Weekly Streaming Recap: Week of August 19th, 2022

House of the Dragon Episode 1 (HBOMax): Game of Thrones and How I Met Your Mother have a lot of similarities. Both were major pop culture touchstones of their decade (though Game of Thrones was much larger), both had endings that were poorly received by the fans of the time, and both had attempted revivals some time later. House of the Dragon appears to be working (so far, considering this is only one episode) to rectify the failings of the final season better than How I Met Your Father managed to, though it remains to be seen how well this will carry over into further episodes. Much like The Force Awakens, this first episode does rely on people’s positive feelings about the first few seasons of Game of Thrones to carry through and give the impression that it is an improvement over where we last saw Westeros. As with She-Hulk below, shows should be given a bit of time after their first episode to truly judge quality.

She-Hulk: Attorney at Law (Disney+): When a show is picked up for a streaming series, be it a limited series or a multi-season show, a conventional pilot episode is unnecessary. A pilot for a network show is designed to be a selling point for a potential viewer or network executive designed to get people to watch it. A show like She-Hulk: Attorney at Law that was given a straight-to-series order (of sorts, considering Marvel Studios does not work the same way that any other network does) does not need to sell the viewer on a character in the same conventional way that other pilots need to. There is a built-in audience and, had the show launched into the theatrics of the show without explaining how she got her powers, how she manages her powers the same way Bruce Banner does, and how she lives the double life, viewers would not be confused. This is especially true when the explanation about Banner is given via three lines of exposition in Avengers: Endgame and no one really questioned it. There are some fun moments in the pilot but they probably should have released a second episode to show what the show proper will be like, since most of what happened in this first episode is not going to be a major point going forward.

The Rehearsal Season Finale (HBOMax): The Rehearsal is not a comedy, that much is apparent now with the first season reaching its end. It’s weird because the show starts out being kind of the same kind of comedy that made him famous, however it kind of fizzles out to focus on the neuroses that plague Nathan. By the time this final episode happens, it is all encompassing, and the show thinks the viewer is more intrigued by Nathan’s mental state than the premise of the show as promised by the first three episodes, and that is debatable. Had the show launched directly into the playing house aspect of it that dominated the back half of the season, maybe it would have been an easier pill to swallow but those expecting to see the kind of things seen in Nathan For You, the way the first few episodes promised, will probably not be as satisfied with this show.

The Sandman: Dream of a Thousand Cats/Calliope (Netflix): The arc after The Doll’s House is called Dream Country and is four kind of non-sequitur stories. The first of these two are Dream of a Thousand Cats, which tells the story of how cats ruled over humans until humans dreamed enough to force a change in reality itself where cats were subservient to humans, while Calliope tells the story of a writer who kidnaps the muse Calliope and forces her to provide him with inspiration before passing her off to a new abuser. The best way to handle these episodes which may have thematic similarities with the rest of the series, is to release them in this manner because, while these stories (as well as Façade and A Midsummer Night’s Dream) are just as good as the other stories, they are not a strong starting point for season two which will cover Season of Mists and A Game of You, both of which have longer and more consistent arcs. Both issues are put into a single hour with Dream of a Thousand Cats animated and Calliope in live action.

You May Have Missed:

This week’s entry in You May Have Missed is a news item more than a title people should seek out to watch. Since the acquisition of Discovery and subsequent spinoff of Warner Brothers from AT&T into a new company named “Warner Brothers/Discovery,” there have been a number of steps taken by the new executives in an effort to take advantage of tax incentives. Batgirl, the movie that was shot, finished post-production, and was sitting on a shelf waiting to be released, has been removed entirely from the release calendar. The sequel to 2020’s Scoob! named Scoob!: Holiday Haunt has also been axed while in production. This weekend marked the removal of a plethora of shows and movies from the HBOMax platform, largely shows that were designed and released specifically for the platform including Summer Camp Island, Infinity Train, about 200 or so older episodes of Sesame Street, American Pickle, and Close Enough, with the rationale claimed to be to avoid paying royalties to the cast and crews behind these shows.

The issue with this is that, as it stands now, HBOMax has one of the strongest lineups of backed catalog with a surprisingly solid catalog of originals beyond just what was released as HBO Originals like Westworld. By taking these actions, Warner Brothers is now a studio that a creator will have to think twice about bringing original content to, and actors, production designers, and other talent involved in the production will have to consider the fact that a movie may not come out, or after release may be pulled without recourse. Undoubtably this will lead to less content at a higher price.

This may seem like a lofty problem for those with more money than most people will ever know, however consider the implications behind the cancellation of Batgirl extend into the careers and livelihoods of those involved in the production. The city of Glasgow where the movie was shot is not thrilled because they shut down vast swaths of the city to shoot the movie and, while they were compensated for the time they were closed, they were banking on an increase in tourism in the aftermath of the release on HBOMax or theatrical. Leslie Grace, who played the title role, had to take a considerable amount of time to shoot the movie that would have been a major career boost had it been released, however now she does not get that exposure. She was offered the hollow option to possibly return as Barbara Gordon/Batgirl, however that’s putting a band-aid over a bullet wound.

As much press as Warner Brothers got for annoying Christopher Nolan when they shifted release strategy during the pandemic (arguably because of Christopher Nolan’s insistence that Tenant was a must-see release in July of 2020 that would save movie theaters), this is substantially worse, however because the things being targeted are animation and children’s programming, the deeper implications of this are not being discussed enough for general audiences who do not read sources like Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, or Deadline. While this week’s recap had a sizable showing from HBOMax, this is not likely to continue in the foreseeable future as the current CEO of Warner Brothers/Discovery is not looking at streaming as a viable home for large budget content, in direct contrast of the competition (Disney+ is making a massive showing of Marvel Studios, Lucasfilm, and live action remakes while Paramount+ is bringing a ton of Star Trek) that may not have the result they are hoping for.

Keep an eye on the news over the next few days as more and more things either get cut from development, cut from production, or cut after production has finished. Between writing this article and posting it for example, HBOMax announced the cancellation of a slew of other content, including a Family Matters animated Christmas special, a movie from The Amazing World of Gumball, two separate Looney Tunes specials, and a new animated series called Batman: Caped Crusader, which brought Bruce Timm back to the world of Batman since his work on Justice League Unlimited, Justice League, Batman Beyond, and (perhaps most famously because it served as the initial introduction of Harley Quinn) Batman: The Animated Series. If these huge names can’t survive these cuts, it is hard to imagine that any of the smaller content makes it through unscathed. Don’t worry though, Joker 2 (also known as Joker: Folie a Deux) is still coming, as is The Flash with the embattled Ezra Miller in the lead and the Guy Gardner/Alan Scott Green Lantern HBOMax show.