Too Much TV: Your TV Talking Points For Friday, July 9th, 2021
Here's everything you need to know about the world of television for Friday, July 9th, 2021. I'm writing this from the Twin Cities suburbs, where AllYourScreens HQ is powered by coffee and peppermint candy.
As I mentioned in yesterday's newsletter, I am currently battling a viral infection and am supposed to be taking it easy. Of course, I am not doing that, but today's newsletter is a bit short and super late in the day. Have a great weekend and I'll be back to normal on Monday.
AN INTERESTING EXAMPLE OF MARKETING
Every network and streamer uses email blasts and newsletters as a marketing tool, but most of the time they are used in very predictable ways: highlights of upcoming releases or reminders of programming subscribers might have missed. Netflix ANZ is short for Netflix Australia/New Zealand and on social media, the division bills itself as "Like normal Netflix, but way more comfortable swearing – An insider look at the shows and movies you love." It's irreverent and a bit flaky in a way that feels more like a very well-run fan account than something originating inside a global media company.
One of the Netflix ANZ marketing efforts that I think is very effective is a trio of Substack weekly newsletters entitled "Netflix Pause." Each newsletter has a very different feel, but they come off as as far as you can get from traditional network marketing pitches. Engagement is a challenge for any media company, but it's a lot easier to achieve when you're cranking out text like this, which was included in one of this week's newsletters:
As a very young, very dashing Orlando Bloom says in Elizabethtown: “I have recently become a secret connoisseur of last looks.” He means the expressions people will flash him when they know it’s the last time they will ever see him — a receptionist sending him into a redundancy meeting, a soon-to-be-ex-lover. But when I think about this sentence, I like to think about the last glimpses we see of our favourite shows. I think about (spoilers) Hayden Panettiere jumping off the Ferris Wheel in Heroes. I think about (spoilers) Tom showing up at Josh’s door in Please Like Me. I think about (spoilers, spoilers, spoilers) Gus and Mickey eloping in Love.
I’m also going to think about — no more spoilers, I promise — Atypical’s fourth and final season for a long time: one that feels like the natural culmination of a show that has leapt, bound, and grown exponentially in its family sit-com parameters. (I famously have commitment issues so it’s truly a testament to Atypical that I’ve stuck around this long). Unlike Heroes, Please Like Me, or Love, though, Atypical doesn’t stage a dramatic farewell so much as it slips gracefully and sweetly into the night — less ‘exit, pursued by a bear’ and more ‘goodnight sweet prince’.
Other Netflix ANZ efforts include a Facebook Watch series entitled "Starter Pack," which has 77 million followers even though it seems to be on hiatus. And there is a Spotify podcast called "The Big Film Buffet," which is lively and quirky and just a lot of fun to listen to.
The biggest compliment I can make about any of these is that it doesn't feel like a big media marketing effort, which feels very 2021 to me.
SOMETIMES RELATIONSHIPS DO MATTER
If you talk to anyone in the Hollywood-based entertainment industry for more than five minutes, they will mention how much of the business is built on relationships. Now that is overblown a bit and it's also increasingly less the case as outside money and data-driven spreadsheets are increasingly the focus for decision makers. But relationships do still matter and one example of that came today, when it was announced that Lovecraft Country creator Misha Green has set up an overall development deal at Apple TV+:
Under the deal, Green will create and develop television projects for Apple’s streaming platform. News of the deal comes just days after it was announced that “Lovecraft Country” will not return for a second season at HBO. Green developed the series for television, with the first season having been based on the novel of the same name by Matt Ruff. She also served as showrunner and executive producer.
It's worth noting Lovecraft Country was greenlit at HBO in 2017 when Richard Pepler was still at HBO. He joined Apple last year, which gives Green one familiar face inside the company. But he is not the only one. Green had previously was co-creator and co-showrunner on the WGN America series Underground and look who else is at Apple:
The deal with Apple reunites her with Apple’s heads of worldwide video Zack Van Amburg and Jamie Erlicht, who previously ran Underground producer Sony Pictures Television, as well as Apple’s head of programming Matt Cherniss, who was president and general manager of WGN America and Tribune Studios.
Now I am not saying that all of these relationships were the primary reason Green ended up at Apple. But I suspect it did have an impact.
ODDS AND SODS
* Hallmark Channel announced on Friday that its long-running drama The Good Witch will end after the current season (number seven), with its series finale scheduled for Sunday, July 25th.
* The now-Paramount+ series Evil will pause for a four-week, midseason break at the end of July, the streaming service announced Friday. Episode six of this season will premiere as previously announced on July 25th. The show will then take a break until August 29th, when the premiere of episode seven will kick off part two of the show's second season.
* Netflix announced today at WitcherCon that the new series The Witcher: Nightmare Of The Wolf will premiere on August 23rd. And season two ofThe Witcher will be released on December 17th.
* And in the self-promotion department, I had some thoughts about Louie C.K. kicking of fhis comeback tour of comedy clubs in the U.S.
If you have any feedback, send it along to Rick@AllYourScreens.com and follow me on Twitter @aysrick.