The TV business is facing its biggest explosion of new productions in the medium's history, sparking a billion-dollar arms race between established TV networks and a deep-pocketed insurgency of online streaming giants.
That boom is reshaping the industry from Atlanta to Hollywood, where even washed-up actors are suddenly in high demand and open studio space is the holy grail, said Henrik Bastin, executive producer of "Bosch," a gritty cop drama on Amazon.
Craftspeople, who once went months without a gig, are now fought over and recruited for shows that have become so ambitious, expensive and intricate they're "like making a movie each week," Bastin said.
Is the glut of new productions a flash in the pan, or a sign of things to come?
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America Has Never Had So Much TV — Even Hollywood is Overwhelmed
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(Score: 3, Informative) by Dunbal on Thursday November 10 2016, @08:16PM
With all these channels, there's nothing to watch besides Friends re-runs, Die Hard, and cooking shows.
(Score: 5, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 10 2016, @08:18PM
Soon there will be a whole new season of The Apprentice
(Score: 4, Insightful) by choose another one on Thursday November 10 2016, @09:18PM
And Orange is the New Black...
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 10 2016, @09:50PM
Coming up next: Big Brother - Trump Edition.
I've been saying for years they need to have more reality in Reality TV. Somehow this wasn't what I had in mind.
(Score: 2) by BananaPhone on Thursday November 10 2016, @08:18PM
And the reboots. Oh the AWFUL reboots...
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 10 2016, @08:25PM
Reboots? I run Linux and my machine has a uptime of 487 days
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 10 2016, @08:38PM
Off-Topic Linux bigotry will be modded Insightful BECAUSE LINUX.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 10 2016, @09:16PM
And you will be modded Flamebait BECAUSE DUMBFUCK.
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 10 2016, @09:30PM
Thank you for replying, dumbfuck, because I LOVE YOU BACK.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Thursday November 10 2016, @09:18PM
But usually those are the Hollywood big production company reboots. (They own all the rights, after all).
The new smaller production companies are often coming up with totally new stuff, not all of which is reality tv formula shows.
Some are network canceled series that move to Netflix or Amazon with most if not all of the same cast.
What I wan't to know is, WHY, with decades worth of very good British shows in the archives, is BBC America showing American audiences Star Trek reruns? Why do I have to go to Netflix to watch Foyle's War, Midsomer Murders, and Inspector Morse, as well as the BBC's own productions?
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 11 2016, @01:01AM
You answered your own question. Other companies pay more for them than BBC America can.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by RedGreen on Friday November 11 2016, @01:05AM
"Why is BBC America showing American audiences Star Trek reruns? Why do I have to go to Netflix to watch Foyle's War, Midsomer Murders, and Inspector Morse, as well as the BBC's own productions?"
Because the rights have been sold to someone else in your viewing area so they cannot legally show their own shows there. Copyright the gift that keeps on giving.
"Cervantes definitely was prescient in describing a senile Don fighting against windmills." -- larryjoe on /.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 10 2016, @09:23PM
There are no cooking shows any more. They are all reality competition shows, and they are all crap.
(Score: 2) by art guerrilla on Thursday November 10 2016, @09:34PM
thank you...
not a foodie in the least (one of those who would not be heartbroken if i took all my required sustenance in a single pill), but used to love watching alton browns 'good eats' for the food science presented in a fairly entertaining way...
then it was all downhill from there with his road program, and now his idiotic food wars program (forget the naame) where they sabotage each others food preparation, etc...
alton, alton, alton, how have the mighty fallen... *sigh*
(Score: 3, Informative) by AthanasiusKircher on Thursday November 10 2016, @10:17PM
I saw Alton was going downhill the moment he started shilling for Shun. I know everybody's gotta make money somewhere, but Alton Brown always had a reputation on Good Eats for eschewing expensive kitchen gadgets and just saying, "You can do this much more simply and cheaply with X." How many times did he go "in search of equipment" on the show and end up recommending a cheap model that still had good technical characteristics instead of the more expensive gadget??
