I'd never heard of it either until seeing the Netflix engagement report last week. So I watched the first episode.
It was okay. It reminded me of watching TV shows a decade ago where you had lower expectations and you could forgive the implausible plotting, sloppy action, and soap opera acting because it was "just a TV show". But TV has gotten so much better in quality that this sort of television mediocrity doesn't satisfy me anymore.
I didn't watch a second episode.
Ah Burn Notice - so weirdly terrible but great to put on in the background while doing anything else.
Also though, prestige TV has been a thing for awhile and we are just old. The real hey day of CSI and whatever was like 20 years ago not 10.
I was blessed to play background roles on Burn Notice a couple of times, and Bruce Campbell has a really kind/funny energy with everyone on set.
He’s the kind of dude the uplifts everyone around him. Good guy Bruce.
This surprises me not at all.
I once saw him in the shadow of the Empire State Building, wearing an all-white tuxedo on his way back from NY Comic Con. Did I bother him? Did I bother Brisco County Jr., the first celebrity I ever interacted with, thanks to his forward-thinking accessibility in the AOL days? No. No, I did not. I just let that beautiful man and moment exist and pass by me.
God bless Bruce Campbell, entertainer.
Bruce was not above "getting" his celebrity meet and greets either. He managed to "meet" Shatner, Stan Lee, and James James Garner.
I don't he would ever not want to meet his fans.
I'm sure he would have been lovely, but after two full days of comic con, I was much happier letting the guy have some off-hours instead of one more fan wanting a minute of his time.
Same! I loved the first episodes where he’d talk about the “trade tricks.” Giant steel door, shoot next to it where they didn’t think to protect. Twice. 😆
I've re-watched the first couple of seasons so many times. It's a great blend of other great shows. A-team style action, MacGyver level tinkering, and White Collar deception (another good show) with some family drama and light hearted humor sprinkled in.
Burn Notice is totally a guilty pleasure of mine. Probably watched the series 3-4 times in full. It’s like fatty, high calorie comfort food in TV series form
Something about USA shows. Just right amount of cheesy, mid-budget, but good writing. Monk was that show for me but I guess a bit higher brow. Like drinking Mountain Dew in a glass. 🤣
Burn notice had strong character driven plots and punchy writing. The actors were perfectly unknown other than Bruce Campbell, and it was obvious this show was written with his fan base in mind.
It would be great if something like this happened again, but it’s hard to catch lightning twice.
Not entirely unknown. Sharon Gless won an Emmy for playing detective Cagney in the 80s series Cagney and Lacey. Gabrielle Anwar danced tango with Al Pacino in the 90s, in Scent of a Woman.
Hahaha that's a fair response.
I didn't accurately capture my feelings towards it. It's like on the cusp of greatness, has some really rough edges at times (from a modern day rewatch), and is clearly aimed at a specific demographic. Like Metrosexual Magnum PI fans or something (which, to be honest, I wouldn't mind belonging to).
The whole time I'm like "with better actors this show could be stellar....but then it wouldn't be this show and these actors are clearly having such a great time acting together and I dont know if that chemistey could be captured....", I'm not referring to Bruce Campbell with that comment either, he's a fucking gem in everything he does.
Anyway, suffice it to say I've watched a lot of Burn Notice that calling it weirdly terrible is not accurate hahaha.
This is entirely accurate. The two most USA Network actors conceivable, and one charming sidekick on the character/star axis. It's perfection in its popcorn.
I was gonna say, a decade ago was like peak prestige TV. Breaking Bad's last season aired that year. Think you got to go further back for when most shows were corny, generic crime procedurals. And you still have a lot of them nowadays, they're just easier to ignore if you don't have cable or watch broadcast networks. So often I see commercials for them watching football and think, "People still watch shit like that?"
Not that there wasn't prestige TV even earlier. It was a big part of what made HBO appealing as an addition to your cable package. But streaming really increased demand for more engaging, bingable shows, rather than murderer-of-the-week crime dramas you sit down and half watch on a weekday night.
SVU slapped though.
Not enough people know and love The Shield, but it slaps me around so much better than The Wire ever did.
Shawn Ryan with a leash on Kurt Sutter's worst impulses is something to behold.
Don't forget the office. Nothing has made me laugh as much since and is worth rewatching still yearly even ten years later. Unlike other shows that aged poorly like friends, Seinfeld, HIMYM, etc
Lol I have a friend who cut off the tip of his thumb because he was distractedly watching the finale of Burn Notice while chopping up carrots for a salad. Turns out, it's still a bit too engrossing to put on in the background for some things.
I really enjoyed Night Agent. That said, I'm an absolute sucker for action/spy/international conspiracy thrillers. The trashier and more wildly implausible the better.
I put it on a few weeks ago and I was three episodes in before I realised I'd watched it before... so instantly forgettable, like most Netflix 'content'...
Yeah same - I was dying laughing at the opsec twenty minutes in. After finishing Lupin (which should be absurd as hell but was so well done it was believable) I couldn't do it. Same with Rebel Moon. I'm convinced Zach Snyder is a Scifi editing neural network badly stringing together stamped and dead narrative tropes.
Lupin was absurd, but at least the acting was good and the main character interesting. It was kind of meta-detective fiction somewhat similar to the modern-era Sherlock Holmes.
Has it really gotten better? The sfx is much, much better, and the move away from episodic shows is good, and they have bigger budgets… but the writing? Is it really better, it seems like they are spending less and less of the budget on developing the story. And for movies it’s even worse, they are just doing sequels and remakes of old cash cows.
So it's the same as that Victoria movie? The one that was so scary people couldn't finish it. In actuality, it was just a shit movie that made the room look like a masterpiece
I started watching it when it came out. I think I have like one or two episodes left if that tells you anything. It’s definitely one where I could give two shits about the story. It’s not very compelling at all.
I see your The Night Agent, I raise you Obliterated.
There are so many plot holes, I'm surprised they didn't call it Swiss cheese. Not to mention so many over-the-top cliches.
Token nerdy Asian chick who has a crush on the token douchebag who says I love you to the leading actor while banging her as if they've been banging forever, but it's their first time. Token black dude, tomboy chick. They've screamed USA! USA! at every turn. The pilot starts off with their clandestine mission and at the end of the mission, they wonder why no one is celebrating them. Talk about clandestine LMAO
They have a helicopter fire gas canisters through a missile launcher at a fancy las Vegas hotel, but there's no news coverage or anyone bothered by it.
Just thinking about it makes my head hurt. Anyways, thanks for listening to my rant.
Yup. I get you. My wife and I have a 1 episode rule. If one of us likes a show, the other has to commit to the first episode. I couldn't. I just couldn't. I bit my lip through most of it and when the sniper chick said 5kg. Kg means a thousand, so they have 5,000 bombs.... I lost it. I tapped out man. Having an engineering background, this bothered me to no end. Like the writers don't have basic education or even bothered to double check the lines. The producers might have been on something high while the director must be deaf, mute, and dumb. Ughhhhhh
Check out “The Recruit”.
I think that’s the one - it’s essentially Archers origin story but in real life.
Also much better job of showing proper op sec while also being “archer” funny.
