NETFLIX has had HOUSE OF CARDS, ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK, SENSE8, STRANGER THINGS, GRACE AND FRANKIE, RUSSIAN DOLL and a host of MARVEL shows including JESSICA JONES, LUKE CAGE and DAREDEVIL. AMAZON has had HOMECOMING, TRANSPARENT, CRISIS IN SIX SCENES, THE MARVELOUS MRS. MAISEL and THE MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE.
HULU?
A lot of bad acting from Patton Oswalt (DIMENSION 404, DIFFICULT PEOPLE, etc), Tyler Labine (DEADBEAT), Tommy Wiseau (THE NEIGHBORS), and a host of others, all HULU really has to point to with pride is THE HANDMAID'S TALE and FUTURE MAN.
Sadly for them, VERONICA MARS isn't going to improve their image.
Decades ago, COLUMBIA RECORDS, trying to pretend they were hip, started an ad blitz with, "Blessed is the merchant who can read the fads of the days, and ride them carefully to what can be a sizable fortune. America's Fountain of Youth is an ever-changing market, and the man who sells successfully to this market must understand it, hunt out its fads, and read its new trends while they are still in the making. He must stay hip, aware, keen as the teen." The year was 1966 and COLUMBIA really had nothing. Not one of their albums went to number one that year -- the Mamas and the Papas, Herb Albert & The Tijuana Brass, the Beatles, the Supremes, Frank Sinatra and the Monkees were among the thirteen acts hitting number one on the album charts that year (also the soundtrack to DOCTOR ZHIVAGHO ). Singles? There were 26 number ones in 1966. COLUMBIA only scored two: Simon & Garfunkel and Donovan provided those hits; however, MOTOWN and CAPITOL scored more number one hits that year and more weeks at number one. COLUMBIA was hopelessly out of step in 1966 and HULU remains out of step today.
In what world was doing a fourth season of VERONICA MARS needed?
Before releasing it last week, HULU made available the first three seasons of the show. Execs were surprised by how few bothered to stream them. Time and again, we had to correct them that this show was not "like BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER." BUFFY was a hit TV show, for example. It often got over seven million viewers for an episode while every now and then -- usually a season opener -- VERONICA MARS would manage to deliver three million viewers. More often than not, it delivered two million or less.
When we'd point that out, we'd be informed that VERONICA aired on UPN and BUFFY on THE WB and THE WB had more stations!!!! The reality is that BUFFY aired on THE WB for five seasons and then aired on UPN for two more seasons. On UPN, BUFFY continued to get 7 million. VERONICA aired on UPN for two season and then UPN merged with THE WB and became THE CW which is where the third and final season of VERONICA aired. On THE CW, one episode delivered 3.4 million viewers another delivered 1.78 million which was closer to the average audience for the show.
There were other differences as well. Sarah Michelle Geller played a young woman while Kristen Bell played a girl. SMG's Buffy interacted with other women -- Willow, Cordelia, Anya, Kendra, Dawn and others were real characters who took part in storylines. On VERONICA MARS, Kristen's little girl Veronica existed in a sea of men.
While no one was streaming the first three seasons of VERONICA MARS on HULU, the execs told us this was temporary and because "the fans" had already seen these episodes. But, they insisted, when they debuted the exclusive to HULU season four, the attention from it would mean the three earlier seasons would attract attention.
It didn't really work out that way and we thank one exec in particular for the very kind gift (he was paying up on a bet) that arrived Sunday. We told them so.
And it's as though they couldn't hear the truth even then.
How did they, for example, miss the 2014 film VERONICA MARS? This was, we were all told, a demand by the fans!!!
Not many of them must have demanded it because the film only sold $3.3 million in tickets. With $8.17 being the average ticket cost in 2014, that means that approximately 400,000 people went to see that film.
400,000. In 2007, the show ended ranked the 138th most watched prime time show -- out of 142 shows. Yeah, that's awful. And seven years later? Less than half a million people showed up for the movie.
This is something HULU thought was going to excite?
Season four is another boring, racist and sexist season for the show that already had too many of them.
In one of the most offensive scenes, a man tells Veronica he didn't think detectives looked like her -- meaning pretty. At 39, Kirsten's ego still requires that she be called pretty?
And she's really not beautiful. She's the racist version of pretty -- a plain woman with blond hair and blue eyes whose Whiteness gets her average looks elevated higher.
The returning cast amounts to fifteen characters -- only one of which is played by a woman. Season four adds eight new characters -- this being HULU, one of which is played by Patton Oswalt. Patton plays one of four male characters. So with the four new female characters and the 1 returning one that means Kristen acts with five women in season four . . . and 18 males. As we noted years ago, "Veronica Mars is from Mars."
VERONICA MARS was never grrl power. It was never really much of anything -- a fact HULU is learning way too late. But money wasted on one series is nothing compared to NETFLIX's nightmare last week as they had to admit they'd lost subscribers in the US and they still weren't turning a profit? We warned you for years that it wasn't a successful economic model and that it could go the way of the DUPONT NETWORK very easily. Compared to no profit and losing subscribers, HULU's one bad program is no big deal.