Not that I have anything against Shun knives. They're generally fine quality for mass-produced Japanese-style knives, quite above average actually. My problem is that they are massively overpriced. One can easily find hand-forged knives of similar quality produced with better materials by Japanese craftsmen for the price of a Shun. They may not be as perfect and pretty, but they're made to be tools, not stared at in a display case. (Yes, to get a beautiful perfect Japanese knife hand-forged, you'll usually pay a lot more.) Meanwhile, you can get to 95% of the quality of a Shun by buying a mass-produced Japanese-style knife from other brands for 1/4 or 1/3 of the cost in most cases. And if you know how to sharpen properly (and why would you spend hundreds of dollars on knives if you don't even know how to keep them sharp on a daily basis?!), those cheaper knives are just as good as Shun.
Meanwhile, Alton Brown has been encouraging folks to buy these overpriced mass-produced knives and says he doesn't even sharpen himself but sends them out! He also never seemed to learn the difference between ridged vs. smooth steels (and why the former aren't appropriate for Japanese knives, or really any decent knife). That's not the Alton Brown I remember, who was committed to education. But I'm sure Shun paid him well....
(He did finally come to his senses about a year ago and posted some more reasonable information on his blog on knives. Still not perfect, but the whole Shun thing made me doubt his sincerity and unbiased recommendations for the first time.)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 11 2016, @01:23AM
PBS has tons of straight up legit cooking shows. They have so many that my local PBS station which has 3 sub-channels regularly runs two different cooking shows simultaneously.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 11 2016, @01:36AM
> With all these channels, there's nothing to watch besides Friends re-runs, Die Hard, and cooking shows.
That's your problem. Who pays attention to channels any more? Watch shows.
Bosch, as mentioned in the summary, is a fantastic show. I think its on netflix.
Transparent on amazon is great.
Lucifer (adaptation of neil gaiman commic) is your basic crime-of-the-week but clever fun because of the lead.
Humans (from the BBC) is an awesome android story
Jessica Jones, the Punisher, Luke Cage all great gritty super-hero shows.
Real Oneals and Speechless are pretty good sitcoms (kevin can wait, man with a plan are not)
And Stranger Things, holy shit was that a ton of fun.
Stop settling for what's "on" and start looking for what's great.
(Score: 2) by Celestial on Thursday November 10 2016, @08:27PM
I read that CBS will spend $9 million per episode on the upcoming Star Trek: Discovery. That's insane. That's one of the reasons why they're limiting the first season to 13 episodes, in comparison to the 26 episode seasons of the four prior shows. I just hope the show is good...
(Score: 2) by EvilSS on Thursday November 10 2016, @08:48PM
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday November 10 2016, @08:56PM
It makes sense if they're trying to turbo-charge their transition to streaming to compete with Netflix and Amazon Prime.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 10 2016, @08:50PM
The trend is against you, every iteration has been worse than before.
(Score: 2) by Celestial on Thursday November 10 2016, @09:49PM
Not entirely true, IMO. While Voyager was bad and Enterprise was terrible, Deep Space Nine was better than The Next Generation. Regardless, it's been twelve years and with (mostly) different people behind the scenes, so I have hope.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 10 2016, @10:06PM
Is that DS9 offered character development for *BIT* characters. O'Brien, Keiko, Worf's son Alexander, etc all had parts in the series, and it really gave a lot of insight into life outside the confines of a starship, or 'shore leave'. Plus a lot of bit characters who later became integral parts of the show. It kind of felt like they attempted that (or possibly a spinoff) during TNG with Ro Laren and the other 'New Recruits' they had on enterprise for a while, but in the end other than Ro's Maquis arc the rest just sort of disappeared out of the show before the last season wrapped things up mostly with the core cast.
Interesting to think about the possibilities if production and stories had been handled differently.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Friday November 11 2016, @08:55AM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Celestial on Friday November 11 2016, @06:11PM
You're welcome. You should definitely check out Deep Space Nine. Like The Next Generation, the first two seasons range from bad to meh, but also like The Next Generation it finds its groove in the third season and Deep Space Nine is better than The Next Generation by the fourth season. So if you do check it out, hang in there. :)
(Score: 2) by tibman on Friday November 11 2016, @03:30PM
I actually liked Enterprise. There was a lot less hand-wavy magic technology to solve every problem. The overall feel was a lot darker too. The Enterprise routinely got the shit kicked out of it because an exploration vessel doesn't stand a chance against actual hostile forces. You had a better feel for how critical those magic technologies are to basic survival. I mean, the Enterprise didn't even have shields. It was a lot easier for Captain Picard to always take the moral high-road. He and his crew were well protected by the high state of technology and the federation itself.