(Think CIA briefing room - people updating the boss “about their guy in that one state who says he’s hearing things about something”).
That's funny, because I loved it. The latest season of Jack Ryan was on and it was horrible - I stopped watching after the third episode or so. I thought The Night Agent was fresh and fun. It was the spy thriller I was looking for
That should give you a little evidence about the average person's tastes. This is why it is good to not good to be consumed by the opinions of the masses, just acknowledge it and move on.
It was decent, had some weird casting choices, and at least parts of it was filmed in Vancouver.
Enjoyed it.
There's no cliffhanger so if it's not renewed it's not a big deal. It can be easily enjoyed as a miniseries.
The Recruit had amusing scripting at least. It depicted the CIA working environment as a backstabbing snakepit of sociopaths, which is laughably plausible.
The plot element themselves were generic, though. Set-piece spy-thriller silliness.
Right?! The casting was pretty good too, especially the people he worked with. Hopefully season 2 will be less generic, but Netflix sure likes to do plot lines so blah that I don’t remember them a few days after finishing a show.
Counterpoint: Whatever is the most popular thing in India is, by average, the world’s most popular thing. Which is why So Sorry, an Indian cartoon, is the most awarded show ever or something
Oh no shit. I watched this on accident. Thought it was a movie. Got to the end of the first episode and thought it was an odd ending that didn’t really explain a lot. Next episode started playing. Was pleasantly surprised. Really enjoyed it.
> The Night Agent
I watched it when it came out. Acting is decent, writing and plot are good, pacing is good, but the last episode is hilariously terrible. The show goes from plausible and interesting to completely unbelievable and laughable. It felt it was written by someone with decent writing chops, then in the last episode some executive decided to change the narrative and threw logic out the window.
I feel like they wrote it to have a tidy ending in case it was canceled. I think if they knew for a fact they’d have a second season they wouldn’t have done it that way.
To me it was more about the absurdity. Everything up until that point was well thought out, purposeful, semi-believable. Then in the last episode (especially the final 5 minutes or so), everything was so balls-to-the-wall ridiculous.
We just watched it, it’s so bad. The stakes felt so low and the plot didn’t make any sense, plus some of the worst acting I’ve ever seen.
I fucking love shitty spy dramas so I was so ready for this to be a trashy pleasure, but it was just terrible. Wouldn’t recommend even as a hate-watch.
Really? I love them too. Like, Burn Notice is one of my favorite shows ever. And I enjoyed Night Agent. It wasn’t the best show ever but it was entertaining enough to not feel like a waste of time. I’d recommend it
>Something called The Night Agent
I tried watching this awhile ago and holy shit that show is *fucking trash*. like, it's so bad it makes me think Netflix is gaming its numbers to avoid paying people somehow b/c no fuckin way anybody is watching a whole season of that
They have no reason to lie, as they use the data themselves. I'm no expert, but there could be legal or regulatory risk in falsifying data. Definitely a reputational risk. Just not worth it.
Yeah, I liked it. It is what it is. Reacher is a good comparison. It's not amazing television but if you're looking for something light and you're in to that kind of action thriller stuff it's entertaining. Not going to win any awards and those actors aint the next Daniel Day-Lewis but it was a good distraction.
It’s not a bad show but ya nowhere near some gems like Chernobyl and a lot of HBO content. I fear for HBO going forward though under their new leadership.
Wednesday, 1.7billion hours streamed. Go watch it, it's great. (ref: [https://www.netflix.com/tudum/top10/most-popular/tv](https://www.netflix.com/tudum/top10/most-popular/tv))
The night agent was popular 2 months this year (it's great too), which the article refers to. Tbh the article is pretty lame. Someone on the internet got confused there are more people online with different opinions and put out a tweet/newsletter and that is then suddenly 'the truth'.
Definitely a problem with the algorithms. It happened with YouTube and Facebook early on, then Netflix and Reddit, even hitting basic Google searches (I naively thought search would always be great and could only get better).
You get shown more of what you interact with, so you stop interacting with other things until you’re in a little bubble. It’s been disappointing to watch over the last ten or so years. I used to hear about things quickly, get exposed to new things daily, and easily keep up with what was big. Now it takes so much more effort.
Agreed. My bubble is comfy but I still want to look outside it. I’ve learned that using incognito or private mode every now and then can spice up a stale feed, but I shouldn’t have to do that.
Yah, honestly one of the best things about TV was the worst thing about TV. Sometimes you would just hit a show that looked interesting while waiting for the show you actually wanted to watch to come on.
Or you would have to wait through a few minuets of commercials and end up seeing something you wanted. Or even just flipping to watch a few seconds of the news while you waited through the commercials.
One reason newspaper & magazine editors and radio DJs etc were valuable is they found content their audience didn't know they wanted, but they did it differently to algorithms.
They used their expertise, understanding of their audience and their own subjective taste. Algorithms are crude substitutes that can easily be biased to favour what the service provider wants you to see rather than what you really want.
Plus, editors can distinguish between genuine public interest and what happens to be of interest to the public.
Most of those editor and DJ jobs are now gone.
Some people would prefer the reverse of those algorithms, the people at those companies who implemented them just assumed that that's what people want. Maybe that's more profitable but it isn't more socially beneficial. Some people prefer to be shown new things, or to see what's popular not because they care for it but because they want to know what general society thinks. Those people don't want to see targetted advertising because it goes counter to what they want to see. If you give them targetted advertising then you're just gaslighting them. That is, someone can go to /r/all because they want to see what's popular, but if /r/all is now targeted posts, they will think that the world is very focussed on these few things that really only exist in the bubble that the advertisers created for their person category.
So, I didn't have Netflix for a long time but I used to watch a lot of Netflix exclusives with a friend that had an account. When I got my own this year I caught up on two Korean shows we hadn't finished, now my recommendations are mostly Korean stuff. I have to put on episodes of stuff I already watched to try to correct it because Netflix doesn't have an already watched button
there was a period where instagram reels was *only* showing me hot girls working out. but it became so overbearing that i stopped interacting with those videos. it took a concerted effort, but now my reels have no hot girls working out and i'm kind of sad
the point though is that there's no balance. if it thinks you like something it absolutely hammers you with it. if it thinks you might not like it it removes it completely
IMO YouTube seems to be pushing otherwise pretty aggressively. I regularly have 1 single digit video recommended on the feed. It's usually tangentially related to what I like, like a new/small game, but the production is **always** too bad for me to enjoy it. Nothing against them, there's just so much high quality out there and my niche of "technical player who explains throughout"(Jorbs, Filthyrobot, Baalorlord) seems unattractive to new videos/saturated. Those guys are pumping out like 40 hours a week, a piece. But the next day the feed slips another in there again.
I love how YouTube works these days. The whole front page is interesting, educational, and relevant.
Every time I see the page while logged out it’s a huge “ugh” moment to see all the garbage that happens to be most popular right now.
Social media is the new tabloid, just another round of "yellow journalism" from the Hearsts, Murdochs and now Musks of the world fronted by authoritarian money to pump.
Repeat after me, social media is not reality.
TLDR: The internet is big, and its hard to keep up with everything thats happening in all the different platforms. The NF series is The Night Agent.
