Too Much TV: Your TV Talking Points For Wednesday, June 19th, 2024

Some thoughts about those Netflix immersive entertainment centers

Here's everything you need to know about the world of television for Wednesday, June 19th, 2024:

PROGRAMMING NOTES
* I usually get a few questions about why I am sending out a newsletter on Juneteenth and the answer is that a fair percentage of my subscribers (probably about 30 percent) live outside the United States. So when it comes to deciding which holidays I take off, I try and limit it to ones that have a global impact. That being said, there's less TV news today because of the holiday, so this edition might run a bit shorter.

SOME THOUGHTS ABOUT THOSE NETFLIX IMMERSIVE ENTERTAINMENT CENTERS
It was funny seeing the industry response to the news that Netflix is opening up two massive in-person experience venues.

The industry reaction has generally been equal parts lazy cultural references ("King Of Prussia, Pennsylvania? What's there? - spoiler, one of the biggest malls in the country) and dumb jokes about various Netflix titles and practices ("It's a 23-minute ride that will only last 6-8 minutes"). But it's important to remember that no one making any of these comments is the target audience for these venues.

Netflix runs a lot of pop-up marketing events in places such as Times Square or the Santa Monica Beach. But the company doesn't really expect those events to move the viewing needle. As much as anything, they're done in order to show the talent their show or movie is being promoted aggressively. 

But these stand-alone centers seem to be designed partly as a marketing tool, but also as a way to build the Netflix brand. When you look at studies that track the most-loved or most-trusted brands - especially among people under 30 - Netflix tends to be the top media choice. And this is an effort to build on that, which is ultimately good for subscriber retention. It also allows them to use their brand to build out new businesses. 

Imagine a game arcade that includes nothing but Netflix-branded games. A Netflix sports gear store that features branded clothing from the streamer's growing number of sports programs, as well as plenty of stuff tied into WWE Raw, which begins streaming on the service next year. And the dining choices are almost endless.

A lot of snark has come from this description of some of the Netflix-related "experiences," with a lot of disbelief that anyone might be interested in such events:

The Netflix House locations will build on previous pop-up live experiences the company has staged for “Bridgerton,” “Money Heist,” “Stranger Things,” “Squid Game” and Netflix Bites, designed to “create an unforgettable venue to explore your favorite Netflix stories and characters beyond the screen year-round,” the company said.

I covered the Bridgerton Experience when it was here in the Twin Cities a couple of years ago and I will admit that I was skeptical going into it. It took place in a large warehouse space which turned out to be filled with several hundred people who paid upwards of $50 a piece for a couple of hours. There were all sorts of branded opportunities for selfies and then participants were whisked through another selfie-friendly tunnel into a large space decked out Bridgerton-style. There was a large cast of actors and dancers who performed to a live string quartet before members of audience were asked to join the dancers on the dance floor. The "Queen" was going to pick someone and elevate them into a princess for the evening. 

You have to understand that while there were some couples (and honestly, this event was super romantic), close to 75 percent of the crowd was comprised of groups of twenty and early thirtysomething women, many of them dressed in top-notch ball gowns. This was an event for them. And as the women danced, one of the queen's aides walked through the group. He settled on a woman who was dancing with her friends. She was exuberant and joyful. But she also wasn't dressed as expensively as the friends she was with and I don't think I'm being mean to say that she was just an average, nice-looking woman. Some of the women in the crowd looked as if they had been poured out of a high-end fashion magazine. But she was just a woman, looking to enjoy herself with her friends. 

And when she was picked to be the guest princess, and perform with the Queen's dancers, tears began rolling down her face. And then her friends began to cry and soon the dancing began and there were a couple of hundred women dancing and crying and hugging each other. It was truly an amazing moment to experience. Magical might sound like hyperbole, but in the moment it felt appropriate.

When it was over, there were opportunities to get pictures taken in several Bridgerton-like sets before everyone had the chance to buy some swag and slowly leave the building.

I have no idea what Netflix has in mind for these two stand-alone experiences. But I guarantee that if you asked any of those women if that event was worth $50 and would they do it again, the answer to both questions would be a strong yes.

