Today is a big day in streaming. In general, it is another big day in the history of TV. Today Disney+ is home to the last episode of Obi-Wan Kenobi and the debut of Doctor Strange while Netflix is streaming the new season of Umbrella Academy, which will feature the likely closely watched storyline of Eliot Page. The Umbrella Academy may be one of those shows that can handle a drastic change like a woman transitioning to a man from one season to the next without it making it super difficult to understand.
In general, though the whole day is set up to show the way that streaming has taken over the consciousness of TV in general. Nobody seems to be talking about Better Call Saul on AMC. This time of the year the major broadcast networks only make headlines for canceling shows and apparently, Hollywood reporters are getting so bored they are running post-mortem stories about a movie that already made 85 million dollars worldwide this weekend. I mean seriously, what a disaster right. I bet Morbius would be happy to get whatever Lightyear eventually earns. The movie that had the only trailer for every single movie that came out for a year only made 39 million dollars on its opening weekend. If Lightyear was from a mid-sized studio people would be amazed it could get any oxygen up against the biggest blockbuster ever from the biggest movie star in the world and a Jurassic Park film that unites the casts of both generations of the movies. But that is a totally different story.
The story today is streaming and the fact that it doesn’t have a season. The regular TV season has fall debuts and spring wrap-ups. Sports have tip-offs and finals and big games. But streaming as a medium has no off-season. As soon as Umbrella Academy launches Netflix will probably put out 50 more movies and series, a few of which will likely jump into the national conversation out of nowhere. Every major service will have a chance to shine for one show or another on its own without summer calendars and holiday weekends to worry about. Streaming shows don’t have to take 3-week breaks in the middle of the winter Olympics and hope the audience comes back. They just drop on to service and people cheer and avoid talking about the plots in too much detail as not to spoil it for someone who isn’t far enough along.
Interesting note, Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness is hitting streaming faster than any other Marvel title ever has. It will join Disney+ in time for the third episode of Ms Marvel and ahead of She-Hulk as Disney keeps that Marvel train going. Disney is figuring out the streaming game in a way that should really worry the competition. It convinced people that it was ok to wait for shows week by week, it staggers their debuts so that there is always something right around the corner to look forward to from either Star Wars or Marvel. That little company just might be figuring it out.
The Paramount Network’s Yellowstone may have definitively shown us that traditional cable shows can still capture the attention of the public when done well. But where are all of the other shows based on Yellow Stone found? On Paramount+.
Streaming has shaken the marketplace my friends and it’s probably only getting started if the rumors that Apple is the favorite the get NFL Sunday Ticket are true.
Till the next shoe drops, enjoy the Multiverse, the lightsabers and the timey whimmey fun of the Umbrella Academy today.
Stream on my friend.