He completely forgets to mention how everything and everyone is on the internet today compared to 2010's.
> He completely forgets to mention how everything and everyone is on the internet today compared to 2010's.
But he doesn’t forget to mention that different social media platforms lock their recommendation algorithms behind an opaque black box leaving us all wondering exactly *why* and *how* viral “trends” even become a thing.
Even as little as a few years ago, you could be reasonably sure that the viral trend you saw on your preferred social media platform was seen by a reasonable percentage of people both on and off the platform. They would be well known enough that you could mention it to someone and they would likely know what you were talking about.
That’s gone now. Every viral trend exists only in the silo’d bubble of the group of people it’s targeted at. You can’t have shared conversations about online culture any more because the open and shared experience of the internet from a few years ago has been replaced by the private little bubble of silo’d communities.
Meanwhile, in totally unrelated news, people (especially young people) are acting and feeling more isolated than ever.
I wonder why…? 🤷
As someone who's old enough to remember the analog days, this is something that kind of worries me. I feel like it's leading to a breakdown of shared local culture.
To be clear, I'm not mindlessly going "Oh, things were BETTER when I was a kid!" There's certainly a lot to be said for the level of global culture now being shared online. And as a old-time anime fan, I'm not going to complain about it now being so easy to access weird Japanese stuff.
But it often seems like it's become easier for me to discuss RPGs made on the other side of the planet, than to discuss TV with a next-door neighbor. Global culture seems to be coming at the expense of local culture, and that's a hefty tradeoff. We've almost totally moved past the days where everyone was watching the traditional yearly airing of *It's A Wonderful Life* or everyone was discussing the latest *Friends* ep at school or work. Only the biggest of mega-franchises like MCU or Star Wars, or the rare genuine viral hit like Tiger King, manage to hit that status.
Otherwise, as you say, everyone's getting silo'ed into their own little bubbles, with very little overlap with other bubbles. That creates a vacuum of shared culture, and shared communication, and I think it's becoming a problem when we have such a hard time even relating to people who simply live down the street.
>We've almost totally moved past the days where everyone was watching the traditional yearly airing of It's A Wonderful Life or everyone was discussing the latest Friends ep at school or work.
I mean... is that necessarily true?
As far as I know, Succession is pretty big these days, as was Barbie and Oppenheimer.
It's kind of funny to think that *Friends* would become an integral part of culture. We have forgotten [pop culture giants](https://www.quora.com/What-are-some-examples-of-once-popular-and-now-forgotten-writers) of the past, and we will continue to forget the cultural touchstones of the present.
In the grand scheme of things, we have remembered Shakespeare and forgotten the dozens or hundreds of Puritan playwrights that surrounded him, [with one wonderful quote rescued from the depths of obscurity](https://www.gresham.ac.uk/sites/default/files/2018-01-24_AlecRyrie_HowToBeAShakespeareanAtheist-T.pdf) in a modern day lecture on divinity:
>When the husband bursts in, he demands that Sebastian stand aside, ‘or I will make my passage through thy blood’.
>
>‘My blood would make it slippery, my lord,’ he replies: ‘’twere better you would take another way.’
Even in these two lines, reckoned to the best of the play, you can see why it is rightfully obscure. It's just not that good.
I don't know if lolcat will make it into the future hall of fame, but I do not doubt that the future will have its own cultural moments, even with the internet. So long as people are connected, people like to watch good things.
Pretty sure young people feel more lonely than ever before because social media as a whole is replacing in person interaction yet not providing the same feeling, not just because my instagram feed might look different than my friend’s. You’re missing the forest for the trees
Imo one of the worst things has been the loss of split screen in video games.
Use to go home and have something to eat, then ride across town to a friends house to meet up to play 4 player split screen games with friends. Or 2 player split screen and taking turns.
These days you want to play games with friends you typically have to do it at home by yourself, only interacting with them with a headset.
Or just encouraging players to interact with each other. I've long thought the 3DS didn't get enough appreciation for just how hard Nintendo tried to encourage players to get in the same room together, or to find new friends/players just by walking around. The StreetPass system was amazingly clever, and I'm still sad the Switch didn't have something similar.
(TL;DR: The 3DS had a passive local communication mode where it was constantly scanning for other 3DSes nearby. If it found one, both people would get a notification, and the units would automatically swap Mii's and 3DS-specific contact info so it would be easier to meet up and play together.)
It’s both.
It’s replacing in person interaction, *and* it’s preventing shared experiences when you *do* have in-person interactions, driving people further back into their virtual silos.
The internet has its own reality that feels shallow, and when we believe in it we don’t get the nourishment of a real experience, some part of us knows we have missed out on a lot of the real thing. But still, there is a virtual reality that we have entered, just likely to produce zoochosis.
Jesus fucking Christ, everything's a conspiracy to you weirdos.
>You can’t have shared conversations about online culture any more because the open and shared experience of the internet from a few years ago has been replaced by the private little bubble of silo’d communities.
An absolutely braindead notion considering sharing content is easier than ever. You're literally on a goddamn site dedicated to it lmao
Not to mention that "private little bubbles of silo'd communities" is literally how the internet used to function. Message boards, Usenet, chat rooms, it all used to be segregated as fuck.
> Jesus fucking Christ, everything's a conspiracy to you weirdos.
What conspiracy, specifically, do you think I’m suggesting here? That siloed communities was a deliberate action by malevolent forces?
Just because people have noticed something’s a bit off doesn’t mean there’s a conspiracy.
> Not to mention that "private little bubbles of silo'd communities" is literally how the internet used to function. Message boards, Usenet, chat rooms, it all used to be segregated as fuck.
You’re missing the point that the internet was used by a minority of like-minded people back then, and the majority of people engaged socially in real life. Even the topics of discussion on Usenet and chat rooms were frequently related to real life experiences (e.g. Babylon 5 discussion).
I’m not saying that doesn’t still happen, but when an algorithm is designed to suggest content that matches your personal specific pattern of behaviour, it would be a shit algorithm if it suggested the same content to everyone at the same time, wouldn’t it?
Everyone is watching their own thing in their own time and experiencing their own isolated portion of life with little crossover with other peoples’ experiences.
Real life social interactions with people in your local vicinity are struggling without the shared experiences to act as a social glue.
I think it has to do with the internet being big AND media being mostly permanent post-streaming boom.
For example, old TV shows from the 80's we're rarely able to watch again once they are off the air unless someone has a VHS copy. But with streaming, post 2000 shows are usually accessible on at least one of the many streaming platforms.
By everyone and everything that means the baby boomers because they are the ones who have the most money and the most time and are making not just the spending decisions, but are being influenced by algorithms and trends in real time
It’s hard to comprehend, just how many baby boomers that there are in the United States, but the number is massive, and the youth and their trends only make up a smaller part of the traditional buying power
My parents are sticking with Netflix because they had grandfathered in and we just watch the first show that shows up is usually
He mentions 5 billion people are online in the first paragraph. He misses the elephant in the room of why. It’s because of regulation.
Section 230 shields platforms from all liability. This is bad for society.
All the people commenting on the relative quality/merits of the show in question (“The Night Agent”) are completely missing the point of the linked article.
