The Prestige TV Podcast - Power Ranking Streaming Services' Performances in March

Episode Date: April 5, 2021

Juliet Litman and Chris Ryan join forces to list their favorite streaming services for the month of March. Hosts: Chris Ryan and Juliet Litman Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to TV concierge. The Ringers Guide to the vast streaming landscape. I'm Juliet Lippman. I am the host of Bachelor Party, our Bachelor podcast. I am joined by my one of my favorite people, Mr. Chris Ryan, the co-host of the watch. Hi, Chris. What a great intro. What are my favorite people. Let's just leave it at that. That's who you are. We are here to do the month of March TV streaming power rankings, which I'm excited to talk about with you. I had a good time looking into it. But before that, I was just curious. Chris, what was your favorite thing that you? watched in the month of March. This episode is brought to you by Sweet Green. The day doesn't ask for permission. Lunch window? Gone before you saw it coming. You deserve a break that actually satisfies. Sweet Green's new wraps have got you.

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Made to keep up with whatever comes next. New Sweet Green wraps hit different. Order now. order. Sweetgreen.com. Julia, something happened to me in March that I never, I didn't think it could happen anymore.

Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. I could discover one of my favorite shows. Oh my God. Andy and I both started watching over on the watch and we're going to be doing like a couple of episodes diving deep into this show.

It's called the Bureau or La Bureau. And it's on. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, it's a French show and it's on Sundance Now. It was originally on Canal Poulouse. Cool.

It's a little bit of a deep guess. A little bit of a deep dig. You got to sign up for like four different services to watch it. But it is essentially the best, it's the best espionage show I've ever seen. And sometimes at its very best when I'm watching it, I'm like, is this better than Mad Men? Like, I'm, I can't tell if I'm just completely lost in the sauce. But I have not been this delighted to have 50 episodes of television on my plate in a really long time. It stars Matthew Cassavitz as a spy getting pulled into like double and triple crossings.

of the Syrians and the French and the Americans and a bunch of other people. And it's essentially like all the office parts of the born identity movies, but without the kicking. I love it. That's my favorite show I've seen in March. Yeah, that sounds awesome.

All right, I got to check that out. We mentioned this once before on TV concierge, but French TV is like kind of the next frontier. But also, if I'm going to be watching French TV, I still have a lot of call my agent to get through. So I'm working on that episode by episode. but my favorite thing that I watched in March, Chris, in case you're wondering. Of course I was.

That's why I'm here. I finally caught up on sex education in Netflix, on Netflix. And I quite liked it. It took, it's like, it's like my fifth time trying to watch it. And then I finally got into it. And I was like, this is a nice show. This is very pleasant. Wow.

Two follow-up cues to this. First of all, how often do you give something five chances? I've done that with two shows. one is sex education and one is Ted Lasso. And in both cases, I really needed like a lot to get into them. Okay. And in both cases, did you like the show once you got there? Haven't finished Ted Lasso yet on my way. I like Ted Lasso.

I do think it's like a pretty impressive Jason Sudecass performance, which I guess like everyone is saying now via these awards that he's winning. Yeah. But I'm like, wow, this actually is like way more depth than I knew that Jason Sudecas had. Not just his acting, but specifically his comedic acting, the way he drops in the jokes is very good. Sex education. Yeah, I like it. I don't know. I just was sort of like, I need something not particularly challenging and British sounds phenomenal. It just reminded me a lot of like skins, but in the suburbs and for the 21st century. It's just crazy how sort of like

the sensibility of teens as portrayed on television has changed. I know. And now it's just like, it's gotten so illicit that it's almost traditional. You know, like when you watch generation or something like that, the things that used to scandalize you, you're like, oh yeah, I expect there to be an incredible nude scandal at this high school. And they still, like, torture each other, teenagers. Yeah. But it's, like, a different kind of torture. And, like, I do think there was, like, more general inclusivity than there was before.

And it's just, it's just funny, like, to watch teen television. It's very different. Anyway, those are not new, either, any of our shows. So they won't be factoring into these rankings. It's your turn to rank. I ranked last month. It is. I think I'm going to surprise you.

Oh, I, I always expect to be surprised by you. I'm excited. Number five, we're going from the bottom. Netflix. Here's what's up on Netflix right now. Ginny and Georgia, which is another teen television show, smashed Tiger King's record for most consecutive days in number one. Also smash the Queen's Gambit. So the Tiger King one isn't that meaningful to me because it's like early days of pandemic. Everyone home needs something to focus on. The Tiger King anomaly will never see again. Queen's Gambit, I put a little more stake in that. But that ultimately, ultimately, this is just like this weird creation of Netflix's own making of like, what are these charts even mean? We don't know if they judge on.

