Too Much TV: Your TV Talking Points For Thursday, November 16th, 2023

Why don't streamers include bonus features and audio commentaries?

Here's everything you need to know about the world of television for Thursday, November 16th, 2023. 

A BRIEF PROGRAMMING NOTE
I wanted to give you a heads-up that there won't be a newsletter tomorrow (Friday). I am getting some minor surgery done and will be offline all day sleeping off the anesthesia. Which almost guarantees that some huge story will break tomorrow afternoon.

See you back here Monday!

WHY DON'T STREAMERS INCLUDE MORE BEHIND THE SCENES FEATURES AND AUDIO COMMENTARIES
I saw this tweet earlier today and it got my attention because I was a huge fan of Netflix's Lost Ollie:

And it reminded me of one of my biggest pet peeves about the streaming video platforms: why don't they include the same mix of bonus features you'd find on a DVD release?

Disney+ does include some deleted scenes and other "making of" features with some of their big theatrical movie releases. But with a couple of small exceptions, that's it.

And I honestly don't understand why the streamers aren't pursuing this low-hanging fruit. Especially with original content where it would be easy for them to compile gag reels and put together cast audio commentaries. It's a great way to boost subscriber engagement and the cost to produce this features is really minimal.

I've written about this in the past and it's one of those things I keep waiting to see change. 

YOU MAY SHOCKED TO LEARN THERE IS A NEW CHRISTMAS MOVIE PREMIERING TOMORROW. OKAY, MAYBE FOUR. BUT I'M ONLY TALKING ABOUT THIS ONE RIGHT NOW
The Christmas movie EXmas premieres Friday on Freevee and in it Robbie Amell plays Graham, a hardworking guy who suddenly decides to go home for a surprise visit over the holidays. It turns out the surprise is on him, since his family had already invited his ex Ali (Leighton Meester), because she is a lot more fun. It's a cute movie - nothing groundbreaking but more entertaining than a lot of Christmas films.

I recently spoke with director Jonah Feingold, who approached this film with the intention of pushing back on a few of the expected Holiday film plot tropes. The entire interview will be posting on AllYourScreens tomorrow:

Q: One of the things I liked about the movie is that it puts a bit of a spin on the traditional holiday movie storyline. Ali isn't some hardworking executive who unexpectedly goes back home and rediscovers the joys of small town living and the love of her high school sweetheart, blah, blah, blah. In this film, Ali is pretty amazing and Graham is not the nicest guy in the world. He's a bit of an ass in particular early on and it's fun to see all those expected plot points turned around a bit.

Jonah Feingold: The idea was to have a sort of pessimistic lead protagonist male and then, for Leighton's character, she's not this classic Christmas character. We did keep her as a baker, although she's not a small town one. That's more of an emotional thing. We have this screwball romantic premise of two exes living under one roof, which is what drew me to the material and to the premise as a whole. And also, they're both great actors. Robbie is really good at being this snarky, pessimistic guy. And Leighton is really good at being funny in a kind of whacky way and yet still insanely relatable.

Q: Yeah, there is this scene towards the end of the movie where she pretends she just came back to get her phone and she does a really nice job with the delivery. That's the kind of scene you look as a viewer and think "man, that could have gone wrong so easily."

Jonah Feingold: She was so sincere in that phone thing. I think it was a decision made on the the day of shooting. We were asking "why did she come back?" And I think the script basically implied that she came back because she loves him and his family.  But then she said "they always have these bits, these little games they play. We need to add one more joke." And we're kicking around ideas and someone realizes she has a little Yellow iPhone in her hand. And I said "hey, that could be really cute." And it turned out to be a great scene.

WITH ALL DUE RESPECT, PETER  BART IS NOT WHERE I WOULD GO IF I WANTED A SENSE OF WHERE HOLLYWOOD IS HEADED
As a fellow who isn't exactly young, I'm sensitive when it comes to telling someone that they might be a bit too old and stuck in their ways to provide advice about the future of streaming and Hollywood is general.