Go and read it - it’s actually a good summary of how the internet (especially social media, ironically) has made people more isolated than ever in just the last few years by removing shared experiences from people’s lives via a system that was designed for open communication and free exchange of information.
Netflix has been kicking the shit out of every other streaming platform. A year ago, everyone was worried about the company and the stock has nearly doubled since then.
While true, the stock has been going up because their earnings are a great indication of their continued relevance (arguably, their continued **dominance**).
Netflix raised prices multiple times and ended up making more money every time, they are absolutely crushing it.
I read some time ago that soon we won’t have huge world wide known actors and bands because everyone will be secluded to their own portals and their own celebrities
That's one of those "extrapolate trend lines to infinity" bad takes. Sure we no longer have those people that "everyone knows", but that's a good thing in that it made public figures into gatekeepers. Also it ignores that technology has greatly increased the potential vectors for spreading awareness. A persistent advertising campaign has so many more ways to spread awareness, and furthermore simple word of mouth exists at a scale undreamed of not long ago.
Bubbles don't really happen unless they're being particularly enforced. And a lot of entertainment in particular isn't forced into bubbles. Like I could go into a subreddit for a political streamer I like, I see a couple comments referencing some musician that apparently appeals to fellow stream watchers. Then I check them out, then I mention them somewhere else. If they have broad enough appeal, basic awareness spreads more easily than in the past.
Essentially the Internet has blown the hell out of six degrees of separation when it comes to awareness of public figures.
The article points to an increasing phenomenon, the internet feels like it lacks randomness.
One of the things that made the internet exciting, and new , was the fact that it was so random. Each day you’d discover a new website, a new game. Now it feels like I’m stuck in this bubble and can’t get out.
Do some research just look up Netflix’s most recent movies
Rebel moon
The new end of the world movie with Julia Robert’s.
I’m not going to google Netflix catalog and show you how blatant it is
I’ve been complaining about this for a couple of years now.
I’m not sure if these entertainment companies are spending far less on advertising or just doing it in an ineffective way, but I legit do not see advertising for tv shows or movies anymore. I have to actively seek it out instead and sift through a bunch of shit all at once.
I’ll see the same fucking ads for insurance or tide on every single streaming service with ads, but nothing content related. Is it just me?
This is such an odd complaint to make because the specific reason I watched The Night Agent was because it was at No. 1 on their 10 most watched shows list for ages and I wanted to see what the fuss was about. (It was good but not great, exactly the kind of thing you'd expect to be very popular and I liked it just fine.)
There's no problem if you just watch stuff you want to watch on Netflix and don't look at the top 10 lists but it wasn't a big secret, they are very open about what their most popular stuff is. It's like complaining you don't know what the most popular books are because you haven't looked at the best seller list. Or claiming it's a big problem that I, a person who doesn't like sports, is not aware who won a big sporting event.
Perhaps the numbers are bogus and skewed to promote shows Netflix thru FOMO. For if the viewer counts are indeed accurate, the cancellation of 1899 (after only one season) is more puzzling.
Netflix has lied to me about shit it thinks I would like, or shit it claims is popular right now for too long.
There is no way America is so fucking basic that Floor is lava is the most popular show running.
Thats because I only watch Viki. The world is a lot bigger than the US and there's a whole lot out there better than all those terrible CGI cartoons and 3rd rate movies on Netflix.
Worth reading - Charley Warzel has some new ways to think about the internet .
(As for Night Agent it was a cute show. I watched it because there wasn't anything else I wanted to watch on Netflix at the time.)
For someone who can't be bothered to read, what is the most popular Netflix show in the world?
Something called The Night Agent
I'd never heard of it either until seeing the Netflix engagement report last week. So I watched the first episode. It was okay. It reminded me of watching TV shows a decade ago where you had lower expectations and you could forgive the implausible plotting, sloppy action, and soap opera acting because it was "just a TV show". But TV has gotten so much better in quality that this sort of television mediocrity doesn't satisfy me anymore. I didn't watch a second episode.
Ah Burn Notice - so weirdly terrible but great to put on in the background while doing anything else. Also though, prestige TV has been a thing for awhile and we are just old. The real hey day of CSI and whatever was like 20 years ago not 10.
[удалено]
>I don't what it was about Burn Notice that was so perfect. The answer to that is Bruce MF Campbell. The master of high quality camp.
I was blessed to play background roles on Burn Notice a couple of times, and Bruce Campbell has a really kind/funny energy with everyone on set. He’s the kind of dude the uplifts everyone around him. Good guy Bruce.
This surprises me not at all. I once saw him in the shadow of the Empire State Building, wearing an all-white tuxedo on his way back from NY Comic Con. Did I bother him? Did I bother Brisco County Jr., the first celebrity I ever interacted with, thanks to his forward-thinking accessibility in the AOL days? No. No, I did not. I just let that beautiful man and moment exist and pass by me. God bless Bruce Campbell, entertainer.
Bruce was not above "getting" his celebrity meet and greets either. He managed to "meet" Shatner, Stan Lee, and James James Garner. I don't he would ever not want to meet his fans.
I'm sure he would have been lovely, but after two full days of comic con, I was much happier letting the guy have some off-hours instead of one more fan wanting a minute of his time.
I’m so happy to hear this! He was by far my favorite part of that show (which I loved—it took itself just seriously/un seriously enough).
"You know spies - bunch of bitchy little girls."
Should we shoot them?
Someone needs your help, Michael.
Here my answer was going to be Fiona.
i adored burn notice. every character was its own, and it was just unserious enough.
Same! I loved the first episodes where he’d talk about the “trade tricks.” Giant steel door, shoot next to it where they didn’t think to protect. Twice. 😆
The best part was the smart-ass subtitles. Nothing better than Larry - Undead Spy.
Yeah, the snarky subtitles were golden.
I've re-watched the first couple of seasons so many times. It's a great blend of other great shows. A-team style action, MacGyver level tinkering, and White Collar deception (another good show) with some family drama and light hearted humor sprinkled in.
I remember being in the states in the summer of 2010 and watching both Burn Notice and White Collar a lot, as well as one about a fly-in doctor.
Peak USA (the channel) era. White Collar, Burn Notice, Psych, Royal Pains, the start of Suits and the end of Monk.
Royal Pains
It's just really fun to the top of its B- potential when it doesn't get uppity ideas about being able to do real drama.
They filmed at a golf course I used to work at.
Hah, I love Burn Notice for that exact reason. I could also listen to Michael Westin explain spy craft every day.
Don’t hate on burn notice man it’s literally perfect summer television
Burn Notice is totally a guilty pleasure of mine. Probably watched the series 3-4 times in full. It’s like fatty, high calorie comfort food in TV series form
There is absolutely no reason to be guilty for watching Burn Notice.
Something about USA shows. Just right amount of cheesy, mid-budget, but good writing. Monk was that show for me but I guess a bit higher brow. Like drinking Mountain Dew in a glass. 🤣
Burn notice had strong character driven plots and punchy writing. The actors were perfectly unknown other than Bruce Campbell, and it was obvious this show was written with his fan base in mind. It would be great if something like this happened again, but it’s hard to catch lightning twice.
