HBO cancelled Perry Mason, one of the better done noir detective series. That was kind of the nail in the coffin for me. I still get it free because of my AT&T subscription, but I can't argue that Netflix has really come out with anything really worth watching either - Department Q and Mindhunter are only two that I think of that were decent.
I agree that the majority of stuff on streaming services is complete garbage and nothing is really "binge worthy" like it used to be. The one thing I used to love about Netlfix was going back and watching old movies like Chinatown or To Live and Die in LA. Those are all gone now, replaced with its own produced content that I just think isn't in the same league.
If your metric is only detective stories… i guess? But if you actually compare the quality of anything recent notable from HBO it's not even close. HBO cinematography, production quality, editing, script… its all levels above Netflix. Pick anything The White Lotus, Euphoria, The Last of Us, Peacemaker. Really anything.
Netflix feels like everything is cheap. Maybe Ripley was nice but thats it?
The last Stranger Things series, of all things, is probably the single most expensive media production in history. More expensive than Marvel films, than both Avatars, than all of Games of Thrones, than Rings of Power per episode…
It even dwarfs the budgets of the biggest games ever and is roughly on the level of the upcoming GTA 6.
It’s completely mad! For a quaint small-scale mild-horror story set in the 80s. I get that it’s popular, but it would have been just as popular with 1/10 of the budget.
Exact numbers are often unknown, so I may be wrong for some of the examples above, but it’s in that order of magnitude.
But I agree that Netflix feels cheap. The Rings of Power felt remarkably cheap too. But it’s a lot more about the writing and the artistic merit than about actual production quality.
But Stranger Things also feels kinda cheap. I am not sure what is it but there is just this "movie feel" that HBO production often achieve (Apple TV does this too) but with netflix it just isn't there. Not sure why.
There must be more to that story. Netflix, HBO, BBC and a bunch of others keep pumping out these kinds of crime dramas exactly because they are quite conservative bets. They are extremely cheap to produce, a handful of mid-range actors on very mundane locations. They can stay as a miniseries or expand later on as wanted. And if the writing is good some of them become incredibly popular and profitable.
I mean, the last Stranger Things series, of all things, is the single most expensive production in history. More expensive than Marvel films, than both Avatars, than all of Games of Thrones, than Rings of Power per episode… It’s mad, for a quaint small-scale mild-horror story set in the 80s.
There is no way Mindhunter was simply too expensive.
Fincher shoots for very long, does a lot of takes, lights everything like a film. Likely spends a lot of time in the editing room either himself directly or tinkering with the directors that direct the other episodes.
Notice how Mindhunter didn’t “look” like other Netflix shows. The reason for that is they lit it like a movie. And that takes time and money.
I work in the industry. The reason Netflix shows look a certain way is because they are not given the time to do it differently and are shooting almost documentary style or at least much much faster than a regular “prestige” show. Now a good director DP duo can still make this look good, even though it’s hard to do 20 set ups (low budget speed) instead of 5-10 a day (high budget). But that velocity means you shoot at twice the speed. Which is huge considering film costs are people costs. Production is often the expensive segment of a show like Mindhunter.
Fincher likely wouldn’t have agreed to drop episode count or shoot them faster, so they didn’t continue.
It's hard to motivate high quality at high cost on subscription based platforms. We all pay the same price regardless of whether the content is barely palatable or great, and we all want new content frequently.
Better then to pump out a wide range of mediocracy to attract and keep as many subscribers as possible.
To me it died when they changed acceptable series length to 6 episodes on GoT. I really miss the days of 24 episodes, split into 12 episodes runs. I dont care that you spent the income of a small nation on the 6 episodes, I prefer you spread that money on 12 or more episodes so we can get story telling again.
Today's "TV shows" are more like TV movies that where split in into 3 1 hour runs.
I agree that the majority of stuff on streaming services is complete garbage and nothing is really "binge worthy" like it used to be. The one thing I used to love about Netlfix was going back and watching old movies like Chinatown or To Live and Die in LA. Those are all gone now, replaced with its own produced content that I just think isn't in the same league.