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Netflix to formally enter the week-to-week tv show airing arena

Netflix to formally enter the week-to-week tv show airing arena

Between

Among the slew of new shows Netflix will be airing this season is the Canadian drama Between. The streaming service has now announced that the series will be premiering on Thursday, May 21. However, the most notable aspect of this series is that, unlike Netflix‘s other offerings, the service will be releasing new episodes of the show’s 6-episode first season on a weekly basis. As part of the agreement under which Netflix bought the broadcast rights to the show, which is a three-way deal that involves Rogers in Canada as well as the Canadian streaming service Shomi, the episodes will make their premiere on Canada’s CityTV, which has first window right, on Thursday nights at 8 pm EST, with Netflix releasing the episodes on its services worldwide an hour later at 9 pm EST.

The strategy is a noted departure from Netflix’s prior model of releasing shows, as the service has previously released entire seasons all at once, not only for its original fare, such as House of Cards and the last season of The Killing, but also with regards to shows for which it has shared distribution rights, such as the Ireland-set drama The Fall, which was released by Netflix in its entirety after much of the first season had already aired on RTÉ One and BBC Two. This appears to be the only series in the foreseeable future for which Netflix will pursue this release strategy, as its other scheduled new series, such as Bloodline, Daredevil, and Sense8, continue to be poised to be released in full. It remains to be seen, however, how Netflix assesses the success of Between, and whether or not the service might opt to release its own original series in a similar fashion in the near future.

The official synopsis of Between is as follows

Between is the story of a town under siege from a mysterious disease that has wiped out everybody except those 21 years old and under. The series explores the power vacuum that results when a government has quarantined a 10-mile diameter area and left the inhabitants to fend for themselves.

The series is created by filmmaker and author Michael McGowan, and is led by Jennette McCurdy, who has previously been seen on iCarly and Sam and Cat. She’ll play Wiley Day, a teenager in the infected town of Pretty Lake who’s pregnant and planning to leave when the virus and subsequent quarantine hits. McCurdy will be joined by Shailene Garnett, Jim Watson, and Ryan Allen. The show’s first two episodes will be directed by Jon Cassar, who has also helmed numerous episodes of 24 and Terra Nova. McCurdy has released a clip of the show on her twitter account alongside the announcement, which can be seen below.

Source: Variety and THR

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