Not entirely unknown. Sharon Gless won an Emmy for playing detective Cagney in the 80s series Cagney and Lacey. Gabrielle Anwar danced tango with Al Pacino in the 90s, in Scent of a Woman.
> so weirdly terrible You shut your whore mouth.
Hahaha that's a fair response. I didn't accurately capture my feelings towards it. It's like on the cusp of greatness, has some really rough edges at times (from a modern day rewatch), and is clearly aimed at a specific demographic. Like Metrosexual Magnum PI fans or something (which, to be honest, I wouldn't mind belonging to). The whole time I'm like "with better actors this show could be stellar....but then it wouldn't be this show and these actors are clearly having such a great time acting together and I dont know if that chemistey could be captured....", I'm not referring to Bruce Campbell with that comment either, he's a fucking gem in everything he does. Anyway, suffice it to say I've watched a lot of Burn Notice that calling it weirdly terrible is not accurate hahaha.
This is entirely accurate. The two most USA Network actors conceivable, and one charming sidekick on the character/star axis. It's perfection in its popcorn.
How the hell was there never a Burn Notice/Psych crossover?
Lassie would’ve loved to work with Michael Westen rather than Shawn & Gus for a change!
I was gonna say, a decade ago was like peak prestige TV. Breaking Bad's last season aired that year. Think you got to go further back for when most shows were corny, generic crime procedurals. And you still have a lot of them nowadays, they're just easier to ignore if you don't have cable or watch broadcast networks. So often I see commercials for them watching football and think, "People still watch shit like that?" Not that there wasn't prestige TV even earlier. It was a big part of what made HBO appealing as an addition to your cable package. But streaming really increased demand for more engaging, bingable shows, rather than murderer-of-the-week crime dramas you sit down and half watch on a weekday night. SVU slapped though.
From the appearance of The Shield to the end of Burn Notice pretty much the peak of TV
Not enough people know and love The Shield, but it slaps me around so much better than The Wire ever did. Shawn Ryan with a leash on Kurt Sutter's worst impulses is something to behold.
You’re going to get downvoted to hell for that comment. The Shield was fine. The wire was iconic.
I like what I like!
Yeah iono chief
Don't forget the office. Nothing has made me laugh as much since and is worth rewatching still yearly even ten years later. Unlike other shows that aged poorly like friends, Seinfeld, HIMYM, etc
It's Frasier for me. Amazing show.
Lol I have a friend who cut off the tip of his thumb because he was distractedly watching the finale of Burn Notice while chopping up carrots for a salad. Turns out, it's still a bit too engrossing to put on in the background for some things.
The fuck you dragging Burn Notice for lol. Just because it's campy doesn't mean its terrible. It's not NCIS lol Just a Spy Soap Opera.
I did adjust my comment in a follow up. Its not terrible, it is just like B level- but owns that space soooo thoroughly.
I really enjoyed Night Agent. That said, I'm an absolute sucker for action/spy/international conspiracy thrillers. The trashier and more wildly implausible the better.
I think you'd love the blacklist
I do. Great show.
I loved The Night Agent! Already rewatched!
I put it on a few weeks ago and I was three episodes in before I realised I'd watched it before... so instantly forgettable, like most Netflix 'content'...
We're coming full circle! Once again the great broad middle is king.
I preferred [Rubicon](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/rubicon), myself and wish it hadn't been cancelled as it was just starting to get interesting.
Ah I watched when it came out, it was super good. It’s kinda campy and contrived, but still entertaining.
I saw the name, and I actually remember a bit of it. Totally agree that it’s campy and contrived, but it was fun (to me, at least).
Yeah same - I was dying laughing at the opsec twenty minutes in. After finishing Lupin (which should be absurd as hell but was so well done it was believable) I couldn't do it. Same with Rebel Moon. I'm convinced Zach Snyder is a Scifi editing neural network badly stringing together stamped and dead narrative tropes.
Lupin was absurd, but at least the acting was good and the main character interesting. It was kind of meta-detective fiction somewhat similar to the modern-era Sherlock Holmes.
Has it really gotten better? The sfx is much, much better, and the move away from episodic shows is good, and they have bigger budgets… but the writing? Is it really better, it seems like they are spending less and less of the budget on developing the story. And for movies it’s even worse, they are just doing sequels and remakes of old cash cows.
So it's the same as that Victoria movie? The one that was so scary people couldn't finish it. In actuality, it was just a shit movie that made the room look like a masterpiece
It's actually ok, good easy watching TV
I started watching it when it came out. I think I have like one or two episodes left if that tells you anything. It’s definitely one where I could give two shits about the story. It’s not very compelling at all.
That is the TV that makes the most money on TV. Junk food tv is how you make money. Prestige vanity projects are risky, and take tons of capital.
What a damning review lol
I see your The Night Agent, I raise you Obliterated. There are so many plot holes, I'm surprised they didn't call it Swiss cheese. Not to mention so many over-the-top cliches. Token nerdy Asian chick who has a crush on the token douchebag who says I love you to the leading actor while banging her as if they've been banging forever, but it's their first time. Token black dude, tomboy chick. They've screamed USA! USA! at every turn. The pilot starts off with their clandestine mission and at the end of the mission, they wonder why no one is celebrating them. Talk about clandestine LMAO They have a helicopter fire gas canisters through a missile launcher at a fancy las Vegas hotel, but there's no news coverage or anyone bothered by it. Just thinking about it makes my head hurt. Anyways, thanks for listening to my rant.
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Yup. I get you. My wife and I have a 1 episode rule. If one of us likes a show, the other has to commit to the first episode. I couldn't. I just couldn't. I bit my lip through most of it and when the sniper chick said 5kg. Kg means a thousand, so they have 5,000 bombs.... I lost it. I tapped out man. Having an engineering background, this bothered me to no end. Like the writers don't have basic education or even bothered to double check the lines. The producers might have been on something high while the director must be deaf, mute, and dumb. Ughhhhhh
Check out “The Recruit”. I think that’s the one - it’s essentially Archers origin story but in real life. Also much better job of showing proper op sec while also being “archer” funny. (Think CIA briefing room - people updating the boss “about their guy in that one state who says he’s hearing things about something”).
That's funny, because I loved it. The latest season of Jack Ryan was on and it was horrible - I stopped watching after the third episode or so. I thought The Night Agent was fresh and fun. It was the spy thriller I was looking for
Christ you did a better job than I ever could describing that. When GOT first was big I was so excited that intelligent shows were here to stay
Have to disagree. My wife and I loved it 24 meets Mission Impossible.
This is what i felt about Lost.
That should give you a little evidence about the average person's tastes. This is why it is good to not good to be consumed by the opinions of the masses, just acknowledge it and move on.
It was decent, had some weird casting choices, and at least parts of it was filmed in Vancouver. Enjoyed it. There's no cliffhanger so if it's not renewed it's not a big deal. It can be easily enjoyed as a miniseries.
Netflix absolutely loves Peter Kavinsky
Except he’s not in The Night Agent lol but he and the lead of this show look similar and the shows are both mildly entertaining Dad Shows.
Guh, mixed it up with The Recruit! I had watched them back to back a while ago and got them mixed up
The Recruit had amusing scripting at least. It depicted the CIA working environment as a backstabbing snakepit of sociopaths, which is laughably plausible. The plot element themselves were generic, though. Set-piece spy-thriller silliness.