The latest movie, Star Trek Beyond, makes more sense in that perspective. What terrible things did some of those captains/crew have to do to ensure the survival of humanity? They made sure humanity came out on top. Then politicians took that newfound strength and buried it in alien allies. Most would prefer more cooperation but those that lost friends or sacrificed parts of themselves during the pre-federation conflicts might not want aliens as equals.
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(Score: 2) by blackhawk on Friday November 11 2016, @06:06AM
I finally made it through a complete viewing of all the original Star Trek episodes. While season 1 and 2 were pretty decent, camp, and crummy, but somewhat entertaining - season 3 was a total struggle to make it through. I picked up TNG and Enterprise from the same source, and was happy enough to sit down and work through Enterprise, given I've never seen it before. I'm about 16 episodes in and I really don't think I can watch any more. How on earth did they make it so insipid and dull?
My plan was to watch all of the Star Trek shows and seasons in order, but after making it through TOS I just needed a refresher - and I thought Enterprise would be better produced and more up to date than TNG. I was so wrong. My new plan is to not bother watching any more ST.
There's so much good TV available now, it would be a waste to spend time on content I am just not enjoying.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Friday November 11 2016, @04:57PM
It was a a lot better in context - one episode a week, and not much other science fiction coming out.
And come to think of it, that applies to the originals as well as Enterprise. TNG kinda too... honestly Star Trek in general seems to be one that fares poorly in a binge-watching format.
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Friday November 11 2016, @11:42AM
The trend is against you, every iteration has been worse than before.
Probably because they spend far too much on using special effects rather than character development and story lines.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by rleigh on Thursday November 10 2016, @08:58PM
They have an uphill battle. Just watching Enterprise this evening on Netflix, getting towards the end of the Xindi arc. It's pretty dire.
I don't think budget is that important. What really matters is the scriptwriting. Intelligent, interesting and engaging plots can not be replaced by spending vast amounts of money on lavish sets, props and special effects.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 10 2016, @09:22PM
The Xindi arc was nothing more than 9/11 in space. Clearly there should be an entire season of Trek Discovery detailing how United Earth was ruled by the iron fist of a dictatorial real estate mogul until billionaire bloggers toppled his regime by crashing self driving cars into his hotels and ushering in the New World Economy.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 10 2016, @10:11PM
I really liked the premis of Enterprise. Like the original Startrek. A ship in space discovering civilisations, planets, technology. I waa looking forward to seeing the upgrade path from "we have a starship" to where NG started. So much promise.
But no. Someone thought a temporal cold war (wtF) would be such an excellent plot that it just had to happen. Seriously, wtf happened there? They had the elements for a great show then threw it out the window.
It was like watching Firefly die.
Or using Windows 8.0 for the first time.
Or using Windows 10.
*shudder*
(Score: 2) by rleigh on Saturday November 12 2016, @08:03PM
Definitely agreed on the premise. After not being keen on Voyager, I was cautiously optimistic about Enterprise. I do like aspects of it, but I overall found it boring. It had its moments, but I thought they developed the technology too quickly and I didn't think Bakula was a great captain, but mostly I felt that despite all the awesomeness of space travel and adventure, they managed to make the Enterprise seem... dull. There was a lot of potential there, but it just didn't come together.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday November 11 2016, @12:37AM
Acting can help too... I find Scott Bakula likable in other shows, but not a good starship captain - he's somewhere between Shatner strained, Stewart serious, and Frakes comical, and it just doesn't gel for me.
Of course, the writers for Enterprise did him no favors with the ever droning "no man has gone before" reminders and the "we're making this all up as we go along" stuff. The original Trek was also breaking new ground, without congratulating themselves for it every 5 minutes.
🌻🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 11 2016, @01:28AM
> Just watching Enterprise this evening on Netflix, getting towards the end of the Xindi arc. It's pretty dire.
Enterprise sucked until they brought in a new showrunner, Manny Coto, for the last two seasons. He really gave it new life.
He was the same guy who did that long-lost gem Odyssey 5 and then after entreprise went on to do a bunch of work on 24.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Username on Thursday November 10 2016, @09:05PM
Man, lens flair is getting expensive.
