Netflix for the most part is a really great thing. Their original programming has improved substantially over the past couple of years, and some of my favorite TV shows at the moment are currently housed straight through their platform. That said, the distribution model of the service (i.e. dumping the entire season of a show in a single two second period) still kind of irks me a bit. For certain shows its fine (mostly the comedy ones, honestly), but as an old-timer set in his ways of weekly TV watching, it’s kind of overwhelming to have 13 hours of television just laid at your feet all at once. It also doesn’t help that the internet makes me feel like I NEED to watch the series as fast as possible (seriously, half of my Twitter feed has already finished Luke Cage somehow), but that’s neither here nor there.
In any case, Netflix has made it a part of their business model to keep their customers busy nearly every weekend of their lives, which is probably more of a blessing than a curse (even if it doesn’t always feel like it.) So even though they have just launched another sizeable hit (we think — once again, they don’t release metrics of any sort, so who can say?), Netflix is already at it again, announcing the premiere date of not one but TWO new shows. Thankfully they are giving us a little time for them though, as both won’t premiere until the early part of 2017.
First on the docket is the adaptation of A Series of Unfortunate Events, starring Neil Patrick Harris as the maniacal Count Olaf. The first season of the series, running a total of eight episodes (and adapting the first four books in the process) will premiere on January 13 — which yes, for those paying attention at home, is Friday the 13th. Appropriate, huh?
Released alongside the announcement was a teaser trailer for the show, featuring Patrick Warburton as narrator Lemony Snicket:
As a fan of the books (of sorts — I never actually finished them for some reason, even though I got all the way up to The Penultimate Peril), I’m really looking forward to the series, and I hope it will be an improvement over the Jim Carrey lead adaptation. At the very least, NPH casts a striking figure as Olaf.
But returning to Marvel business, the next and last series leading up to the premiere of the big team-up The Defenders, has been given a release date. Starring Game of Thrones’ Finn Jones as the titular character, Iron Fist will be arriving on March 17, 2017 at the standard 12:00 AM EST. It was expected for a while that the show would be arriving in March (since both seasons of Daredevil premiered at a similar time), and that likely means The Defenders will be taking the Fall 2017 Marvel slot. Then again, maybe Netflix will think the show is so big and attention grabbing that they will give it a summer launch — of course then it runs into the risk of intersecting Stranger Things Season 2, which is probably going to be HUGE.
Whatever, boo-hoo Netflix: they have too many shows that people want to watch, and so little time to premiere them. Just you wait: we’re only a few years away from a new and/or returning Netflix original premiering every single week. Kiss your weekends goodbye.