Right at the beginning of the summer, we took on the slightly crazy task of watching every Netflix Original Series so far, and ranking each show from worst to best. It was a grueling (so much “Fuller House”…so much…) but ultimately rewarding project. But as far as the TV streaming revolution goes, it only highlights part of the picture, because while Netflix might be the biggest and most high profile such service, rivals Amazon are nipping at its heels.
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The online giant shifted into TV around the same time as Netflix did, in 2013, but have mostly been less prolific. The House That Jeff Bezos Built might not have had a giant “Stranger Things”-style hit yet, but they’ve won critical love (“Transparent” took two Emmys this past weekend), and had some real talent coups (with Woody Allen debuting his first ever TV series on the series next week).
Amazon is ramping up their output as well, with a new show premiering every week in September and more to land before the end of 2017. So we figured while it was still manageable, we’d rank every Amazon show (excluding kids’ fare) that’s debuted to date (and we’ll update as Allen and others unveil their wares). Take a look at our list below and let us know your own Amazon favorites in the comments.
16. “Hand Of God”
After years of ‘Difficult Men’ like Tony Soprano, Don Draper and Walter White, the white male anti-hero drama has become to prestige TV what the superhero is to the comic book —a hugely popular archetype that at times is so omnipresent that it threatens to overshadow everything else. There can still be good versions of the concept —“Billions” and “Better Call Saul,” for instance— but for every one of those, it seems like we get two “Feed The Beast” or “Vinyl”s, shows that imitate but don’t invent, crudely and cruelly slathering sex and violence on a platter. “Hand Of God” might be one of the worst examples of this. Created by Ben Watkins and with directors including “Monster’s Ball” and “World War Z” helmer Marc Forster, the show stars Ron Perlman (a veteran of this sort of thing, namely “Sons Of Anarchy”) as Pernell Harris, a fundamentalist Christian judge who believes that God wants him to become a vigilante after his daughter-in-law is raped and his son attempts suicide. Even the casting suggests the extent that this has been reverse-engineered from other successful shows —Garret Dillahunt from “Deadwood” and Andre Royo from “The Wire” join Perlman as major players— but it seems principally interested in being as dark and grim as possible, especially if there’s gratuitous sexual violence involved. Its ambition in trying to grapple with questions of faith and similar are laudable, but the execution’s so ham-fisted that it’s not surprising that Amazon have already announced that the show will be cancelled after the upcoming second season.
15. “Betas”
“Silicon Valley” is great, right? One of the best shows on TV. Well, imagine if “Silicon Valley” had ended up in development hell at NBC during its most vision-free period of TV comedy development, had been utterly bowlderized and pushed into the lowest common denominator and filled with actors you don’t find particularly interesting. That’s “Betas,” which arrived as part of Amazon’s first wave of shows, and despite being a tech-world satire a few months before its HBO rival debuted essentially vanished without a trace. Following a group of developers as they try to set up a dating app —it’s essentially trying to do the same thing as Mike Judge’s show, to look inside the tech bubble and tell a narrative-driven sitcom where you care about the twists and turns of the plot as much as the gags. In places, you can see the promise of what it could have been with better execution, and it does some things better than Judge’s show (it integrates women a little more, even if they’re mostly seen as prizes). But it feels beholden to traditional network comedy and the characters and actors mostly feel bland, beyond Jon Daly’s Hobbes, and even that character feels like a lazy attempt to come up with a vaguely Zach Galafianakis-ian breakout. Perhaps if “Silicon Valley” hadn’t come along, the show would have survived to a second season and grown more interesting, but it’s destined to be a footnote both of tech-themed comedy and among Amazon’s programming.
14. “All Or Nothing: A Season With The Arizona Cardinals”
The streaming revolution has given a rather skewed view of the TV landscape: it initially almost completely focused on scripted fare, which actually makes up a relatively small proportion of the television landscape. But Netflix’s “Making A Murderer” was probably a game-changer in terms of non-fiction fare breaking through to streaming audiences, and Amazon attempted to get in on that business —and ESPN’s business in particular— with “All Or Nothing.” Undoubtedly indebted to HBO’s “Hard Knocks,” it sees filmmakers going behind the scenes with the underperforming Arizona Cardinals for an entire NFL season over 8 episodes, with Jon Hamm doing a very fine job as narrator. Clearly, the NFL is a hotbed of drama, but if there was any hope of this being a real-life “Friday Night Lights” or “Any Given Sunday,” or a gridiron equivalent to “Hoop Dreams,” it’s swiftly quashed. It’s puff-piece stuff, done in a fair amount of detail and with some memorable characters, but mostly a love letter to the game and the team rather than anything with greater ambitions and of little interest to non-football fans (as well as non-Cardinals fans) as a result. Perhaps it was simply the choice of subjects: the Cardinals on the whole seem to be a fairly functional bunch who genuinely gel as a team. Or perhaps it’s the price of being granted access. Either way, it’s eminently skippable unless you’re already a Big Red fan.