(Score: 3, Funny) by frojack on Thursday November 10 2016, @09:21PM
Having worn prescription lenses since the 4th grade, I thought lens flare was a natural feature of human life.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Thursday November 10 2016, @10:48PM
Judging by the teaser they released, they didn't spent it on the graphics.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 2) by Username on Friday November 11 2016, @08:19AM
They spent it on acquiring 24 advanced Amiga 2000s in order to use the Babylon 5 rendering engine.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bob_super on Thursday November 10 2016, @08:30PM
That's odd because most people seem to have less and less time.
Once upon a time you could discuss a show with people because most would have seen or at least heard of it. In the last few years, between the cord cutters and the glut of shows, it's becoming harder to find common topics, rather than additions to my "should watch 2 seasons of XYZ" list.
But I'm all for more diversity and quality, which we seem to be getting out of this.
(Score: 2) by quintessence on Thursday November 10 2016, @09:08PM
I'm currently watching a musical about a hunchback that haunts a Wal-mart. It's pretty obscure, you've probably never heard of it.
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by RamiK on Thursday November 10 2016, @08:32PM
And they wonder why Trump got elected.
Anyone for the Marie Antoinette variation?
compiling...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 10 2016, @08:41PM
'Cause people are sick of your shit?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 10 2016, @08:51PM
Eat cake by the ocean.
(Score: 2) by tfried on Thursday November 10 2016, @09:01PM
Opinions clearly diverge on whether Trumps means any bread. But why would anybody vote Trump if they were tired of the circus?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 10 2016, @09:40PM
Its funny for years I got that 'let them eat cake' quote wrong in its context.
I took it as to mean 'let them eat something impractical' or 'let them eat the scraps from my table'
When the quote is more along the lines that she was so wildly out of touch she did not understand. She is like some suburbanite teenager saying 'those people should just get a job'. When the reality is they have nothing. She totally misunderstood the situation out of ignorance because of her position.
But if you want a more modern version. 'they should just get jobs' is what you are after.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 10 2016, @09:56PM
The funny thing is I've even heard "just get a job" from job interviewers during job interviews. Why are you applying for the advertised job opening here, they say, just go online and search for jobs elsewhere. Because I've found nothing, that's why. Job interviewers are idiots who have jobs and who don't understand how anyone can't just "get a job" like they did.
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Friday November 11 2016, @11:52AM
When the quote is more along the lines that she was so wildly out of touch she did not understand. She is like some suburbanite teenager saying 'those people should just get a job'. When the reality is they have nothing.
The story has I'm sure been distorted by time and history, but supposedly there was a shortage of bread flour and the peasants were struggling to get enough to eat. There was plenty of "cake" flour, but peasants were not allowed to or could not afford to use that. When told the peasants had no bread flour, the simple solution to her eyes was to "let them eat cake". As with almost all simple solutions (get a job, drill more oil, bomb ISIS, etc.), the reality is a whole lot more complex and such glib answers can be infuriating to those frustrated in their efforts to genuinely solve problems.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 10 2016, @08:33PM
There you have it, folks, there's no unemployment in America. Every person who wants a job can get a job, role playing for money, and if you're ugly, why, we can just fix your appearance with makeup.
Never forget: All actors are professional liars.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Nerdfest on Thursday November 10 2016, @08:50PM
We ugly folk do tech stuff: sound, lights, sets, etc. Duh.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 10 2016, @08:57PM
Sorry, dude, but no. The Linux Foundation trademarked the word "tech" so you're not doing tech stuff unless you're using Linux. You should use Linux.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 10 2016, @11:39PM
Crap. And I have to buy that many to get the 5 channels I actually only watch.
If Mcdonalds operated the same way the cableco does...
Would you like fries with that big mac? Well, you have to buy the variety menu which comes with the fries, a salad, pickled scrotum, watermelon juice, and frogs eggs for an extra $63.
(Score: 2) by richtopia on Friday November 11 2016, @12:06AM
Not always, but a high production television series can provide a superior story telling experience than a movie. The additional time allows so much more content, and the flow does not always need to have the climax 1:30 into the showing. I would also claim that original series is more common in television than films where remakes/sequels seem to dominate, my theory is that producing a pilot is cheap but really lets studios gain a feel for the risk in making the series.
Now this does nothing to explain the drive for more shows. We have seen an increase in big players in the space with Netflix and Amazon producing big budget shows, along with the massive increase of reality TV in the last decade or two.
(Score: 2) by DutchUncle on Friday November 11 2016, @03:42PM
The Boss said it first: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAlDbP4tdqc [youtube.com]