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Re:Netflix expected to spend over $6B on original and acquir... by jacquesm on Monday March 27, 2017 @09:01AM (#13967307)
Netflix is where great stuff goes to die. Compare the Netflix versions of Black Mirror and Sherlock Holmes with the ones put out by the BBC. The Netflix stuff just drags on-and-on to fit their format.
Re:Netflix expected to spend over $6B on original and acquir... by chrisseaton on Monday March 27, 2017 @09:17AM (#13967430)
> Compare the Netflix versions of Black Mirror and Sherlock Holmes with the ones put out by the BBC

Black Mirror was never made by the BBC, and all episodes of Sherlock were made by the BBC not by Netflix, so neither of your examples make any sense and don't allow you to compare what you are saying they would.

Re:Netflix expected to spend over $6B on original and acquir... by endorphone on Monday March 27, 2017 @09:22AM (#13967471)
I can't speak to Sherlock Holmes, but Season 3 of Black Mirror is extraordinary. Nosedive could have been edited down substantially, but so could White Christmas or Fifteen Million Merits from the seasons before. I don't agree at all that there was any Netflix degradation.

Abstract is triple-A. A Chef's Table is triple-A. Stranger Things is triple-A.

We all have a sort of cynical habit of presuming that things once were good, and now they aren't. But Netflix has always been a mix of good and bad original content, especially when viewed from the subjective eye that what some of us think is great others think is terrible. They're trying to serve all markets.

Re:Netflix expected to spend over $6B on original and acquir... by fapjacks on Monday March 27, 2017 @02:39PM (#13970453)
San Junipero is my favorite episode of any television series I've ever seen in my life, including In The Pale Moonlight from DS9.
Re:Netflix expected to spend over $6B on original and acquir... by noir_lord on Monday March 27, 2017 @09:04AM (#13967332)
The Netflix version of Dirk Gently was substantially better than the BBC UK version even controlling for the difference in budget (however BBC America was involved).
Re:Netflix expected to spend over $6B on original and acquir... by noja on Monday March 27, 2017 @09:17AM (#13967432)
If the Netflix version is better, how good was the BBC version? :/
Re:Netflix expected to spend over $6B on original and acquir... by jacquesm on Monday March 27, 2017 @09:06AM (#13967345)
Haven't seen that, thank for the tip.
Re:Netflix expected to spend over $6B on original and acquir... by noir_lord on Monday March 27, 2017 @10:47AM (#13968137)
It doesn't follow the books all that closely but does a delightful job of capturing the absurdity of Douglas Adams world in a way that translates well to the screen.
Re:Netflix expected to spend over $6B on original and acquir... by criddell on Monday March 27, 2017 @09:45AM (#13967637)
What do you mean by to fit their format?

I've started watching The OA and it's the first series that I've noticed each episode is a different length. Some episodes are around 30 minutes, others are more than 60.

Re:Netflix expected to spend over $6B on original and acquir... by signal11 on Monday March 27, 2017 @09:52AM (#13967686)
The OA did the whole "TV series as novel" thing very well. It was very disorienting for me (but in a good way) when the opening credits played almost 60 minutes into the first episode, with about 10 minutes to go.
Re:Netflix expected to spend over $6B on original and acquir... by JoeAltmaier on Monday March 27, 2017 @10:52AM (#13968180)
Wait - what format? Netflix has no commercial-break rule or 3-act rule or pretty much any of the rigid broadcast TV rules. Individual episodes of some series may vary by half an hour in length.
Re:Netflix expected to spend over $6B on original and acquir... by chrisseaton on Monday March 27, 2017 @11:41AM (#13968615)
Why do they have episodes at all?
Re:Netflix expected to spend over $6B on original and acquir... by elsonrodriguez on Monday March 27, 2017 @11:46AM (#13968667)
Why do books have chapters?
Re:Netflix expected to spend over $6B on original and acquir... by chrisseaton on Monday March 27, 2017 @12:12PM (#13968925)
But actual multiple episodes is a technical artefact of broadcast TV. If they wanted 'chapters' for Netflix productions they could do that without actually breaking them up into separate files on Netflix.
Re:Netflix expected to spend over $6B on original and acquir... by eric_the_read on Monday March 27, 2017 @02:06PM (#13970168)
What's the difference between episodes and chapters? I mean to say, I think they're already what you want, just with different names. The seasons are the books, and the episodes are the chapters.

The only thing I can think of that's really different is opening/closing credits, but given that I pretty much never binge-watch anything (and apparently most of my friends on Facebook don't either), those serve a useful purpose for me, in that they help set the mood and make it so I don't have to wait a few weeks to figure out who played that street vendor that showed up one time in chapter^Wepisode 3.

Re:Netflix expected to spend over $6B on original and acquir... by chrisseaton on Monday March 27, 2017 @02:54PM (#13970587)
Yes it was the repeated opening titles and credits I really meant.

That and the gentle recaps they often have built in. In the UK when we air US TV shows they often seem really weird because when there would be an advert break in the US parts of the story and sometimes even lines are repeated by the actors to help you get back into it. Sometimes you get a cliffhanger line, a sort of a second's pause, and then the cliffhanger line repeated in a different tone! Where we don't have advert breaks this comes across as bizarre until you think the US would put an advert there, and you get the same kind of thing but across episodes on Netflix.

Re:Netflix expected to spend over $6B on original and acquir... by eric_the_read on Monday March 27, 2017 @06:25PM (#13972377)
I believe with Netflix (I almost never binge on Netflix, so this is sort of vague, sorry) doesn't it skip the opening credits if you continue on to the next? I know Amazon Prime Video does this, but that's only because I haven't figured out how to turn off autoplay for the next episode on that service.
Re:Netflix expected to spend over $6B on original and acquir... by chrisseaton on Monday March 27, 2017 @07:13PM (#13972651)
Well that probably just makes the artificial lull in action and reiteration of the plot more obvious.
Re:Netflix expected to spend over $6B on original and acquir... by pjc50 on Monday March 27, 2017 @11:26AM (#13968477)
Sherlock (BBC) series 1 was pretty good. Sherlock series 3 is an unwatchable self-referential mess.

(Mind you I have a low tolerance for TV drama; the last two things I really enjoyed were Foyle's War and Endeavour)