13. “Alpha House”
If “Betas” was hampered by living in the shadow of “Silicon Valley,” “Alpha House,” which debuted alongside it in the first run of Amazon shows, has had a problem because it premiered when “Veep” was in the process of becoming one of the most beloved comedies of the moment. Set in Washington D.C. and created by “Doonesbury” mastermind Garry Trudeau (who also collaborated with Robert Altman on the pioneering miniseries “Tanner ’88” back in the day), it focuses on four Republican senators (John Goodman, Clark Johnson, Matt Malloy and Mark Consuelos) who share a house in D.C. when Congress is in session. It’s a neat premise (inspired by a apartment that a number of officials including NY Senator Chuck Schumer shared), and it’s focus on meat-and-potatoes senatorial work helps it stand a little apart from other political shows. And some of the cast are game —there’s Goodman, of course, but also recurring cameos from Bill Murray, and the likes of Amy Sedaris and Wanda Sykes popping up. But it feels cozy and toothless and has a kind of boring wonk-ishness that “Veep” or “The West Wing” always stayed away from. It’s also just not that well directed, feeling oddly airless and tired rather than energetic. The show did make it to a second season, likely because of the big-name talent involved, but with “Veep” so adored by critics and the Emmys, it was always doomed to the margins even then, and was ultimately cancelled.
12. “Doctor Thorne”
Given the immense international success of “Downton Abbey,” it’s not surprising that Amazon picked up “Doctor Thorne” from UK broadcaster ITV — the show was adapted from Anthony Trollope’s novel by ‘Downton’ creator Julian Fellowes. The three-part miniseries certainly had its pleasures, thanks to the cast and the basic pleasures of the novel. Indeed, being based on Trollope makes it arguably better than its predecessor, at least with respect to its later, lousy seasons. But Fellowes’ flaws nevertheless come through and are arguably more exacerbated by the shorter running time. Narrated by Fellowes himself in a misjudged decision that literally puts him in front of a fireplace, the show is set in the 1850s and sees young, good-natured, deeply poor Frank Gresham (Harry Richardson) forced to choose between marriage to rich American Miss Dunstable (Alison Brie), who will clear the family debt to a railway baron (Ian McShane), and the more humble Mary (Stefanie Martini), the niece of Doctor Thorne himself (Tom Hollander). It’s familiar territory, to the extent that you can basically predict where it’s going beat by beat. And though the cast are likable —Hollander, McShane and Rebecca Front are as reliable as ever, and there’s a good showing from fresher faces like Richardson, Brie (who acquits herself well in territory well outside of her comfort zone), Martini, Edward Franklin and Kate O’Flynn— they struggle with the kind of clumsy, expositional dialogue that Fellowes feels compelled to use to condense the novel’s story into three hours. And when that story’s sort of thin to begin with, it ends up feeling very forgettable.
11. “Eat The World With Emeril Lagasse”
It would be a big stretch to suggest that the Amazon non-fiction lineup is wildly original. Its big blockbuster, “The Grand Tour,” nicked the stars of “Top Gear,” and “All Or Nothing” is very close to “Hard Knocks.” As for “Eat The World,” a recent debut and its first venture into the culinary TV market, it’s essentially a cozier version of Anthony Bourdain’s “No Reservations,” as chef Emeril Lagasse (of Food Network and “Bam!” fame) travels the world with various culinary pals (including Mario Batali and Jose Andres) looking into various food stuffs and movements. It’s better shot than the Food Network stuff —some of the slo-mo food porn of Netflix’s “Chef’s Table” makes its way in— and if you’re a foodie, you’ll have a pretty good time. But if you’re a foodie, there’s also very little new here: most of this ground has been covered in better shows, and ones that don’t feel quite as square and safe as this (like PBS’s ‘Mind Of A Chef”). Emeril’s a pleasant host, and it’s nice to see him in toned down mode, but there are more energetic and articulate hosts out there. There’s the occasional pleasurable segment —a trip to visit a vegan Buddhist nun in Korea is a highlight— but it’s probably only for those who’ve exhausted every other TV food program.
Why wasn’t The Kicks included?
Good to sea Fleabag so high.