What We Watched: A Netflix engagement report • Hacker News Board

Re: What We Watched: A Netflix engagement report

#211

Post by nytesky » Wed, Dec 13, 2023, 6:05 AM UTC

wmil wrote: post #163

layoric wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Big Bang Theory 420,400,000 That is just depressing IMO.. I don't understand the appeal to that show..

It's a warm show about people who care about each other where the drama comes from social misunderstandings. The initial pilot featured a more conniving Penny played by a different actress. The focus group feedback was "Someone keep that mean girl away from those sweet boys". Think of it as a show for moms / grandmothers / aunts of nerdy men. They want to see them get up so some shenanigans but generally be OK. It's…

Warm show? I admittedly haven’t watched many episodes, but they all seem somewhat casually cruel to one another, and not in a loving way you may tease a friend.

I always felt the stereotypes were truly making fun of geek/nerds, and somehow fooled folks into thinking they were in on the joke.

Warm is a word I have a hard time using.

Re: What We Watched: A Netflix engagement report

#212

Post by tcmb » Wed, Dec 13, 2023, 6:08 AM UTC

eszed wrote: post #180

alexpotato wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good time to mention that 120 MILLION people watched the series finale of MASH. To this day it's still in the top 10 of most viewed television events with the other being primarily sports events (e.g. Super Bowl etc)

And it's still one of the best pieces of television ever made. My own personal canon would be that, _Ozymandias_ (Breaking Bad), _The Pine Barrens_ (The Sopranos), and honorable mention to the finale of _Blackadder_. What's anyone else's nominations?

Gotta mention Succession as a very recent example of great TV and great season finales.

Re: What We Watched: A Netflix engagement report

#213

Post by plasma » Wed, Dec 13, 2023, 6:17 AM UTC

jflitt wrote: post #54

Pretty cool to interact with this data using ChatGPT: https://chat.openai.com/g/g-pOGRX2Bx6-what-we-watched-a-nflx...

Neat, I noticed it gave me wrong data though, and when I asked for the top 3 rows it provided the wrong value, due to not using UTF8 - Asking ChatGPT to use utf8 support fixed it, perhaps update it's prompt.

Check out https://chat.openai.com/share/34091576-036a-4e82-b4e3-a8798d...

Re: What We Watched: A Netflix engagement report

#214

Post by jeromegv » Wed, Dec 13, 2023, 6:17 AM UTC

robluxus wrote: post #196

atleastoptimal wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand the Big Bang Theory appeal, it's a turn your brain off show for humorless people. However Suits is insufferable to watch.

What would you think makes Suits insufferable to watch?

Well some might argue that every episode is the same formula. Watching season 2 or 10, you’re like watching the same thing over and over.

Not really thinking it’s a big problem personally, lots of shows follow very similar formula, but I did end up stopping to watch after a few seasons as I did get tired of it.

Re: What We Watched: A Netflix engagement report

#215

Post by matsemann » Wed, Dec 13, 2023, 6:27 AM UTC

tcmb wrote: post #209

A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will admit it is not a perfect match, but both have a laugh track and both remain very popular. I think I may have been trying to get an agreement from several generations of sitcom enthusiasts. How about Big Bang and Scrubs? Both are kinda silly and both kinda got bad the same way.

Seinfeld was recorded in front of a studio audience, so the laughs are real. The thing is though that they often did multiple takes of each scene, and the laughs are sometimes the ones from different takes.

Big bang theory was also recorded in front of a live audience..

