Netflix has lost the plot
This is a super-serve we could do without, writes WenLei Ma
If someone said to you, “art is subjective”, your first response would probably be, “well, duh”. But even with all that subjectivity and accounting for taste, there are some fundamentals about what is generally considered “prestige TV” – a certain standard in terms of script, performance and production values.
When Netflix first launched its originals in 2012, it heralded the arrival of a serious player in the prestige TV stakes. More than a decade on, the streaming service bears little resemblance to its initial ambitions.
One of the more promoted series Netflix is launching next month is Perfect Match, a reality dating show described as “strategic and seductive”. It features conniving singles in a tropical paradise who have the power to break up other contestants’ matches.
Perfect Match is a far cry from David Fincher’s deft directorial hand in House of Cards.
Perhaps it shouldn’t be that surprising that Netflix evolved into exactly what it started as – a Silicon Valley tech company. Its genesis is not in storytelling or creativity, it’s in making money.
How it makes money is less important than just making it.
Last week, Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings stepped back from the top job and handed the reins over to co-chiefs Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters. The pair gave an interview to Bloomberg to discuss the company’s strategy.
Over 2500 words, Sarandos and Peters peppered their responses with corporate speak, measuring success as only a numbers game.
Sarandos said that despite a tough past 12 months which saw its stock value plunge, Netflix was still growing “in the three things that matter the most: engagement, revenue and profit”.
There’s also something pernicious in referring to Netflix’s TV shows and movies as “content”, which Sarandos and Peters do, repeatedly. Yes, that dreaded cword which reduces all creative endeavours to the same level as a bank’s internal newsletter.
Sarandos doesn’t see a difference between a high quality drama and a reality series. He said they’re all “prestige TV” as long as they’re “executed well”. Maybe there’s something egalitarian about his perspective, but it’s cynical to suggest car crash reality shows add the same cultural value as brilliantly plotted and perfectly performed scripted series that capture a moment in time.
The Sarandos and Peters interview comes on the heels of a long profile on now chief content officer Bela Bajaria in The New Yorker. Bajaria comes across as someone more interested in winning at TV than TV itself. Bajaria’s background is in network TV, while the woman she replaced, and who was ousted at the same time as Bajaria’s promotion, Cindy Holland, was associated with making bold creative decisions.
Holland commissioned some of Netflix’s most awarded shows including The Crown, Orange is the New Black and Stranger Things.
Sarandos’ decision in 2020 to back Bajaria’s vision over Holland’s signalled a shift in Netflix’s strategy to become a volume business – quantity over quality.
When asked by The New Yorker what her own favourites are, Bajaria sidesteps the question, responding with, “I mean, I’m a fan of TV. I work in TV. I watch everybody’s things.
“People have very different tastes, and I have no disdain for whatever those things are. What is quality? What is good versus not? That’s all subjective. I just want to super-serve the audience.”