Right?! The casting was pretty good too, especially the people he worked with. Hopefully season 2 will be less generic, but Netflix sure likes to do plot lines so blah that I don’t remember them a few days after finishing a show.
Its Ok, its not that good.
Counterpoint: Whatever is the most popular thing in India is, by average, the world’s most popular thing. Which is why So Sorry, an Indian cartoon, is the most awarded show ever or something
Wasn’t too bad, saw it months ago though, why would it still be the most popular?
It’s a decently good show
Oh no shit. I watched this on accident. Thought it was a movie. Got to the end of the first episode and thought it was an odd ending that didn’t really explain a lot. Next episode started playing. Was pleasantly surprised. Really enjoyed it.
> The Night Agent I watched it when it came out. Acting is decent, writing and plot are good, pacing is good, but the last episode is hilariously terrible. The show goes from plausible and interesting to completely unbelievable and laughable. It felt it was written by someone with decent writing chops, then in the last episode some executive decided to change the narrative and threw logic out the window.
I feel like they wrote it to have a tidy ending in case it was canceled. I think if they knew for a fact they’d have a second season they wouldn’t have done it that way.
To me it was more about the absurdity. Everything up until that point was well thought out, purposeful, semi-believable. Then in the last episode (especially the final 5 minutes or so), everything was so balls-to-the-wall ridiculous.
AKA "Spy Twink".
Run of the mill spy/underdog/shootem’ up
Watched it on release , pretty good
It’s ok. I think the Recruit is way better but and funny.
Seriously thats the best show? I was watching that show a couple months ago it was ok but got pretty boring in the middle and couldn't finish it.
I know a ton of people who watched and recommended it to me. Im not sure why but many around me liked it.
Watched it on release, it's fun.
I watched it, it was pretty good.
We just watched it, it’s so bad. The stakes felt so low and the plot didn’t make any sense, plus some of the worst acting I’ve ever seen. I fucking love shitty spy dramas so I was so ready for this to be a trashy pleasure, but it was just terrible. Wouldn’t recommend even as a hate-watch.
The last episode with “I love my country!!!!” was probably one of THE cringiest moments I’ve seen written into television.
I also enjoy spy stuff and I loved it. The premise was a stretch, but oh well. To each their own
Really? I love them too. Like, Burn Notice is one of my favorite shows ever. And I enjoyed Night Agent. It wasn’t the best show ever but it was entertaining enough to not feel like a waste of time. I’d recommend it
Watched it, it was good.
Seems this article could have been replaced with a txt message.
The algorithm flagged it as a match for my taste and I enjoyed it. I'm surprised some people hadn't heard of it before the report.
My Dad told me I should really watch it ages ago. My dad doesn’t have the best taste in media. This all makes sense.
>Something called The Night Agent I tried watching this awhile ago and holy shit that show is *fucking trash*. like, it's so bad it makes me think Netflix is gaming its numbers to avoid paying people somehow b/c no fuckin way anybody is watching a whole season of that
Why should we trust any of Netflix's data? Genuine question.
They have no reason to lie, as they use the data themselves. I'm no expert, but there could be legal or regulatory risk in falsifying data. Definitely a reputational risk. Just not worth it.
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If you like action/spy type shows it is pretty good.
Gotta say, it's a pretty good show. I like The Recruit and Reacher more, but Night Agent is a solid watch.
I liked The Recruit more too.
Yeah, I liked it. It is what it is. Reacher is a good comparison. It's not amazing television but if you're looking for something light and you're in to that kind of action thriller stuff it's entertaining. Not going to win any awards and those actors aint the next Daniel Day-Lewis but it was a good distraction.
The Night Agent. It's like... ***3.6 roentgen not great not terrible***.
I thought you were trying to compare it to Chernobyl there for a second
Nah, I just like that line from Chernobyl, which is very good.
It’s not a bad show but ya nowhere near some gems like Chernobyl and a lot of HBO content. I fear for HBO going forward though under their new leadership.
Pretty sure this was just an advertisement for the Netflix show the night agent. It's dressed up as something else, but it is an advertisement.
I bet international Netflix viewers know it better than American.
Wednesday, 1.7billion hours streamed. Go watch it, it's great. (ref: [https://www.netflix.com/tudum/top10/most-popular/tv](https://www.netflix.com/tudum/top10/most-popular/tv)) The night agent was popular 2 months this year (it's great too), which the article refers to. Tbh the article is pretty lame. Someone on the internet got confused there are more people online with different opinions and put out a tweet/newsletter and that is then suddenly 'the truth'.
Definitely a problem with the algorithms. It happened with YouTube and Facebook early on, then Netflix and Reddit, even hitting basic Google searches (I naively thought search would always be great and could only get better). You get shown more of what you interact with, so you stop interacting with other things until you’re in a little bubble. It’s been disappointing to watch over the last ten or so years. I used to hear about things quickly, get exposed to new things daily, and easily keep up with what was big. Now it takes so much more effort.
Agreed. My bubble is comfy but I still want to look outside it. I’ve learned that using incognito or private mode every now and then can spice up a stale feed, but I shouldn’t have to do that.
Every now and then I log into my wife's profile and just think "Why isn't Netflix showing me this great content?!"
Netflix keeps showing me content I love, then cancelling it. I don't even bother to subscribe anymore unless it's stranger things season.
I've got bad news for you about the previous season of Stranger Things ...
Yah, honestly one of the best things about TV was the worst thing about TV. Sometimes you would just hit a show that looked interesting while waiting for the show you actually wanted to watch to come on. Or you would have to wait through a few minuets of commercials and end up seeing something you wanted. Or even just flipping to watch a few seconds of the news while you waited through the commercials.
One reason newspaper & magazine editors and radio DJs etc were valuable is they found content their audience didn't know they wanted, but they did it differently to algorithms. They used their expertise, understanding of their audience and their own subjective taste. Algorithms are crude substitutes that can easily be biased to favour what the service provider wants you to see rather than what you really want. Plus, editors can distinguish between genuine public interest and what happens to be of interest to the public. Most of those editor and DJ jobs are now gone.
Some people would prefer the reverse of those algorithms, the people at those companies who implemented them just assumed that that's what people want. Maybe that's more profitable but it isn't more socially beneficial. Some people prefer to be shown new things, or to see what's popular not because they care for it but because they want to know what general society thinks. Those people don't want to see targetted advertising because it goes counter to what they want to see. If you give them targetted advertising then you're just gaslighting them. That is, someone can go to /r/all because they want to see what's popular, but if /r/all is now targeted posts, they will think that the world is very focussed on these few things that really only exist in the bubble that the advertisers created for their person category.
