Quibbles with Quibi
Streaming service has hits & misses
Ifigured I was just too old to get it.
When I heard about Quibi, it didn’t seem like a great idea to me. A streaming-video service designed exclusively for smartphones that served up five-to-10-minute slices of scripted entertainment along with reality programming and news?
I mean, I guess that could work?
To be clear, it’s not that I don’t want to be able to stream on my phone, just as I can do with Netflix, Prime Video, Disney+, etc. But, unlike with Quibi, I can watch any of those — and many other services accessible by mobile devices — on one of my two Apple TVconnected flatscreen TVs in my home, to say nothing of my computer and tablet.
However, to hear Quibi founder and board chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg tell it, the ongoing pandemic has been devastating to Quibi since its launch on April 6.
“I attribute everything that has gone wrong to coronavirus,” Katzenberg recently told The New York Times, which noted Quibi dropped from the list of the 50 most downloaded free iPhone apps in the U.S. a week after the launch.
Katzenberg, CEO Meg Whitman and others behind Quibi say they envisioned it as something people would use largely on the go, be that while taking public transportation or waiting in line for coffee. To be fair, many of us have been doing a lot less of both for a couple of months.
That said, we’ve all been stuck inside a lot more, and there’s no reason folks can’t curl up with their phones at home.
So that’s what I did, downloading the app on my iPhone and choosing the trial of the ad-free version of Quibi that, if I didn’t cancel after a fortnight, would cost me $7.99 per month. (With ads, Quibi drops to $4.99.)
I walked a bridge from the past into the strange new world of Quibi: “Reno 911!” A typically uproarious parody of the show “Cops,” the mockumentary Comedy Central series dates to 2003. The 12-episode season that debuted recently on Quibi brought back all the regulars for shorter but still very funny installments.
No doubt because I started with “Reno,” Quibi quickly steered me toward another comedy series, “Dummy,” starring the always-enjoyable Anna Kendrick (“Pitch Perfect”).
“Dummy” — labeled a “raunchy” comedy by the platform — is unusual. Kendrick portrays Cody Heller, the real-life writer and creator of the series and the girlfriend of Dan Harmon, the co-creator of Adult Swim juggernaut “Rick and Morty.” In it, Cody meets Barbara (Meredith Hagner of “Search Party”), the lifesize doll owned by Dan (Donal Logue of “Gotham”) for … reasons you probably can guess. “Dummy” is clever and hysterical, if also occasionally cringe-inducing. I’m really pleased to have seen it.
I also took to virtually wandering around inside Quibi, and that’s one of the most enjoyable aspects of the service. It’s fun to scroll through the app’s generally user-friendly interface, reading about series in various genres and checking out at least a couple of minutes of this and that.
I soon landed on “Most Dangerous Game,” a 15-episode action thriller starring Liam Hemsworth (“The Hunger Games”) as a man being hunted for sport and Christoph Waltz (“Inglourious Basterds”) as the mysterious figure organizing the high-dollar, highly illegal contest.
Beyond that, I struggled to find content I liked all that much.
On the unscripted side of things, you can watch supermodel Chrissy Teigen dole out justice in the comedic courtroom series “Chrissy’s Court.” I have to admit the first episode is kind of fun, but it just isn’t my thing — which explains why I didn’t even touch the new versions of old MTV series “Punk’d” and “Singled Out.”
For as much variety as it offers, I’d argue Quibi has a content problem. Not enough of it feels compelling. Two other comedies — “Aqua Donkeys” and “Flipped,” both from Funny or Die — did little for me early on, and I dropped them.
Because of its strengths, I can imagine coming back to Quibi down the road, once it’s been made more old-person-friendly.
In other words, once it’s better.