This isn't a review of the last six episodes of "The Nevers," because after all the trouble I took to watch this show, I ended up not remotely interested in anything it was doing. If you've seen the first half of the season, the second half is more of the same. It's nice to have a definitive ending for these characters, but it's not a very satisfying one. I'm honestly a little relieved that "The Nevers" is over so that the talented cast can move on to better projects. Laura Donnelly already has, having recently popped up in Marvel's "Werewolf By Night."
Instead, I want to talk about how difficult it was to watch "The Nevers," thanks to the regime change at Warners and subsequent cancellation splurge in the name of cost cutting. The first half of "The Nevers" aired on HBO in 2021 and was made available on the HBO Max (now just Max) streaming service. The second half was completed, but not released for nearly two years. When the show was canceled in late 2022, and it was announced that the show would be removed from HBO Max, fans were worried that we wouldn't see the second half of the season at all. Instead, the whole series was moved to the Fox-owned, ad-supported streamer Tubi, along with other titles like "Raised by Wolves" and "Westworld." Problem solved, right?
Well, the new episodes of "The Nevers" were aired mid-week in February, and have been re-aired several times on one of Tubi's linear channels, which is programmed like live television. They weren't available on demand, and you couldn't purchase them through Itunes or other platforms, so you essentially had to watch these episodes live - if live was an option. Some countries don't have access to Tubi's live channels. It was several months before I was finally able to catch all the episodes. To date, they're still not available to buy or rent through any other platform.
I know I've made jokes before about streaming turning into linear television, but this is literally streaming turning into linear television. "The Nevers" is an extremely unusual case, but it's indicative of streaming going through some serious growing pains now that the initial rush for market share is over. Warners' decision to push several of their expensive, high profile titles to Tubi points to deep dysfunctionality in their streaming business model. Of all the subscription based streamers, Netflix is still the only one that seems to be consistently profitable, though it's too early to tell for many of the others.
But since the genie can't be put back in the bottle, and traditional broadcast television seems to be doomed to obsolescence, we're suddenly seeing a rush to promote free, ad supported TV (FAST) streamers like Pluto, Freevee/IMDB TV and Tubi. This is where a ton of older and more obscure media titles are ending up. I've noticed a significant increase in the classic films I've been able to find on free services lately, including an obscure Melvin van Peebles documentary I was sure I was going to have to pay in order to view. This might be the model that ends up making the most economic sense in the long run - most of the other streamers including Netflix are adding ad supported tiers, and apparently Fox's CEO turned down multiple offers to buy Tubi.
This is not a bad thing, especially if it helps our content producers stay in business. A shift away from subscription services and toward FAST services will get more content to more people, avoiding some of the siloing problems that we've been seeing. I expect that the flood of new content will also slow down on most services, especially the higher budget projects like "Westworld" that require heftier residual payments. We'll also see more shows being produced with ad breaks in mind.
Part of me is disappointed that HBO Max and other ambitious streamers are going to have to downgrade their offerings to stay in business. Part of me figures that this was going to happen eventually, one way or another. The hassle of trying to keep track of content coming and going on different services has been a constant, and the return of appointment television for "The Nevers" certainly beats never getting to watch those last six episodes at all. The streaming revolution was fun while it lasted.
And the more things change, the more they stay the same.
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