Including content that would not have passed the CBS Standards and Practices department. The producers are adding scenes and language to episodes shot before the decision to move to steaming that enhance the programming.
https://screenrant.com/evil-season-2-paramount-plus-better-story-why/
I'm watching it streaming but on paramount+ with ads because I mistakenly signed up for the trial WITH ads instead of the trial WITHOUT ads. Do not do this. We switch from scary night monsters in dark blue/orange to cheery Febreze commercials in pastel pink. It totally takes me out of the scary.
shareI got the no-ads option, and it’s easily worth the 4 bucks more per month. And thank you for making a point I’ve been promoting for years: there is NO WAY a broadcast network show can compete with a show on a premium service. The ads just take the audience right out of it. I made that statement on a Breaking Bad topic a couple years ago, and the BB fanboys jumped all over me. One wrote something like, “That is literally the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.” It sure seemed self-evident to me.
shareYeah I think BB would definitely be ruined by a single Febreze commercial. That doesn't mean that there are NO shows that would still work on network tv. My family watched Cobra Kai, and it's light-hearted enough that I think cheerful commercials would be fine. But it's a family-friendly show, so it can satisfy a different type of viewer. My kids actually do a little better with shows that have commercial breaks because they like to take time out to imitate the fights. Sometimes we have to pause the show so they can run around and act out what they just watched. But a show like BB (obviously not kid-friendly) would be ruined by that kind of pause.
I was really happy when streaming became a thing, because I felt like it created a new narrative workspace that would allow new kinds of stories, stories that were more serialized, stories that were darker, stories with larger and more complex worlds, and so on. And I think it has done that. I think one interesting feature of streaming is that it fosters shows with a closed end: three or five seasons and an arc that has a definitive endpoint. So, again, that allows a different type of story than what network tv had. I like having shows with arcs that are going somewhere, but sometimes I also miss the old-fashioned fun shows that just had likeable, ordinary characters, that you could follow through their daily lives forever.
I do watch shows with commercials sometimes and it's ok for certain types of shows. But I avoid network tv; mostly because the shows I'm willing to have commercials are family shows and everything on networks has gone so woke that I can't trust them around my kids. I have a kid who's lgbt, it's fine and I support them, but I want to handle it a particular way and I don't like networks controlling how I handle it by pushing a particular worldview on my children.
Impressively good post. When I said that no broadcast network show, or any other show interrupted by commercial break, can compete with a series on a premium platform, I thought (hoped?) it was implicit I was talking about only the top-quality narrative programming, The Newsroom, VEEP, the first 6 seasons of Game of Thrones, Banshee vs. Elementary (can’t think of any other recent GOOD shows with commercial breaks). The lighter fare that you identified is perfectly valid. I concur.
But I also like, and respect, your post because you went beyond the structure that my post implied. You brought it into a living room inhabited by a family. You talked about the breaks giving your children time to “digest” what they just witnessed, and for your family to interact. That is a lovely and perfect point. I design complex home theater systems. I begin by identifying the end user(s) and the using environment, then I work backwards to create the appropriate program and supporting hardware. You reminded us of the end users.
I share your dim few of commercial shows that refuse to die: The Simpsons, the Walking Dead crap, Supernatural. There is NO WAY there’s any creative juice left in wrung-out fossils like these. I lurk on their boards and am comforted and soothed when their fans admit they “watch out of habit” and “have it on for the background noise.” Sheesh. I agree that the premium platforms, supported by their paying viewers and not by advertisers, give a manifestly tighter and more consistent content.
I think we need more posters like you.
Why thank you. I usually try to expand on what the person before me said, especially if I think their post is really interesting, because it keeps the conversation going and I find that more fun. Totally agree about the three shows you mentioned in your last paragraph. I remember before streaming became a thing, thinking to myself that tv series really have a five year lifespan of good, new stories and then it seems to be all repeated ideas. I still think that, though I might be willing to stretch it to 7 or 8 years for certain kinds of shows. But yeah, when shows are up at 10, 15 seasons or more, what can they possibly have to say that's new?
shareYes, but so far it’s just a bunch of “fucks” and a few quick shots of unattractive topless women.
Hoping they get Kristen out of clothes at some point. Katja Herbers has been nude in other products, so no biggie for her to strip naked.
Fingers crossed.
I’m pretty sure the cannibalism
and sadism in Season 2, plus the beheading of the demon counselor go beyond CBS’s Standards and Practices protocols.
I don’t mean to be hard on you. I welcome an engaged poster to this discussion.
They do. But it’s still PG-13 stuff for the most part, except for the demon blood. Yet still more than I was expecting. Hopefully they push it farther. But if not, it’s still a great show. That would be even better with a naked Kristen. 😄
share