, shall we say, intimate exploration of the King’s appetites and points us more towards the bigger picture; namely international politics and Louis’ vision for the future of Versailles and the future of France. It still finds plenty of opportunity for full-frontal. Whether such display is to enhance its ratings or just because it was made in Europe, I am not qualified to say.
Although Versailles is not, at least as I type this, scheduled to be removed again, what remained for me to watch was short enough (and interesting enough) that I wrapped up the available season even as other more urgent fare called to me. Such as…
Who takes your vision and turns it all around?
The expiration schedule made another series higher priority, even as I don’t consider it the better show. This one is all the more interesting from a logistics perspective. The return of Evil is split between Netflix and Amazon. Fascinating for my sense of symmetry (a symmetry likely produced by some legal, licensing documents somewhere) is that there is no overlap.
I hadn’t shared with you before, but I had previously made it almost to the end of the first season. Currently, Seasons 1 and 2 are on Netflix and this allows me to pick up where I left off. Season 3, though, was on Amazon (with some kind of teaser/pitch for the upcoming Season 4). It is Season 3 that was not to make it into June.
This is certainly not the best show on streaming but of the ones in this post, and of the shows that currently catch my fancy, it rises near the top of the pile. What is the reason that the Amazon portion of this show is only on Amazon until the end of May? Is this season, too (that is, three) also slated to go to Netflix? Is it simply going to disappear2 into a premium channel? I have no idea.
Evil remains an interesting mix of comedy, romance, drama, and spooky horror and on this account it is entertaining enough. I’m not sure I appreciate the “arc” storytelling style. What is intended to be an addictive hook for the audience turns what was a nice weekly-show format (each week brings a new supernatural/religious mystery to be resolved) into the typical (and often trite) exploration of an escalating supervillain influence behind it all. Throw that on top of some one-dimensional storylines about the various headline social issues3 (racism, sexism, unionization) and, in the end, I could not bring myself to prioritize this one… especially considering what else is coming off of Amazon.
‘Til Someone Pushes Me Again
It was back4 in 2015 when I watched the last episode of Black Sails, Season 1. At that time, it was only available to me on DVD, delivered by Netflix. The show is a Starz original and seems designed to challenge HBO and Showtime’s formula of soft-core porn -infused drama to pump up the cable subscription numbers. The story and the production were decent enough but I always felt guilty about receiving the DVDs in the mail, even if my mother never saw them arrive.
Black Sails features a classic hook5, a somewhat-coherent story, and pretty decent production values. As I’ve explained, I’ve long been a sucker for age of sail portrayal across all media, including in film. Season 2’s budget apparently allowed it to feature some decent sailing ship combat. It didn’t even look too ridiculously cartoonish (although I was certainly not judging on its technical accuracy).
In fact one aspect of piracy that was shown in the early part of Season 2, and one that (without backing) I’ll credit as accurate. It has to do with a fundamental nature of an act of piracy. The key to a successful haul, we are shown, is that nobody actually wants to get killed or have their ship destroyed. Thus, when a pirate ship raises the black flag, their hope is that the victim surrenders without a fight. Likewise, a captain is willing to surrender his cargo if he will escape with his life, his crew, and his ship intact. Part of the equation involves reputation. The captain’s employers would not look too kindly upon him if he surrendered to a motley crew of incompetents whom he should have been able to fend off but might well forgive being taken by the most fearsome pirate crew in the Caribbean.
For this reason, a pirate needed to build a name and a reputation in order to be successful. Or so the show would tell us.
Despite my less-than-enthusiastic dedication, it was never my intention to abandon the series a decade ago, really. It’s just that there was so much better6 to be had – ranking higher in the list.
With one episode of Season 2 tucked away into my belt, I’m thinking that time has made me feel a bit kinder towards the whole enterprise (see, again, footnote 6). Or maybe the quality of entertainment in general has declined so precipitously in the last decade that the mediocre now seems better than it used to, just a decade ago.
Return of the King
No, not that king. King Richard. No not that King Richard. The other one.
I finally finished the film King Richard, having watched the first half last November. It had, then, expired from Amazon (mid-viewing) and it then took half a year for Netflix to pick it up. Although I don’t think it is in immediate risk of expiring from the current service I figured I had better finish it before I forget, altogether, the experience of watching the first half.
