The Streaming State of the Union

This post contains lethal doses of sarcasm if read irresponsibly.

By Dave Danzara

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The state of streaming services is absurd.

HBO—the streaming service with “The Sopranos”—is getting bested by Discovery Channel, which has been coasting on a week dedicated to sharks for three decades.

Netflix is pumping out game shows like, “What if we challenged artists to make sculptures out of McNuggets?”

Disney+ is announcing the 19th Star Wars spinoff called “Bleb.” It’s about an alien bounty hunter named “Bleb,” a distant cousin of “Zeb.” The trailer will provoke adults to sincerely quote-tweet the trailer and say, “This could be a masterpiece.” When they are subsequently dragged for being a dork, they’ll rant about how you can only appreciate the appearance of Bleb on the big screen ONLY if you watched the secret removed Clone Wars episode, read all the Star Wars novels, bought the limited Star Wars Cheerios from 2006, and conducted a dark sacrifice to Mickey Mouse.

Paramount+ is using Star Trek as a cheat straight from Disney’s Star Wars playbook.

Amazon Video will literally show you every movie or show that’s not included with your membership before anything else. When you finally reach a show you can watch, they’ll announce that paper towels are on sale if you have a Prime account.

Hulu is taking every crime that has ever happened and turning them into a miniseries. Meanwhile, their horrifying UX issues remain unresolved.

Despite all these streaming services, all their shows fall into a few categories:

1. Rich People Behaving Badly: (i.e., “Succession” or “White Lotus.”) This genre is full of shows that are essentially dramas that are considered comedies for some reason. It could be a show about a billionaire shooting up an animal sanctuary, but it will win an Emmy for best comedy because it had one punchline about Donald Trump. Or, these are books that Reese Witherspoon adapted for television, and the plot twist is always that the husband is bad.

2. Spinoffs of Big Studio Movies: Remember that random Storm Trooper that was on camera for 38 seconds during the 35th Star Wars movie? The character was green-lit for a 10-episode season about how incel memes radicalized them into the Dark Side.

3. Reality TV cast with hot people looking for love: These people will be on an island, in a mansion, or stuck watching their moms bang other contestants. These shows don’t need A-List actors. There’s a guy named Dustin who’s six vodka sodas deep reading a poem he wrote to a woman he’s never met.

4. Every show that comes on after 8 PM on a network channel: These are American fantasy porn. They’re called “DEA” or “Vegas: EMT” where the cops are the good guys and the doctors actually figure out what’s wrong with you. Every main character is exactly 55 years old, kicking down doors of warehouses and shooting terrorists. They’re always quipping at each other with very dated jokes: “Hey, man, I’m going in! Watch my back!” and the other person responds, “You can’t say, ‘Watch your back!’ Remember #MeToo?” These shows are strictly for Boomers and that couple who got married right after high school graduation.

5. Miscellaneous: These include zombie/dragon/vampire epics, the “those are…. supposed to be…. high-schoolers?” shows, anime, crime docu-series, and lastly, unique and well-written and thoughtful shows that will be canceled after one season.

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