Peter Bart is certainly an institution in Hollywood and by that I mean he did some producing and ran Variety for twenty years. So he is conversant of the ways of the TV and movie industry. But based on his latest column for Deadline, I am not entirely convinced I would trust his prognostication skills. The headline of the piece is "Hollywood Hopes A New Round Of 'Fixes' Can Cure Its Malaise Rather Than Prolong The Pain" and its notable because the column itself has very little to do with the subject in the headline.

He starts off talking about some talk of recent budget cutbacks at Disney and Netflix before framing it as the same kind of pointless reboot of the industry that took place 40 years ago when Steven Spielberg, David Geffen and Jeffrey Katzenberg founded Dreamworks. 

He then takes this inexplicable turn into an almost entirely different subject:

Given the appetite for “fixes,” can Hollywood somehow stumble upon a new golden age, or at least a period of renewed profitability? Inevitably, Peter Biskind, who chronicled the bountiful era of the 1970s in his book Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, has come forth with a new book dealing with the streaming malaise.

Titled Pandora’s Box: How Guts, Guile and Greed Upended TV, the book tracks, among other things, the demise of HBO mythology (how could Tony Soprano have become Ted Lasso?). Biskind quotes Michael Fuchs, the first HBO president, declaring, “HBO died at fifty. There’s no longer an HBO.”

He then ends with a seemingly random quote from Michael Schulman of The New Yorker, who basically complains that the golden age of TV is over and now everything sucks.

I don't know about you, but I learned a lot. Mostly about Peter Bart, but maybe that's just me.

TWEET OF THE DAY

ODDS AND SODS
* And in the category of "they are making this way more complicated than it needs to be," Dick Van Dyke 98 Years of Magic will premiere on Thursday, December 21st on CBS, and streaming on Paramount+ (live and on demand for Paramount+ with Showtime subscribers, or on demand for Paramount+ Essential subscribers the day after the episode airs).

* Season three of Abbott Elementary will premiere on February 7th with a one-hour special episode.

WHAT'S NEW TODAY AND TOMORROW:

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 16TH:
* A World Record Christmas (Hallmark Movies And Mysteries)
* Best. Christmas. Ever! (Netflix)
* Drive With Swizz Beatz Series Premiere (Hulu)
* Ghosts (UK) Series Premiere (CBS)
* House Of Kardashian (Peacock)
* In Love And Deep Water (Netflix)
* Inside Track: The Business Of Formula 1 Series Premiere (CNBC)
* Julia Season Two Premiere (Max)
* Mutt (Netflix)
* Sisters On The Run (LMN)
* The Crown Season Premiere (Netflix)
* The Long Shadow (Sundance Now)
* Terror Lake Drive: Summer Purge (ALLBLK)

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 17TH:
* All-Time High (Netflix)
* Amar é para os Fortes (Love Is For The Strong) Series Premiere (Prime Video)
* Believer 2 (Netflix)
* Cocomelon Lane Series Premiere (Netflix)
* Biosphere (AMC+)
* Dashing Through The Snow (Disney+)
* EXmas (Freevee)
* Filthiest Flips (HGTV)
* Holy Family (Netflix)
* Maxine’s Baby: The Tyler Perry Story (Prime Video)
* Monarch: Legacy Of Monsters Series Premiere (Apple TV+) - [first look video]* Navigating Christmas (Hallmark)
* Nothing To See Here (Netflix)
* Please Don't Destroy Comedy (Peacock)
* Rustin (Netflix)
* Sagrada Familia (Netflix)
* Scott Pilgrim Takes Off Series Premiere (Netflix)
* Shohei Ohtani: Beyond The Dream (Disney+)
* The Dads (Netflix)
* The Holiday Shift Series Premiere (The Roku Channel)
* The Last Cowboy Season Premiere (CMT)
* The Queenstown Kings (Netflix)
* The Secret Life Of Dancing Dogs Series Premiere (Hulu)
* Twin Love Series Premiere (Prime Video)

Click Here to see the list of all of the upcoming premiere dates for the next few months.

SEE YOU THURSDAY!

If you have any feedback, send it along to Rick@AllYourScreens.com and follow me on Twitter @aysrick.