Television
Netflix’s Inside Job Problem
Let’s go down this rabbit hole, shall we?
Since the dawn of time, mankind has craved a lot of things, and one of those things has always been stories. From cave paintings to monolithic statues of Greek Gods, to spiraling murals and ballads of great heroes and heroines, all the way to Hollywood and its oh-so-famous hills; humanity loves their stories. Stories are what we are, fundamentally — everyone on the planet has a tale to tell. Some sad, some glorious.
But one behemoth of a company changed everything.
Netflix was both one of the best and worst things to ever happen to us as a society.
In terms of the good its done, we’ve been able to consume media at an unprecedented rate because of their streaming business model. Sure, cable television had its perks, but there was something else to the formula about being up to date with a show you neither have to record nor scour the internet for.
And when you’re swallowed by the crashing wave of this week’s latest reaction to a brilliant show, it’s a euphoric experience, really, it is, but that’s only when your show doesn’t get an abrupt cancellation at the end of the week and you’re left with a plethora of questions that will never be answered.
Here’s a fun fact — the rights will always be held by the streamer. If another platform is interested, they’ll have to jump through a number of legal hoops to acquire the IP, which isn’t a fun experience for anyone involved.
This brings me to my main point: Netflix does not have a standard.
I’ll preface this by saying this is not an attack on anybody involved on these shows, barring everybody involved in the infamous Emily in Paris. This show deserves not to even be pushed by Netflix in any way imaginable. Why? you ask.
Well, it’s because the show is racist, boring, snobbish, and don’t forget that our main character had intercourse with an underage boy, and nobody, not even his family, batted an eyelid at the fact that she slept with a minor. Everybody simply forgot that it happened. Woopsie, I guess. And this show has three seasons, with a possible fourth airing sometime this December if the rumours are to be believed.
And if you think the show can’t get any worse, Emily can’t help but be racist to every single French person she comes across. Every episode. Multiple times. One of the first interactions she has with another character has Emily say, “Oh, you’re from Normandy. Like Saving Private Ryan.’’ And don’t forget when another character called a Frenchman Ratatouille. Not in a funny, ironic way, but in a purely in-your-face, racist kind of way.
The show is what would happen if a fourteen-year-old girl on Wattpad wrote a shoddy romance book. And yes, we have four seasons of this. Four.
I have little to say about Big Mouth. Honestly, if you turn your brain off, as well as every morsel of your dignity, you can enjoy the absurdity. It had a good premise, and even has the right idea of teaching young adults about growing up, but it’s like something from a YouTube original. A show that, if you pitched it blind to someone, you would most likely get disgusted looks and a police check of your computer.
It makes it all the worse when you find out these kids are 12–13 years old and the sexual content is worse than you would see in Game Of Thrones at its peak.
And the number of seasons? A whopping six seasons of stomach turning chaos, of kids — children — being put in revealing situations that, if someone came across you watching it, you’d most likely be on a list somewhere.
There will always be someone who says oh, but they’re just animated, and yes, they are, but animated or not, they’re still tweens. Still underage. And Netflix seemingly can’t get enough of it.
Last, but definitely not least, we have Riverdale, a show that, by all rights, shouldn’t have devolved to what it is right now. What started out as a clear-cut teen mystery based off the Archie comics has become an amalgamation of superpowers, eldritch horrors, time travel, angels and demons, parallel realities, and devious plots to destroy the planet with an asteroid.
You’d think I’m making this up, but I’m not.
I’d say the difference with this Netflix show, compared to its compatriots in mediocrity, is that the actors involved can’t wait for the show to end. And by God’s good grace, season seven, yes, seven seasons of this, will be its grande finale.
I, for one, can’t wait to see what the writers come up with for their final climax considering what we’ve already got, but this only raises the question: How bad does a show have to become for Netflix to cancel it?
The answer to that is simple. It doesn’t have to be bad to be cancelled. It can be well-executed, well-written, and thoughtful. It’s popularity can be in the hundreds of thousands in terms of engagement, sometimes even in the millions, but that wouldn’t stop Netflix from putting shows far greater than the few I’ve shown you on the chopping block.
Inside Job is the newest victim of this brutality.
For those who don’t know, Inside Job is an animated show written by the brilliant Alex Hirsch, who created the critically acclaimed Gravity Falls. It’s a conspiracy story about a group of characters who work for a business called Cognito Inc. A company that specialises in the deep state and keeping every one of the conspiracies you can think of running smoothly to make sure the world keeps ticking over.
The worldbuilding has to be the most creative part of the show. You can’t find a single fault in it, and it’s one of the few sci-fi properties out today that makes you want to learn more about that world. Rick and Morty is a great show, there’s no debate there, but Inside Job takes the top spot for its deep dive into the weird world woven around the characters.
But all the time and effort put into fantastic character development, the refreshing lack of pseudo-science gibberish, and the energy that oozes from the show’s seams wasn’t enough to save it.
So here it lies, alongside too many other shows Netflix has dropped before they could really hit their stride. And this show was popular. It had a strong fan base. Heck, just check their social media.
But if Inside Job can’t make the cut, then what can? Wednesday? A show so bland I’d rather watch dry pain peel, or Emily in Paris, with her season after season of tedium and stereotypes?
Popularity doesn’t matter. Quality doesn’t matter. Engagement does not matter.
So, what gives a show enough of a push for just one more season on Netflix?
Your guess is as good as mine, but if they keep going like this it won’t be a surprise when HBO Max, Disney+, and Amazon Prime eventually bury Netflix the same way Netflix buried Blockbuster.
I dearly hope that day comes soon.
