Comment by JansjoFromIkea | Hacker News Reader

Comment by JansjoFromIkea | Hacker News Reader

> “The increased volume at other places has worked in our favor,” says Casey Bloys, the head of programming at HBO.

I do hope this is the case but I'm not convinced. Netflix's approach atm seems very strongly geared towards the middlebrow, which is perhaps the area their algorithms perform best. It's probably not very economical for them to target someone like me when there's still droves of people watching network TV.

I'm not totally sold on the Deuce but it feels like far more of a prestige product than anything I've seen on Netflix. When someone signs with HBO, they know they're gonna be given the opportunity to develop with top notch people whilst retaining control within a proven system. Whereas Netflix seem to be exclusively focusing on throwing money at the problem. For example, Netflix have made several attempts at a cool 30-minute dramedy type deals, absolutely none of them come close to something like Insecure in overall quality. The most noteworthy one (Master of None) has some bizarrely stiff writing at points that would've been helped hugely if Ansari had been paired up with some experienced writers.

Netflix don't do themselves any favours with the notion that things will get lost in the pile. A director selling anything that hasn't a sizeable and obvious audience tends to get absolutely buried on their platform (e.g. Noah Baumbach's last film's only publicity seemed to be the references made to it following Dustin Hoffman's sexual harassment allegations)

As Netflix streaming phases out more and more actual movies, in favor of their original content, I'm finding it exceedingly difficult to watch anything of reasonable quality. To the point that I've reupped my DVD plan to 3 movies at a time, it's the ONLY way to actually find anything worth watching. Stranger Things? Don't get me started. Great nostalgia, but a boring and recycled story.

Maniac is a prestige show.

Maniac is a premium-mediocre show.

Kung Fury meets Black Mirror?

Has anyone watched the Norwegian original? Is it better or worse?

I assume the Norwegian writing is not influenced by an algorithm?

https://www.gq.com/story/cary-fukunaga-netflix-maniac

I would love to watch the original. One of the differences that I did read about stated that in the Norwegian show, many of the jokes are made at the expense of the character's mental illnesses. The writers for Netflix made a conscious effort to instead have the comedy come from other sources and to try to be more respectful of mental illness in general.

I know it's a divisive show (I didn't like it), but considering the names involved (Emma Stone, Jonah Hill, Cary Fukunaga), it seems to drag them down more than be elevated by them.

Having Emma Stone in a TV series should feel like a much bigger deal than that show does.

Paramount Television is in the credits. It's tempting to think directing is easy until you read Orson Welles' memo on edits to Touch of Evil.

It would take longer to read his memo out loud than to watch the movie.

I'm 4 episodes in and I still don't know what the show is about. It seems like its trying hard to channel some kind of weird, blade runner light vibes, but its doing a pretty bad job. Honestly if it didn't have some name brands in it (Jonah Hill and Emma Stone), I don't think it would getting the attention that it is.

I love the show and I'm happy I found it. That being said, I think you're right, I watched it initially only because Jonah Hill was in it. Come to think of it, I binge watched it for 2 nights and still haven't finished it, and if you asked me what the story line was, I can only vaguely describe it.

Jonah Hill would be a good reason not to watch this show for me, but you've fully convinced me not to waste my time.

It's definitely a show that unfolds in a lot of directions and that doesn't make it easy to zero in on a predictable narrative. Personally, I like that it managed to do that -- while still actually having a narrative arc and sense the writers had done their homework, unlike, say, Lost and Twin Peaks, which are probably two reasonable analogues.

Also, like a lot of character dramas, the most direct "about" is your investment in what happens to/between the characters. But I think you could fairly say the show is an exploration of how we come to grips with limited control over our minds and emotions.

An even closer one would be the Leftovers seeing as it shares a few key crew members (well, Theroux and the lead writer worked on the Leftovers, at least).

The Leftovers was basically Lost done right, very very clear from the onset that it's about people's reactions to the craziness than the underlying reasons for it. Maniac feels like it has some unnecessary stuff tacked on, the premise has a Charlie Kaufman copycat element to it all that feels like a necessary gimmick as opposed to something which naturally fits into the world.

It's a show about confronting your past, accepting loss, and growing past your old self.

I'm fascinated by the lukewarm response this show's received. It feels so refreshing to have a show a) tell you what it's going to do and then b) do it. It spends the first three episodes establishing the characters and the conceit, and then follows through on everything a narrative is supposed to follow through on.

Every major character has a "core trauma" that they must confront and move past. They ingest pills which put them into dreamlike states where they can fuse their trauma with mythological encounters, which lets them face their problems head on in a more abstract sense. Just about to the letter how Joseph Campbell explained the purpose of myths and legends.

Even the non-dreaming characters face larger-than-life scenarios they must overcome in order to overcome their own core problems. Without spoiling it, Dr. Mantleray (Justin Theroux) has a hilarious and way over the top problem that he confronts in an equally ridiculous manner.

Which reminds me of another facet of this show: it's not afraid to let you (or make you) laugh. Unlike Bojack's Flip McVicker, who says before his premier, "This show contains no intentional humor."

It's a tonic for people tired of Prestige TV. The "it gets good" syndrome, where we have to wait a whole season for any kind of "payoff" to hours of wheel-spinning, setup, and dissolution. I'm tired of mysterious characters doing weird things and waiting eight episodes to find out why. Plot is not a puzzle. I want to know the characters, to care about them, to know in clear terms what they want and watch them struggle to achieve that. Which, I think, Maniac delivers on.

Even if we classify Manic as a prestige show, what else form Netflix fits into this category? The Crown. In Europe Netflix has Better Call Saul (and labels it as a "Netflix Original") but I don't think it should count. And then what?

It seems to me that Netflix specialises in 7/10 shows. Solid and fairly forgettable productions.

I spend 5-7 hours a week watching TV shows and I find I have zero use for Netflix. It has almost that I want to watch if my goal is to watch the best thing I can find for an hour a day.

Netflix's algorithm has gotten worse. One is better off searching for renown actors and directors to find good movies and shows instead of looking for suggestions.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com