The ending was a bit of a surprise… certainly not how I would have ended the film. I’m not going to tell you what I mean, though, so as not to ruin it for you. I wasn’t bothered by how it ended – it was just unexpected. Whatever the ending, my impressions7 from the first half remain intact. It was enjoyable throughout – made all the more so because it was a true story about some successful and genuinely admirable individuals.
Angel shy of heav’n
Netflix, along with resurrecting these old series, has added some brand new options that they figure are for me. In this case, at least, they are correct to do so.
When I first watched The OA, it played as a Netflix-original series at a time when such a thing was still finding its footing. I remember being slightly bewildered and a bit bemused to find that every episode had a different running time. But why not? A streaming show need not fit into the needs of anyone but the storyteller and the viewer who watches it. For myself, I frequently broke between nights of viewing up mid-episode, mixing and matching as it fit my schedule. And why not!
Although I never wrote about it at the time, really, my experience with The OA had its ups and downs. Initially, I was just kind of confused. I couldn’t grasp what the show was saying and why. Later, when I attuned myself to its rhythms and took an interest in its story, I decided I very much liked it. Then came the ending, which really disappointed me. What I didn’t realize was that it was MEANT to be something of a cliff-hanger ending, in preparation for Season 2.
Because it wasn’t until Season 2 showed up on my menu, a couple of weeks ago, that I realized there was such a thing.
The dimension shift (I shan’t explain it if you don’t know so as not to ruin it for you) provides a nice way to continue the story after an almost 7-year break. I am only one episode in at this point but my feeling is that it is good to be back.
The OR
Also back with a new season is Outer Range, this one an Amazon Prime original series. I’ll admit to also being a little surprised and disappointed when Season 1 ended in a cliffhanger, although in this case it was very obvious that the story was to-be-continued with a Season 2.
My experience with Outer Range highlights a drawback of this style of series and the way streaming shows are developed and funded. Season 2 picks up immediately following the events that ended Season 1; in fact on the very same night. Thus a viewer should feel a solid continuity between seasons. The problem is that, with a good year-and-a-half (and it would be more if you had jumped on Outer Range when it first came out) between episodes, I had forgotten much of what was happening. I watched the “previously” intro, but even after that I remained a little confused. It doesn’t help that I watched Longmire before and Yellowstone since. With years in between episodes, these stories of weird goings-on in remote Wyoming start to all swirl together.
This experience got me remembering when Game of Thrones first came to me via DVD. After watching the first season and preparing for the second, I both reread the first novel of the series and rewatched the opening season, which I had (in preparation) purchased for myself on DVD. Thus when I began Season 2, everything that had come before was very, very fresh in my mind. I did this again for Season 3, this time reading TWO books and watching TWO seasons of prior show.
I discontinued this exercise when Game of Thrones and its mangling of the story was no longer worth the effort.
Because it is an effort to keep up with these things and too much of an effort when one is not singularly obsessed with a particular series, I no longer consider doing that. But when I don’t, I’m exposed to a potentially massive mental disconnect after picking back up with an Outer Range, or a Black Sails, or even a Versailles.
- I should say “offered.” It looks like Amazon now has Season 1 and 2 free with Prime. I don’t see Season 3 anywhere… yet. ↩︎
- To be clear, all four seasons of Evil are available through the premium streaming channel Paramount+. I wonder for how long. ↩︎
- Perhaps I’ll be specific with one example, even though I find my dwelling on it is almost as distracting as its inclusion in the first place. An atheist challenges a devout Catholic by pointing out how many Christians supported Donald Trump. Its use in the dialog is less notable than the casual underlying assumption that any Trump supporter must be racist and immoral. Don’t they teach you in screenwriting class to consider your audience? ↩︎
- In 2015, I only posted four times throughout the entire year and only one of those posts had any substance. Naturally, I’ve never reflected on my time with Season 1 of Black Sails. ↩︎
- If you’re not familiar, the series is a prequel (of sorts) to Treasure Island. ↩︎
- I scored Black Sails with 3 stars back in the 2014/2015 time frame. ↩︎
- I am almost contradicting myself saying that one of the nice things about this film was that the ending was never in doubt. Then here I am saying how I was surprised by the ending. The contradiction probably only makes sense once you know what I am talking about and dwelling on it in the absence of a full explanation only serves to emphasize a triviality. Sorry. ↩︎
et tu, Bluto? 