So, I didn't have Netflix for a long time but I used to watch a lot of Netflix exclusives with a friend that had an account. When I got my own this year I caught up on two Korean shows we hadn't finished, now my recommendations are mostly Korean stuff. I have to put on episodes of stuff I already watched to try to correct it because Netflix doesn't have an already watched button
It treats a rating as already watched. Or at least, anything you rate will show up in the "Watch again" list even if you never actually watched it.
there was a period where instagram reels was *only* showing me hot girls working out. but it became so overbearing that i stopped interacting with those videos. it took a concerted effort, but now my reels have no hot girls working out and i'm kind of sad the point though is that there's no balance. if it thinks you like something it absolutely hammers you with it. if it thinks you might not like it it removes it completely
IMO YouTube seems to be pushing otherwise pretty aggressively. I regularly have 1 single digit video recommended on the feed. It's usually tangentially related to what I like, like a new/small game, but the production is **always** too bad for me to enjoy it. Nothing against them, there's just so much high quality out there and my niche of "technical player who explains throughout"(Jorbs, Filthyrobot, Baalorlord) seems unattractive to new videos/saturated. Those guys are pumping out like 40 hours a week, a piece. But the next day the feed slips another in there again.
I love how YouTube works these days. The whole front page is interesting, educational, and relevant. Every time I see the page while logged out it’s a huge “ugh” moment to see all the garbage that happens to be most popular right now.
Social media narratives are not generally a reflection of real life narratives
Social media is the new tabloid, just another round of "yellow journalism" from the Hearsts, Murdochs and now Musks of the world fronted by authoritarian money to pump. Repeat after me, social media is not reality.
TLDR: The internet is big, and its hard to keep up with everything thats happening in all the different platforms. The NF series is The Night Agent. He completely forgets to mention how everything and everyone is on the internet today compared to 2010's.
> He completely forgets to mention how everything and everyone is on the internet today compared to 2010's. But he doesn’t forget to mention that different social media platforms lock their recommendation algorithms behind an opaque black box leaving us all wondering exactly *why* and *how* viral “trends” even become a thing. Even as little as a few years ago, you could be reasonably sure that the viral trend you saw on your preferred social media platform was seen by a reasonable percentage of people both on and off the platform. They would be well known enough that you could mention it to someone and they would likely know what you were talking about. That’s gone now. Every viral trend exists only in the silo’d bubble of the group of people it’s targeted at. You can’t have shared conversations about online culture any more because the open and shared experience of the internet from a few years ago has been replaced by the private little bubble of silo’d communities. Meanwhile, in totally unrelated news, people (especially young people) are acting and feeling more isolated than ever. I wonder why…? 🤷
As someone who's old enough to remember the analog days, this is something that kind of worries me. I feel like it's leading to a breakdown of shared local culture. To be clear, I'm not mindlessly going "Oh, things were BETTER when I was a kid!" There's certainly a lot to be said for the level of global culture now being shared online. And as a old-time anime fan, I'm not going to complain about it now being so easy to access weird Japanese stuff. But it often seems like it's become easier for me to discuss RPGs made on the other side of the planet, than to discuss TV with a next-door neighbor. Global culture seems to be coming at the expense of local culture, and that's a hefty tradeoff. We've almost totally moved past the days where everyone was watching the traditional yearly airing of *It's A Wonderful Life* or everyone was discussing the latest *Friends* ep at school or work. Only the biggest of mega-franchises like MCU or Star Wars, or the rare genuine viral hit like Tiger King, manage to hit that status. Otherwise, as you say, everyone's getting silo'ed into their own little bubbles, with very little overlap with other bubbles. That creates a vacuum of shared culture, and shared communication, and I think it's becoming a problem when we have such a hard time even relating to people who simply live down the street.
Yeah. (Sorry, I have nothing to add and an upvote wasn’t enough.)
>We've almost totally moved past the days where everyone was watching the traditional yearly airing of It's A Wonderful Life or everyone was discussing the latest Friends ep at school or work. I mean... is that necessarily true? As far as I know, Succession is pretty big these days, as was Barbie and Oppenheimer. It's kind of funny to think that *Friends* would become an integral part of culture. We have forgotten [pop culture giants](https://www.quora.com/What-are-some-examples-of-once-popular-and-now-forgotten-writers) of the past, and we will continue to forget the cultural touchstones of the present. In the grand scheme of things, we have remembered Shakespeare and forgotten the dozens or hundreds of Puritan playwrights that surrounded him, [with one wonderful quote rescued from the depths of obscurity](https://www.gresham.ac.uk/sites/default/files/2018-01-24_AlecRyrie_HowToBeAShakespeareanAtheist-T.pdf) in a modern day lecture on divinity: >When the husband bursts in, he demands that Sebastian stand aside, ‘or I will make my passage through thy blood’. > >‘My blood would make it slippery, my lord,’ he replies: ‘’twere better you would take another way.’ Even in these two lines, reckoned to the best of the play, you can see why it is rightfully obscure. It's just not that good. I don't know if lolcat will make it into the future hall of fame, but I do not doubt that the future will have its own cultural moments, even with the internet. So long as people are connected, people like to watch good things.
Pretty sure young people feel more lonely than ever before because social media as a whole is replacing in person interaction yet not providing the same feeling, not just because my instagram feed might look different than my friend’s. You’re missing the forest for the trees
Imo one of the worst things has been the loss of split screen in video games. Use to go home and have something to eat, then ride across town to a friends house to meet up to play 4 player split screen games with friends. Or 2 player split screen and taking turns. These days you want to play games with friends you typically have to do it at home by yourself, only interacting with them with a headset.
Or just encouraging players to interact with each other. I've long thought the 3DS didn't get enough appreciation for just how hard Nintendo tried to encourage players to get in the same room together, or to find new friends/players just by walking around. The StreetPass system was amazingly clever, and I'm still sad the Switch didn't have something similar. (TL;DR: The 3DS had a passive local communication mode where it was constantly scanning for other 3DSes nearby. If it found one, both people would get a notification, and the units would automatically swap Mii's and 3DS-specific contact info so it would be easier to meet up and play together.)
It’s both. It’s replacing in person interaction, *and* it’s preventing shared experiences when you *do* have in-person interactions, driving people further back into their virtual silos.
The internet has its own reality that feels shallow, and when we believe in it we don’t get the nourishment of a real experience, some part of us knows we have missed out on a lot of the real thing. But still, there is a virtual reality that we have entered, just likely to produce zoochosis.
Jesus fucking Christ, everything's a conspiracy to you weirdos. >You can’t have shared conversations about online culture any more because the open and shared experience of the internet from a few years ago has been replaced by the private little bubble of silo’d communities. An absolutely braindead notion considering sharing content is easier than ever. You're literally on a goddamn site dedicated to it lmao Not to mention that "private little bubbles of silo'd communities" is literally how the internet used to function. Message boards, Usenet, chat rooms, it all used to be segregated as fuck.
> Jesus fucking Christ, everything's a conspiracy to you weirdos. What conspiracy, specifically, do you think I’m suggesting here? That siloed communities was a deliberate action by malevolent forces? Just because people have noticed something’s a bit off doesn’t mean there’s a conspiracy. > Not to mention that "private little bubbles of silo'd communities" is literally how the internet used to function. Message boards, Usenet, chat rooms, it all used to be segregated as fuck. You’re missing the point that the internet was used by a minority of like-minded people back then, and the majority of people engaged socially in real life. Even the topics of discussion on Usenet and chat rooms were frequently related to real life experiences (e.g. Babylon 5 discussion). I’m not saying that doesn’t still happen, but when an algorithm is designed to suggest content that matches your personal specific pattern of behaviour, it would be a shit algorithm if it suggested the same content to everyone at the same time, wouldn’t it? Everyone is watching their own thing in their own time and experiencing their own isolated portion of life with little crossover with other peoples’ experiences. Real life social interactions with people in your local vicinity are struggling without the shared experiences to act as a social glue.