Is it like you watched 10 seconds of one episode or people watching all the way through? Like, I don't know. And it's very clear to me that the dominating demographic on Netflix is females. And so it's like very hard for me to parse some of this data. But so I just felt like that wasn't, if that's number, what's number one on Netflix right now, I didn't find it that compelling. I watched the whole show. it's a crazy show. I do not feel like

Ginny and Georgia made the mainstream crossover, which isn't to say that Netflix is like an underground arts bookstore or something, but I think Queens Gambit and Tiger King both had their moments where they became ubiquitous kind of late night monologues, being referenced during sporting events.

Like, yeah, like Carol's face in the college basketball stands kind of thing. She was on freaking dancing with the stars. I don't see anyone from dancing with the stars. I don't I'm seeing anyone from Jenny and Georgia going that way. Right. So that's really been dominating.

There's been some other new stuff that people will find along the way, marriage or mortgage, stuff like that. Some good art heist movies going on. I'd say March Law Documentary Fair to choose from. For sure. This is what they have in the library or in the archives while they're trying to catch up with the pipeline because they've had to shut down for such a long time.

Yeah. So it's a slow month. Which I do think has led to a phenomenon that I'm thrilled about, which is I think teenagers are finding Grace Anatomy. And Gray's is like, it's just like kind of with friends and the office gone, I think is like among the top syndicated shows that are being rewatched right now on Netflix. So I love it. But I would say it's been not, not wasn't a great month for for Big Red. I love that you call it Big Red.

Do you think Taylor Swift has much to do with the Gray's anatomy phenomenon for your, for younger people? She watching it? Well, she named her cats after Meredith Gray, right? I thought she named him after Olivia Benson. But didn't she? Isn't the other cat named? Oh, Meredith? Maybe.

Interesting. Perhaps. We got to ask Prince Adi and Hubbard. I don't know. Yeah, got to reach out to them. I think that with the Gray's thing is it's a great soap. It's like ideal for for people to discover and like and binge because it was, it's such like a propulsive show in the early seasons.

And you're watching like just these totally unknown actors. And it's just, it's one of a kind. So it is a very bingeable show. I'm really happy for people finding it for the first time. Let's move on. Number four, Paramount Plus, new network in the month of March. Or as I like to refer to it, somebody made this joke on Twitter to me and Andy when we were first talking about Paramount Plus. Maybe we should call it Paramour.

Ooh, I like that. Chris, their lead programming was Real World Homecoming, a reboot of the first season of the real world. They got the original cast back together. Unfortunately, Eric Knees got COVID, so he couldn't join them in the last. loft. And they did the show. It turned out they were only together for a week. They turned this strung out

until like several weeks of content. I would say you are like straight in the demo of nostalgia for this. You're like the right age to care about this. I'm wondering if you care. I do care. I was very into the first season of real world. It was, I think, in love with Julie, if I remember correctly. I think a lot of America was.

Yeah. So yeah, I didn't get a chance to check out the reunion, but I was certainly in the demo. Paramount? This one has litemn written all over it. I think once they get their user experience together, which I would not call top of class yet, you know, last time I checked,

they didn't have like a My Stuff for a watch list, like functionality where you can kind of add things to a queue for yourself. I don't know. How often do you use that on these services? How often do you, like, put things together so that you have like your own list of stuff that you're going to go through? Never, not once.

But for me, That's annoying on Paramount. Yeah, because, like, you want to be able to go through the movies once and save them all and then just be like, good, cool. I don't have to do the A to Z thing again. But once they get their user experience together and I think once they start dropping originals, I do think, like, they've got Survivor. They've got...

All the MTV Archive. It's crazy. Yeah. So just like, give me that. Give me how I met your mother. I'll be happy guy. I think Survivor is another show that younger people will find and get it to. It seems like the first two seasons being on Netflix, people really enjoy.

enjoyed. But this, this just shows me how important market share is in streaming right now, because I do think that like Paramount has a lot of programming that people would love to idly watch or just casually watch on Netflix. But taking the plunge to get Paramount Plus seems like a lot for the people who I think would most enjoy watching the stuff for the first time. You know, like I think there is a lot to rewatching it. But I think that Survivor is a timeless show. And if people could just like get it really easily, they would watch it. But there's a High barrier. Paramount Plus was really hard to find on the first day, and I woke up early to watch the stupid real-world thing. It's really funny, you know, because I get the impression that younger

people are watching Survivor and actually watching it in the dark. Like, they don't know who are winning, who's going to win these seasons. Yeah. And maybe we've just gotten far enough into time that you can go back and enjoy something from 15 years ago and kind of be in the dark about it because there's not maybe a ton of like online content. Nobody's spoiling. season 4 of Survivor. I wonder if like we could just do this for like sports. If the NBA should just like start a sub streaming service, that's like here's the 1999 season. And in 2003, maybe there will be someone who's like, I don't remember who won the 1993 season. So I'm just going to watch it. Yeah. I mean, it's funny you say that.