Re: What We Watched: A Netflix engagement report

#216

Post by topato » Wed, Dec 13, 2023, 6:31 AM UTC

zer00eyz wrote: post #138

tempusr wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but the show displays toxic masculinity as a dorky thing that "nerds" just do. Overall, I believe the show is a terrible role model for how men who are in STEM fields should behave to others who do not fit the stereotype. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3-hOigoxHs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7L7NRONADJ4

Tropes, Caricature, Mocking, Sterotypes... These things have been the tools of comedy for a LONG time. For good or bad they will remain that. The problem is context, it's Lenny Bruce mocking the cop who is reading back his skit in court. It's Dave Chapel pointing out how people quoting him on twitter without the context miss the point... These are made up people in a make believe world doing made up things. They aren…

I well written comment, by an obvious true student of comedy. +1

Re: What We Watched: A Netflix engagement report

#217

Post by margalabargala » Wed, Dec 13, 2023, 6:32 AM UTC

eszed wrote: post #185

wmil wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's really annoying is when you turn on the CC subtitles and someone speaks a foreign language. The on screen subtitle gets covered with an unhelpful "[speaking Japanese]"

That's an artistic choice: the POV character in that scene doesn't speak Japanese, so viewers receive information limited to their perception. Languages are handled differently in truly multi-lingual media. Watch _Invasion_ for a good example (the first season is amazing, but we didn't care for the second). There, the audience gets subtitles for everything , so viewers often know more than the characters do. There's…

I don't disagree with anything you said, but I'm afraid you badly misunderstood the comment you replied to.

They aren't complaining about closed captions failing to translate foreign speech.

They're complaining about the specific instance where the show/movie has English subtitles for that foreign speech already built in and showing on the screen, and when the closed captions show "[speaking Japanese]" it overlays the translation that the filmmakers intended the viewers to receive, preventing them from experiencing the filmmaker's artistic choice.

Re: What We Watched: A Netflix engagement report

#218

Post by muzani » Wed, Dec 13, 2023, 6:35 AM UTC

mensetmanusman wrote: post #175

wyre wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, that’s a cumulative 47,990 years.

We could be so much wealthier!!

Sometimes I sit and think about how one of the highest paying companies in the world sells unproductivity as a service. There's free options for entertainment like YouTube too.

Re: What We Watched: A Netflix engagement report

#219

Post by thebradbain » Wed, Dec 13, 2023, 6:41 AM UTC

oefrha wrote: post #170

tiagopavan wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a great outcome. I was the producer of "The Edge of Democracy" - line 14047 of the Excel file with 200,000 hours viewed. Although we were nominated for an Oscar and became a Netflix originals, they've never disclosed any numbers related to how successful (or not) our film was on the platform.

If it’s okay to ask, does Netflix only pay a fixed sum (they have to disclose numbers if there are view-based royalties, right)? Is that normal?

View-based streaming royalties (“residuals”) were also something won in the strikes. They previously didn’t exist for streaming in the same way they did for cable tv or theatrical releases— no matter how successful the show. That’s part of the reason streamers didn’t want to release numbers in the first place.

There were still a lot of other factors then and now when it came to payment—mainly due to the fact the minimums are floors, not maximums—so it isn’t exactly a “flat fee”, but there is a “minimum floor” payment schedule based on a formula of # episodes, genre, # weeks, studio budget, season #, etc. Now it includes # views, when previously it didn’t.

Re: What We Watched: A Netflix engagement report

#220

Post by ycombinete » Wed, Dec 13, 2023, 6:49 AM UTC

nine_k wrote: post #192

rr808 wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who needs new content? Kinda sad to see the most popular shows being Friends, Suits, Breaking Bad, the walking dead etc.

(1) I remember the times when Breaking Bad was new content. (2) Once somebody asked Quentin Taranto in an interview: "So, you haven't managed to produce anything better than Pulp Fiction by now, how come?" Tarantion answered: "You mean, somebody has managed to?" Some things just end up being exceptionally good, and you can't produce another comparable specimen on demand.

I wonder if that Tarantino response is apocryphal. I have heard the same interaction credited to Joseph Heller about Catch-22:

At appearances to publicise his later books, readers would often bluntly tell him that he hadn’t written anything as good as Catch-22, to which the reply, after a growly laugh, was: “No. But nor has anyone else.” - https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/jun/20/george-clooney...