The Internet, Savior of Television

Every semester, I allow myself one TV addiction. Though often it balloons beyond my allotted one show, that one hour a week is my mandated break from the intensity of (granted, wonderful) Harvard life.

This semester, my hour has gone to Joss Whedon’s “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.,” an excellent new series that would be worthy of its own column. Though new, “S.H.I.E.L.D.” is part of the larger video universe that Marvel first unveiled on the silver screen in movies like “Iron Man” and “The Avengers.” Though Marvel’s movies have been for the most part monumentally successful, “S.H.I.E.L.D.” marks a new, risky stage in their attempts to branch out from comic books. Multiple tangential movies and a successful tied-in show featuring a complicated mythology is a model only “Star Trek,” a brand known for its quality, longevity, and geekiness, has successfully achieved. Like with evolution of shows such as “Star Trek,” which was built on tangential stories on multiple platforms, Marvel is attempting to diversify the availability and accessibility of its stories. It is no surprise, then, that Marvel is making “S.H.I.E.L.D.” available on channels like Hulu, in order to increase the durability of their brand.

Hulu is an internet TV provider— for free, I can watch a huge number of TV shows and movies, including current series (though these are often delayed). For $7.99 a month, I can watch anything on the site’s vast directory, including current series and vast archives of historical ones, both those of legend and others long-forgotten. What makes the service even more incredible is that I can do all of this from my dorm room, with no special privileges, skills, or connections beyond Harvard WiFi; beyond the fact that many of these shows are still attached to networks, I would never even need to know what ABC was. Hulu has opened up a channel directly from me to the show I’m watching.

Hulu is not alone in its field— Netflix, Amazon Prime and HBOGo have sizeable shares of internet TV watchers, along with a number of other free or subscription-based services and pay-as-you go models. They exist in relative harmony by offering slightly different types of content, but for all intents and purposes exist to serve the same customer.

These companies are all slightly different; though they seem to currently serve similar purposes, their evolutions to this point vary widely—Netflix is the current iteration of the mail-order video service, HBOGo is the web extension of the cable service HBO, Amazon Prime selects content for subscribers from the larger Amazon directory, and Hulu is internet TV, run by media giants Disney, NBC, and Fox. While all have been successful in different ways, Netflix has led the pack in new programming not just of offbeat niche shows (like Hulu), but, most famously, the legendary Bluth clan of “Arrested Development.”

Though “Arrested Development” is  one of the most incredible things to happen in recent TV history, fans of cult TV shows have to accept that cancellation is the end, and if the show comes back, it will be only maybe in some sad, half-attempted version. “Arrested Development,” though, went straight to the internet and was wildly successful, maybe because of it. In addition to its revival of “Arrested Development,” Netflix has begun to produce its own extremely popular shows, like “House of Cards” and “Orange is the New Black,” and Hulu has a stable of news shows it has created, along with a number of international shows never before available in the U.S.

Internet TV has had an effect on what is being produced for TV already, and I predict that trend will only escalate. Viewers can now watch what they want to, on their time. Niche shows can be created, and targeted advertising pays for the cost of these (often lower-cost) series. Additionally, many of these services are providing a film and television education to those who would have had none.

Now, Marvel can create “S.H.I.E.L.D.,” rife with “easter eggs” to the comic book series and oblique references to the movie, and not worry about a core audience—the core audience, they know, will come. And if someone else clicks “if you watch this other show, you may like…”? Well, Marvel’s even happier. Now, internet… what are we going to do about “Firefly”?

—Crimson staff writer Sara Kantor can be reached at sara.kantor@thecrimson.com.