And that's the thing we don't know about these experience centers. It's easy to mock the idea. But some of these Netflix shows really resonate with young viewers and that provides a pathway for this idea to work.

I INTERVIEW SOMEONE ABOUT UFOS
I really enjoy interviewing people. Back in the dinosaur days, I did a syndicated talk show for a few years and it was maybe the most fun job I've ever had. So talking to new people is one of the things I like best about this job.

And I enjoy talking to just about anyone. Yes, it's great to speak with a showrunner. But I can also learn a lot from a guest actor or a makeup person. Everyone has an interesting story if you just keep your mind open to the possibilities.

Along those lines, I recently spoke with journalist Mitch Horowitz, who is the co-host of the new Discovery series Alien Encounters: Truth Or Fiction, which premieres tonight. It is not at all my type of show. But I am curious about the people involved in it and their experiences and I think it turned into an interesting conversation:

From your perspective, what do you think you bring to a show like this that just the average host wouldn't?

What I bring to it is decades of experience writing, chiefly, about alternatives, virtuality, and to some degree, unknown phenomena. But I've never been a player within the UFO field. And I think that is a benefit. Because there is an enormous amount of partisanship and UFO culture. In fact, as with all human endeavors, partisanship seems to overshadow what everybody showed up for in the first place.

So I come to the table without necessarily belonging to any particular team or camp. For example, some people feel that the whole story of UFOs since World War Two is one of a government cover-up. Others feel there are conspiracies, and others feel that the aliens are already here. And then, of course, you have the denialists, who would deny any kind of empiricism, of any degree of quality sightings. I don't belong to any of those camps. I have a background as a historian and a journalist in an adjacent field, but I don't land squarely in the middle of any partisan camp, and I feel that's a benefit.

PLEASE STOP BEING WEIRD ABOUT PRONOUNS
Despite some of the pushback from conservatives, most showrunners, writers and studios have struggled to provide as many example of diversity and positive representation in their shows as possible.

But as Peter Volk writes in Polygon, even showrunners and writers who mean well about representation and want to be inclusive can stumble along the way:

In the fourth episode of The Acolyte, Osha (Amandla Stenberg) meets some new Jedi and Jedi-affiliated friends. One of them is a small, otterlike creature named Bazil. Bazil and Pip, Osha’s fussy robot companion, keep sniffing and beeping at each other, interrupting the mission briefing Osha is trying to follow. After, Osha approaches Jecki Lon (Dafne Keen) for an awkward exchange all too familiar to queer people watching television in the last few years:

Osha: Who is that?

Jecki Lon: That’s Bazil.

Osha: Is he [dramatic pause]… or they… with us?”

In The Acolyte, Osha only asks about Bazil’s pronouns, not those of any of the other people she meets. This reveals more about Osha than I think The Acolyte’s writers were intending; the exchange implies she is actively othering Bazil and assuming he (yes, it is later revealed Bazil uses he/him pronouns, which makes all of this even sillier) must be gender-variant because he looks odd to her.

This is a really fascinating point and to be honest, not one that I had not really considered that deeply until now.

WHAT'S NEW TONIGHT AND TOMORROW

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 19TH:
* Alien Encounters: Fact Or Fiction Series Premiere (Discovery)
* Black Barbie (Netflix)
* Expedition Unknown Season Premiere (Discovery)
* Hope In The Water (PBS)
* Inheritance (Netflix)
* Kleks Academy (Netflix)
* Triumph: Jesse Owens And The Berlin Olympics (History)

THURSDAY, JUNE 20TH, 2024:
* Alone Australia Season Two Premiere (History)
* America's Sweethearts: Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders Series Premiere (Netflix)
* College Hill: Celebrity Edition (BET+)
* Federer: Twelve Final Days (Prime Video)
* Hart To Heart (Peacock)
* Koda Factory (Netflix)
* Masters Of Illusion Season Premiere (The CW)
* Megamind Rules! (Peacock)
* My Two Husbands (LMN)
* Perfect Wife: The Mysterious Disappearance Of Sherri Papini (Hulu)
* Slave Play. Not a Movie. A Play. (HBO)
* The Accidental Twins (Netflix)
* World's Funniest Animals Season Premiere (The CW)

SEE YOU ON THURSDAY!