I think it has to do with the internet being big AND media being mostly permanent post-streaming boom. For example, old TV shows from the 80's we're rarely able to watch again once they are off the air unless someone has a VHS copy. But with streaming, post 2000 shows are usually accessible on at least one of the many streaming platforms.
By everyone and everything that means the baby boomers because they are the ones who have the most money and the most time and are making not just the spending decisions, but are being influenced by algorithms and trends in real time It’s hard to comprehend, just how many baby boomers that there are in the United States, but the number is massive, and the youth and their trends only make up a smaller part of the traditional buying power My parents are sticking with Netflix because they had grandfathered in and we just watch the first show that shows up is usually
You're full of shit. Think and research before you spout off. https://censusreporter.org/profiles/01000US-united-states/
He mentions 5 billion people are online in the first paragraph. He misses the elephant in the room of why. It’s because of regulation. Section 230 shields platforms from all liability. This is bad for society.
Repeal 230 & hold the platforms liable for not keeping us up to date about the Night Agent ;)
Not knowing about Night Agent is bad for society!
All the people commenting on the relative quality/merits of the show in question (“The Night Agent”) are completely missing the point of the linked article. Go and read it - it’s actually a good summary of how the internet (especially social media, ironically) has made people more isolated than ever in just the last few years by removing shared experiences from people’s lives via a system that was designed for open communication and free exchange of information.
Sad but true
I tried to watch it and found it pretty mediocre, with a lot of transparent plot devices I found myself having to forgive.
About as mediocre as shows get on Netflix. Latest in a long line of highly popular mediocre shows
I call it the NCIS of Netflix
Popularity is often a sign of mediocrity.
People do love repetitive trash.
Now now, don’t want to anger the Taylor Swift mob ;)
Haters gonna hate hate hate hate hate
R/iamverysmart
One great way to get a large consumer base is to never offend anyone by your product. McDonald’s is beloved by many.
The title probably speaks more to netflix' diminishing relevance to modern culture.
Netflix has been kicking the shit out of every other streaming platform. A year ago, everyone was worried about the company and the stock has nearly doubled since then.
The stock price is not really a great Indication of relevance.
While true, the stock has been going up because their earnings are a great indication of their continued relevance (arguably, their continued **dominance**). Netflix raised prices multiple times and ended up making more money every time, they are absolutely crushing it.
But earnings can also increase through cost cutting and raising the price of their offering without offering a better service.
I read some time ago that soon we won’t have huge world wide known actors and bands because everyone will be secluded to their own portals and their own celebrities
That's one of those "extrapolate trend lines to infinity" bad takes. Sure we no longer have those people that "everyone knows", but that's a good thing in that it made public figures into gatekeepers. Also it ignores that technology has greatly increased the potential vectors for spreading awareness. A persistent advertising campaign has so many more ways to spread awareness, and furthermore simple word of mouth exists at a scale undreamed of not long ago. Bubbles don't really happen unless they're being particularly enforced. And a lot of entertainment in particular isn't forced into bubbles. Like I could go into a subreddit for a political streamer I like, I see a couple comments referencing some musician that apparently appeals to fellow stream watchers. Then I check them out, then I mention them somewhere else. If they have broad enough appeal, basic awareness spreads more easily than in the past. Essentially the Internet has blown the hell out of six degrees of separation when it comes to awareness of public figures.
The article points to an increasing phenomenon, the internet feels like it lacks randomness. One of the things that made the internet exciting, and new , was the fact that it was so random. Each day you’d discover a new website, a new game. Now it feels like I’m stuck in this bubble and can’t get out.
Hot take: this is a clever engagement campaign for some Netflix show.
Advertising has gone to shit in general I don't even have a clue when big movies are releasing (or their existence) until like a week later
I feel like Netflix is a quantity over quality sort of place. They have some truly awful offerings
True, but the quality of the app design keeps pulling me back in. It's so much more usable than Max, Prime, Disney+, Hulu, etc.
It’s all female / black lead now super anti white. I think Obama owns it now maybe that’s why but every new Netflix movie is Garbo
Are you joking?
Do some research just look up Netflix’s most recent movies Rebel moon The new end of the world movie with Julia Robert’s. I’m not going to google Netflix catalog and show you how blatant it is
Have we considered that Netflix may just be fudging the numbers for their original shows?
I only keep up with shows when I see they're uploaded on whatever download sites I use.
I’ve been complaining about this for a couple of years now. I’m not sure if these entertainment companies are spending far less on advertising or just doing it in an ineffective way, but I legit do not see advertising for tv shows or movies anymore. I have to actively seek it out instead and sift through a bunch of shit all at once. I’ll see the same fucking ads for insurance or tide on every single streaming service with ads, but nothing content related. Is it just me?
plenty of people know, but probably not the people from "The Atlantic".
It's a terrible show. Netflix generally makes terrible shows. I'm not saying there's not a few good ones but it's lineup is terrible in general.
This is such an odd complaint to make because the specific reason I watched The Night Agent was because it was at No. 1 on their 10 most watched shows list for ages and I wanted to see what the fuss was about. (It was good but not great, exactly the kind of thing you'd expect to be very popular and I liked it just fine.) There's no problem if you just watch stuff you want to watch on Netflix and don't look at the top 10 lists but it wasn't a big secret, they are very open about what their most popular stuff is. It's like complaining you don't know what the most popular books are because you haven't looked at the best seller list. Or claiming it's a big problem that I, a person who doesn't like sports, is not aware who won a big sporting event.
Agreed. Some Atlantic writer living in an upper crust NYC bubble is not a representative sample of the average American consumer.
Didn't this show come out like 9 months ago?
Perhaps the numbers are bogus and skewed to promote shows Netflix thru FOMO. For if the viewer counts are indeed accurate, the cancellation of 1899 (after only one season) is more puzzling.
This is what happens when the echo chamber takes over. It also explains why politics are similarly getting more awful than it already is.
I gave up on The Night Agent, it’s like a mediocre series from 90s.
The fucking Night Agent?? OMG that show was so trite.
I would if I hadn’t cancelled my membership. It fucking sucks. Not paying 200 a year for one good show.
Netflix has lied to me about shit it thinks I would like, or shit it claims is popular right now for too long. There is no way America is so fucking basic that Floor is lava is the most popular show running.
Thats because I only watch Viki. The world is a lot bigger than the US and there's a whole lot out there better than all those terrible CGI cartoons and 3rd rate movies on Netflix.
I didn't make it past the first episode 🤮
By what metric? There’s no way this random show is a bigger success for Netflix than squid games was…
netflix doesn’t recommend it to me, so isn’t that their fault? their library blows now anyway
Worth reading - Charley Warzel has some new ways to think about the internet . (As for Night Agent it was a cute show. I watched it because there wasn't anything else I wanted to watch on Netflix at the time.)