Pay up, pay up – and play the game
Seriously cashed up on-demand giants are raising the bar when it comes to gorgeous glossy small-screen entertainment, says James Belfield.
You pays your money, you takes your choice – that’s the way of modern entertainment. But not only have pay channels and on-demand streaming services given ready access to box-set binges or appointment viewing one-offs, they’ve also brought a highproduction gloss to what we consume in our lounges, bedrooms and bus rides.
Yes, free-to-air channels offer occasional gems – Broadchurch and Vanity Fair are seriously high class – but a quick glimpse behind the cash-curtain reveals hour upon hour of excellence.
The best example of this at the moment is the All Blacks’ instalment of the Amazon Prime series All or Nothing, which is about to be shown again on Sky Sports 1 after Sky managed to wrestle the only broadcasting rights in the world away from the on-demand giant. (Other seasons focus on global giants such as football’s Manchester City and gridiron’s Dallas Cowboys.)
The six-part series is gold – and not just because it offers sports nuts the sort of insights into the team’s 2017 season that keep barroom debates going, even 15 months after that Lions tour. Its real power lies in displaying how narrow-minded and cheap our own sports coverage can be.
In New Zealand, we resort to live games plus analysis and the occasional background feature. The ultra high-production All or Nothing, on the other hand, uses our national game as a way into beautiful long-form storytelling and grander themes.
Yes, the drawn Lions series and Sonny Bill’s red card deserved their screaming headlines, and, yes, Steve Hansen’s gruff, honest coaching and press conference appearances are fun to watch, but this series digs deeper.
In the first three episodes, while the crowds roar and the players vacillate between feeling awesome in victory and ‘‘gutted’’ in defeat, dextrous editing and scripting allow for subtle forays into the difficult themes of player health (notably, concussion), the role of the media and the tension between the All Blacks’ need to feed hungry reporters and their obvious frustration at clickbait stories, and the personal toll of pressure and professionalism.
A global franchise, All or Nothing is aimed at an audience that needs the haka explained to them and that rugby is a game ‘‘with no helmet, no pads’’ – but this perspective makes for more compelling viewing, even for those who might not be regular sports consumers.
For example, when Ben Smith’s wife Katie talks about injuries, or Sonny Bill Williams reveals the drinking culture in Australian league, or the team’s bus driver Grant ‘‘Grunter’’ Kelly chuckles about rowdy youngsters picking music for drives to and from training, the All Blacks’ setup suddenly becomes more than a series of team-sheets and results.
Amazon’s decision to let Sky show All or Nothing, which uses some of Sky’s footage and commentary, was apparently based on the broadcaster’s good relationship with New Zealand Rugby – and it will certainly allow more Kiwis to watch. But it shows that billion-dollar companies can produce series that are beyond the capabilities of home-grown companies.
In an on-demand world where ratings, regulation and advertising revenue matter less, players like Amazon Prime and Netflix can commission shows in which scriptwriters and directors are let off the leash.
The new Netflix series Maniac is the latest example. Cashed-up casting means leads go to Hollywood A-listers Jonah Hill and Emma Stone, the director’s seat is occupied by Cary Fukunaga (who’s just landed the latest James Bond movie, too), and the writers have 10 episodes to play around with alternate universes, trippy sci-fi sets and mind-bending characterisation.
The basic idea is that the two main characters meet because they take part in a trial for a mindaltering drug – but that’s just the opening move in a show that manages to be both eye-candy (cool costumes, bizarre sets) and brain fodder (think Black Mirror on steroids).
Faced by the output of Amazon Prime and Netflix, TV execs the world over must be wondering how to compete.
The six-episode series of All or Nothing airs October 21-23 and 28-30 at 9.30pm on Sky Sport 1. Maniac is available now on Netflix.