I failed to mention one of my favorite shows in the Netflix conversation. But in March, F1 Drive to Survive came back. Hell yeah. Yeah. Great, great, great, great show, which I think is like, I don't know, it's a skewed sample, but the ringer people seem to really into it. Let me tell you something about F-W-Wr after Survive, which I've still not checked out. It seems like it is the John the Baptist of TV shows. Straight, incredible, hardcore conversion rate. Like, when people watch it, they all of a sudden start talking about pit stops. Yeah. And Red Bull. Yeah. Yeah, because Formula One is a fucking crazy sport. It's like the most diabolical thing in the world because in every direction there's conflict. There's no consensus.

It is ultimately like the survival of the fittest on every level. But the funny thing is it's like allegedly there's a team aspect to it. But it's just completely is so good. And I think one of the reasons it's so exciting to your point is that if you discover the sport through the show, you don't know what the outcomes are going to be. So you're watching this really well put together documentary show and you're shocked to find out that Lewis Hamilton is a seven time world champion. Meanwhile, if you read The Daily Mail, you know that Lewis Hamilton is like your celebrity's

favorite celebrity. Like, he is the king of kings. He's the sportsman of the year, like every year. I compared him to my father as LeBron James plus Michael Jordan. Like, he's just, he, he's like a 21st century's perfect superstar for any nation, any sport. He's amazing. Anyway, that, I do think that is, like, having, like, young people watch sports. They don't know the outcomes of would be awesome.

All right. Let's move on. Number three, HBO Max. Okay. here's what I got for you. Can never argue with this on this one. Snyder Cut. I didn't watch that.

I'm just never going to, but many people did. They liked it, I heard, including you. I didn't like it, but I did watch it, yes.

Okay. Godzilla versus Kong. Didn't check that one out yet. I'm not a big, like, Monsters boxing thing. Nor am I. Who cares?

But then they have all these documentaries. I treated myself to two on Friday. One was the last cruise, a story of the Diamond Princess cruise ship, which is where they have the massive, terrifying COVID outbreak. They also have some old documentaries. And so I watched the old one about the creators of South Park, Trey Parker and Matt Stone,

who I think are two living geniuses and just absolutely incredibly brilliant, talented humans. And I plan to watch the Q&On documentary quite soon as well. The Q&U into the storm's quite good. I checked it out on the recommendation of Fantasy. And it is pretty stirring, not stirring, like, oh, I got to check these guys. out, but it's pretty terrifying to consider some of the stuff that they uncover in that doc.

March feels like it was, as to your point, the documentary month, because the coffers were dry and all we really had was this unscripted stuff that just you can unleash it anytime. And if that is something that you're interested in, I just, I just feel like HBO Max is doing a rate. HBO Max is pretty unassailable. It could be in the top three every time. It's sort of like eventized a lot of their documentary stuff too. So the Tina doc, the Woody Doc, the, the, you know, the Tiger Doc we've talked about. I would also say that this was a good month for catching up on international, like, crime and dramas on HBO Max.

So I watched the investigation in March. I think I talked about Beartown with Bakes on this pod. But Beartown, the investigation, just a lot of good stuff on HBO Max, especially their international selection. It's a great option, check it out. Okay, number two, Amazon. Just feel like in the, this is all gleaning for my lovely colleagues.

In the war for domination, clearly superheroes have won. There's very little culture outside of superheroes right now. It's super bums me out, not because I don't support everyone who loves this, but like, I just need 50 weeks of prestige television in a year. And right now, I'm just not getting that. I need, I just need my cable networks to come through.

and you can put it on streaming, but like just, I need a rapid fire, some combo of the, of the aesthetic of Mad Men's successor and Breaking Bad, the Americans. Like, I need these shows.

