It’s time to play… WHO’S RIGHT? WHO’S WRONG? The new game in which we present two sides of an argument, and you, the public, decide… WHO’S RIGHT? WHO’S WRONG?
Our contestants today are Netflix—a “streaming” entertainment company that specializes in a lot of shows and movies that eventually get yanked from their site, leaving a lot of crap… AAAAND the New York Times—a newspaper hailing from New York City whose hobbies include writing snooty reviews and misspelling things.
Here’s what NYT critic Mike Hale said in his review of the Netflix’ rebirth of Arrrested Development:
Chalk one up for the Internet: It has killed “Arrested Development.”
The actual execution was carried out by the producers of the show’s fourth season, posted on Sunday morning on Netflix, seven years after the original television series was canceled by Fox. But watching 8 of the 15 new episodes — the biggest binge I could manage before deadline — it seemed likely that the on-demand, all-at-once possibilities of online streaming had helped lead this groundbreaking comedy’s creator, Mitch Hurwitz, and his colleagues down a bad path.
Annnnd here’s what Netflix chief Ted Sarandos said in response to Hale “binging” on the episodes before writing his review. Via Variety:
“If you’re a critic in New York and you set your alarm for 3 o’cklock in the morning, and you wake up and watch a half-hour of television and write a review, which is like the equivalent of writing a review of the first 10 minutes of a movie, you’re probably not going to have a great experience,” said Sarandos. “And by the way, no one in the world had that experience. Everyone watched a couple of episodes, went to bed, woke up the next day and watched more.”
WELL, TECHNICALLY, NETFLIX ACTUALLY HAS FACTS AND DATA AND SPREADSHEETS TO BACK UP THEIR CLAIM, SO I TEND TO LEAN IN THAT DIRECTION.
Yeah, I think even if you binged on eight episodes of original AD at 3 a.m., you’d have the same experience. It’s just not really a good show for that. You have to be sharp, and it’s one of those things that gets funnier over more viewings.
So while I agree with his general review, I don’t agree with his tactics.
Yeah, I watched the first six episodes before I gave up and considered this new season a bust. But then over the next couple of days I kept laughing over some of the better moments as I recalled them, encouraging me to return. Aside from the episodes being a little too long it’s been pretty good, especially the Gob episodes.