Amph ...on the next Arrested Development

I was waiting for that. What took you so long, harps? That's like, your go-to lazy comedy post.

 

Rachel, seriously... what's up with you lately? You've been cranky as ****. I mean, it's not your usual likable snark (as you know... there's a different feel to it.

Are we really arguing over AD being released all at once? Seems kinda stupid.

 

haha watch out folks she's like a cornered cat

 

I recognize that most people don't really care about things like distribution methods. But some people do, and find such things worth discussing. The way this show is being produced and distributed is groundbreaking and some people find that worth discussing. Watching a show a week at a time vs. all at once has a huge impact on the viewer experience. Spoilers do, too. And that's supposed to be the sort of thing we're allowed to discuss in an amph thread. I get that amph and JCC are merged so obviously a lot of the discussion in this thread will be rightly frivolous. But not all of it. If the creative aspect doesn't interest you, don't post in those particular discussions. But don't derail them with tired, childish personal attacks and then act as though I'm the one who needs to change their behavior.

 

Oh goody I get to post in bold again! Let's move on people.

 

I still don't understand why Netflix would release them this way from a financial perspective. Because all someone needs is a free trial to see all the episodes the day they come out. The only thing I can think of is that it's possible they aren't ever going to release them on DVD or Blu Ray, which would necessitate keeping a Netflix account indefinitely if you wanted to watch them again. I've noticed they have been quite silent on whether they'll ever releases any of their original series on home video. I have a feeling that might mean "probably not".

 

I assume they hope that Arrested Development will attract people who will stay subscribers for the other content.

 

I mean, I assume that's the idea, too. But it would still seem like spreading the show out over at least 2 months would have allowed them to at least get some money off those people in the process. Besides, if you are coming in once or twice a week to watch an episode, you're far more likely to happen upon other content than if you just sign up and marathon the whole thing in one day and don't watch anything else.

 

Didn't Hurwitz say somewhere that he designed this season to be marathoned and to feel like an enormous king-size episode?

 

Yeah. All of my friends are getting a Netflix trial account, watching AD, and then immediately canceling their service. Netflix is losing such a huge opportunity by not bleeding this property for every cent they can. Poor planning, Netflix, making this so convenient.

 

Well the episodes are more focused on individual characters. It's been implied that they all tie together as one larger storyline. And in an age when a lot of people do marathon shows on Netflix, it's definitely interesting to think that they could have written the season to cater to that. Certainly allows for a different kind of plant and payoff, I'm hoping.

But the thing is, being somewhat forced to watch it that way also blows most of the fun in one day as opposed to savoring it over a long period of time. It's just kind of disappointing for people who've been fans of the show for like 10 years at this stage. Kind of like eating all of your candy Halloween night. If you like candy. I hate it, bad example

EDIT: The money for all these new Netflix projects has to come from somewhere. If it doesn't come from new subscriptions, I can guarantee they're going to hike the prices for existing customers.

 

I'm not acting like anything except that it's ridiculous to think that Netflix is going to get a bunch of trial memberships to watch one show. And even if someone does that, Netflix has had trial accounts, and, presumably, people that have declined to retain their services past the trial, since their inception. Even if people were abusing this trial service just to watch AD, that's still a good thing for Netflix, because, presumably, some of those people, even if just a few, could stick around, and that's the whole reason they have a trial membership. It's so ridiculous, in fact, that I doubt this was even a consideration in how they were going to distribute the show. It is that much of a non issue--can you even imagine, people trying netflix's free marketing tool and then leaving. I mean, what are they thinking? No one's going to stick around if you can just watch arrested development in one sitting! The fools!