I really, I really fucking miss them. So anyway, I'll just, just accept that superheroes are king. And it seems like invincible was the best superhero thing from March,

according to my colleagues. And let me tell you something. Yeah. It's like, you got to care about superheroes for this one. It's really well done. It's pretty,

like, gripping, but it is very much like about superheroes and about society's relationship to superheroes, not even in the way where the people will be like, well, Wanda Vision is actually about this and the Falcon and Winter Soldier is actually about this. Like Invincible seems to be mostly like it's really about superheroes as superheroes. So if you're not into that and and you know, sometimes I find myself questioning whether I am too, it's, it's tough. It's tough. And it's You're right that we are now, if you go back to November with Mandalorian to now, the big water cooler shows have all been in that vein.

They've either been Star Wars or they've been these DC movies getting released on HBO Max. And now like it seems like even the shows that people are like, you got to also check this out is more superhero stuff. I know. It's invincible. I know. I know. It's a lot.

It's a lot. Here's the other pluses for Amazon that. why I have it coming in number two. I felt like coming to America of all these movies that have come out straight, straight to your television. I felt like that was the one that even if it wasn't the best and it doesn't have the most like Oscars cachet, I just felt like to be culturally relevant. You kind of like needed to check out at least a few minutes of coming to America too.

It's coming to America. Who can say no? It's like one of the most iconic movies of all time with one of the most iconic actors of all time. And it's just like, I don't know. I felt like you had to do it. And it also has a few of the other Oscar movies. Like, it's in a pretty good spot when it comes to movies right now.

So I just feel like Amazon is kind of like, to be your cool friend at the bar, you should have Amazon. To be like, well, let me tell you about Invincible. It's not just Sunday morning cartoon. So, like, this is me doing a service. It's not me endorsing Invincible. It's not for me. But I'm just saying this is where we are in the power rankings. Juliet, you're just here to report the news.

And if you don't like me, unfollow. I didn't make it. Exactly. Now, number one, for the eight months of March, I'm sorry, I'm not putting Disney Plus on the list at all. I know Falcon and the Winter Soldier is popular, but you know what? Fing it.

It'll still be there next month in April. I'm going to go with YouTube TV or Hulu Live because... Okay. The biggest television event in the month of March, there's nothing that can possibly compare was Oprah's interview with Megan and Harry. And if you didn't have access to CBS, you were shit out of luck,

and I loved it. What a wonderful... win for network television. I'd like to see that once in a while. And I thought that was pretty cool and just like really noteworthy. It was the biggest television event I can think of outside of the Super Bowl in a really long time. Yeah, I was actually looking at a list of, because I come across something, because I'd forgotten that the first Trump-Clinton debate got 100 million viewers. But I was curious about like what were some of the biggest single evening TV nights, you know, like in a long time. and Oprah, Oprah and Markle is up there.

Oh, yeah, they got like $17 million. Yeah. And CBS was smart. They were released more clips the next morning on Good Morning or CBS this morning, whatever it's called. I love a win for Oprah. A win for Oprah feels like a win for all of us. And I just think it's really noteworthy.

It's so, so hard to command that many eyeballs in such a short period of time. And there wasn't even like that much buildup for it. One thing that CBS did that was really, really smart that goes against everything, streaming television is about, is that it aired according to the rules of time zone. So it was on the East Coast and people started tweeting about it. There was like real social buzz

and then by the time three hours later to the West Coast could get involved, they were like, well, I have to watch this because everyone was talking about it. People were losing it, man. Yeah. And then actually went into the next day because I don't think England got it until... Yes, England got it the next night. Yeah. So it was like,

Megan and Harry dominated television in real time. Can you imagine being in England and being Like, they're talking about us. Why can't we watch it? God save the queen. I mean, yeah. So that's what I got, Chris. I mean, did I shock you?

Did I surprise you? I'm surprised. I thought Amazon was high up. I did not expect that. You know, and, you know, I know that you're a Hulu kind of like, you're a real, like, defend your Hulu turf. I can't make the case for Hulu. I just can't.

But Hulu hasn't really put, I mean, like, with all due respect, there hasn't really been a lot of originals from Hulu. I think they've had a couple of docs as well, but there hasn't been a ton of stuff up there. So yeah, I pretty much agree with this list. And definitely Paramount Plus. I think that's got a lot of legs for you. It does. It definitely does. We'll be back at the beginning of April, or the beginning of May. Jeez, what month are we in? To talk about April, Chris will be doing the rankings then. His will certainly be full of Canal Ploose. Can't wait to find out more. Listen to the watch for more Chris and Bachelor Party for more of

me. I'm also on your dish. And we'll be back on Wednesday. I'm