Amazon Is Off to an Unremarkable Start with "Alpha House" and "Betas" -- Ed Martin

By TV / Video Download Archives
Cover image for  article: Amazon Is Off to an Unremarkable Start with "Alpha House" and "Betas" -- Ed Martin

Mid-way through the first episode of “Betas,” one of the first two scripted series recently launched by Amazon, one character turns to another and says, “Maybe people are staring at screens because the last thing they want to do is interact.”

For me, that’s certainly true of shopping online. Who wants to navigate jammed parking lots, crowded malls and stuffed stores, only to then wait in lines behind people who are fumbling around trying to figure out which device or system they would like to use to pay for their purchases?

I’ll take the point and click method any day, and I almost always look to Amazon first when I’m shopping for anything. But after sampling the first few episodes of “Betas” and Amazon’s other new series, “Alpha House,” I imagine it will be quite a while before I regularly look to the shopping giant for streaming entertainment.

“Betas” is a comedy about four ordinary young guys with that dazed and confused Millennial look about them – a consequence, perhaps, of growing up staring at screens – who toil at a Silicon Valley start-up. It’s supposed to be something new, but it feels like a hundred other youth ensemble comedies that came before it. Most of them failed, even though the characters in them were funnier than those in “Betas” and the situations in which they often found themselves were at least somewhat relatable.

Time spent with the guys and gals in “Betas” brings to mind the scenes in HBO’s “Girls” that take place in the tech company where Marnie’s ex-boyfriend Charlie lands an office after developing a successful app. (Why is it that the young people seen working at tech companies in movies and television series never appear to be working hard, if at all?) I suppose there might be some pleasures to be had in watching bad things happen to these characters, but I can’t imagine they will be pleasurable enough to justify my spending $79 a year (the cost of an Amazon Prime subscription) to watch future episodes.

I feel the same way about “Alpha House,” the much more ambitious but equally unsatisfyingpolitical comedy Amazon also launched last month. The three free episodes available to everyone were enough for me. I didn’t laugh once. I simply stared, wondering who the audience for this show might be (older folks, I presume, or John Goodman completists) and whether or not it was a good idea for Amazon to post online the pilots for series it was considering for development and let its customers pick which ones should go forward. The results of audience voting can be notoriously indecipherable and dissatisfying. Just ask anyone who has watched “American Idol,” “Dancing with the Stars” and “The Voice” over the years.

“Alpha House” revolves around four Republican senators who share a townhouse in Georgetown. Watching these unlikable, self-centered creeps living large on the tax-payers’ dollar is more depressing than humorous. After all, don’t we get enough of such behavior from the buffoons on both sides of the aisle in our government? Our leaders can’t even oversee the development and operation of a Web site, for crying out loud. If the characters on “Alpha House” were as uniquely funny as those in HBO’s “Veep” I might feel the essential escapism necessary to enjoy a show like this.

I imagine expectations for “Alpha House” and “Betas” are quite low, given that they represent the first steps by Amazon into an entirely new arena. (As flawed as these two shows are, I’ll lend endless support to Amazon’s efforts to continue producing programming before I’ll accept for one moment its plan to start delivering packages via drones.) In truth, these shows are no better or worse than many of the original series available on HuluPlus. But if the idea here is to enjoy some of the success Netflix is having with such sterling productions as “House of Cards” and “Orange is the New Black” then Amazon is way off target. (That’s not to imply that everything Netflix produces is wonderful. Have you ever tried to watch the indecipherable “Hemlock Grove”?)

All complaints aside, it was very obvious watching “Alpha House” and “Betas” that many talented people were diligently working to create viable entertainment options. (“Alpha House” is written and was created by the awesome Garry Trudeau, for goodness sakes!) But they didn’t work for me, and I’ll be interested to see if they work for anyone else.

Maybe these streaming services are just trying too hard. The two funniest things I found online last week aren’t formally produced comedy series or even citizen-generated videos. They’re just clips from TV shows that I happened to miss in their home mediums.

The first is a clip from the December 5 edition of Comedy Central’s “The Colbert Report,” in which Stephen Colbert interviews Ricardo Baca , the newly appointed marijuana editor of The Denver Post (on screen we see that Baca is being interviewed live from Bongistan). Baca, an old friend of mine and a very funny guy, is actually the straight man here opposite Colbert, who seems to be having an even better time conducting the interview than his audience has watching it.

Interestingly, Colbert appears in a not very funny guest spot at the end of the first episode of “Alpha House” interviewing and wrestling with one of the four main characters (a closeted gay senator) on his show. Colbert’s wrestling clip goes viral on “Alpha House,” just as his Baca interview has in real life. The difference here is the real life viral video is much more entertaining.

And then there’s the spoof of NBC’s “The Sound of Music Live!” that opened the December 7 edition of “Saturday Night Live.” It features the returns of Kristen Wiig as loony-tune songstress Dooneese and Fred Armisen as Lawrence Welk. It was the funniest thing on TV last week and it’s the funniest thing online this week. These stand-alone clips from “SNL” and other late night shows are one of the best content features Hulu offers.

Follow Ed Martin on Twitter at @PlanetEd

 

Check us out on Facebook at MediaBizBloggers.com
Follow our Twitter updates at @MediaBizBlogger

The opinions and points of view expressed in this commentary are exclusively the views of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaBizBloggers.com management or associated bloggers. MediaBizBloggers is an open thought leadership platform and readers may share their comments and opinions in response to all commentaries.

Copyright ©2024 MediaVillage, Inc. All rights reserved. By using this site you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.