 

Arrested Development isn't just 'one show' for Netflix. It's one of their most watched shows and it and shows of its ilk are a major part of the reason they've gained the membership they have. Hence why they decided to fund the 4th season. But a subscription business like Netflix, until they have upcharges or overall price increases, is going to be focused largely on new membership. If they didn't think AD season 4 would get them new members, they wouldn't have funded it. Now obviously they've decided that they feel they'll get enough new members out of the season to make the show worthwhile anyway. That and the fact that it's a prestige move which brings them a lot of other opportunities for the future. I'm just saying I'm not sure that's how I would have handled it. I wouldn't have spread it over 14 weeks but I'd have broken it up a bit at least.

 

I don't see the point in them breaking it up. If it's your scheme to see the entire season for free by using the trial membership, what difference does it make if you get it all up front or you wait until it has all been released? Breaking it up to prevent this absurd ploy does nothing, in the end, because it's going to be fully released eventually, and these devilishly clever bandits could just wait until then to enact their fiendish plans and initiate their free trial.

I mean. What. What does breaking it up accomplish? That's bringing in new members how? Releasing it all at once is hurting their memberships in what way(besides this sitcom-esque hilariously irrelevant free television scheme)?

No, jello, of course people sign up for the trial and don't subscribe. Obviously. This is a thing that happens. I never said it didn't happen, I'm saying Netflix is aware that this happens, and they don't care because it's a marketing tool, and their decision on how to distribute had nothing to do with people signing up to watch it and then dashing(because this is a thing that happens when you're giving out trial memberships). See the rest of this post as to why stretching it out would solve this problem not at all.

 

Because the people that choose to stay after their trial are staying because they enjoyed the service or found it more convenient or whatever other reason. That's completely different than subscribing for a couple of months to see episodes of one show when you know that you can just watch them for free afterwards. Would people do that anyway? Yes. Admittedly I was being very black and white about it, but obviously Netflix has the numbers that say to go ahead this way.

We're not privy to that information, but obviously Netflix is, and made the decision to put it all out there right away. I just find it interesting that people who don't know what goes on behind the scenes at Netflix think they have a better way to run it. I'm sure Netflix would be very interested to know that people use their free trials and don't end up subscribing, for instance. That one should come as quite a shock to them.

 

Well, I personally do care about and speculate on the logic behind different business decisions in film and especially TV. It's just a normal thing to talk about if most the people you talk to deal with sort of stuff in their jobs.

But the idea is that most fans aren't going to want to wait until the end. By then all their friends will have seen it. Then you miss out on the water cooler moment. And yes, I do believe AD is popular enough amongst some people and some age groups that this season will be a water cooler type thing.

I've just realized that I really hope millions of people watching the same show at once on Netflix doesn't cause a problem like they had on Christmas Eve.

 

Was that due to an overload? It's Amazon's servers IIRC so I assumed it was a power loss or a glitch or something.

 

Haha oh man, I had almost forgotten about that.

 

Well, on that we'll disagree. Among friends that are fans of the show, yes, sure. The water cooler is more representative of society as a whole--things you talk about with people you barely know because you know they'll be familiar with it. Maybe it's because of your field and you're privileged enough to work with only people that appreciate Arrested Development, but I don't see a lot of people talking about Arrested Development in the general public. It is not, I think, as mainstream as you think.

 

They were hoping you had. Now Jay's gone and ruined it all for them.

Back to what DLB mentioned with regards to the episodes all fitting together into one mega-episode story.... I think it's interesting that it's wound up this way pretty much purely out of necessity. From what I'd read, they had to do it that way so that cast members could come and go as they pleased basically. There was no way they were going to be able to get everyone together for several months to shoot a normal season. So they didn't really have a choice. But sometimes limitations like that create great work... we'll see. We can always be reassured that nothing can be as much of a format change as what Up All Night's had.


EDIT: Yeah I have a very bad sense of what people talk about in 'water cooler' moments, I admit. The people I've worked with care about slightly different shows, that's safe to say. Having said that, it's still one of the most popular shows of all time on Netflix, and that's incredibly mainstream. So I think it has a lot more fans now than some might realize.