Netflix breathes life into Hemlock Grove
On March 21st, Netflix announced plans to create their own show called Hemlock Grove.As someone who spends the majority of her nights watching too much Netflix as it is, I’m always on the hunt for a good series to get invested in. Most nights I am left disappointed and cursing at my television set for a lack of a good series to watch.
Netflix, an Internet-streaming media, has been looking to develop original material for their viewers. However, rather than doing a completely original series, they will be doing an adaptation of Brian McGreevy’s forthcoming novel Hemlock Grove. The book is set to be released on March 27th, so viewers will get a chance to read and decide if they want to view it via Netflix. I am enthusiastic about a new program from Netflix, but what they decided to do their show on leaves me feeling skeptical.
Hemlock Grove, set in Pittsburgh with a gothic horror twist, revolves around the murder of a young woman outside of a saw mill, (now, here’s where the skepticism starts to step in) while looking to stay true to the storyline and characters in the book, McGreevy is also looking to pursue a “hard R” slant with the series. After signing on Eli Roth, of the Hostel movies, Netflix signed on board, making this the third series that they will available for streaming in 2013.
I’m all for Netflix expanding the services that they offer to their customers and they have the potential to go toe-to-toe with cable companies and big networks like HBO and Starz but at this point, it’s only potential. While McGreevy is emerging as a new face in television, leading actors Famke Janssen and Bill Skarsgard are just the celebrities to breathe life into Hemlock Grove. However, with experienced producers running the show on Netflix, with its 23 million users, it’d be foolish not to stay tuned and find out how the series turns out. It’ll at least give me something else to watch when I can’t sleep at two in the morning.
I agree Alyssa that “Hemlock Grove” is perhaps the only show so far that has MORE potential than the others do, however, it remains to be seen whether people will be signing up like “The Sopranos” was successful for HBO. Although I subscribe to HBO, I would drop them if I had to before I would let my Blockbuster @Home because of how much I get as a customer. Despite being a DISH employee, I feel like they give me as much as an employee should get, but it is the same for customers. The real value to me came when they added streaming but kept the price at ten bucks. It seems to me the original programming idea was in the works before the price increase, so they could finance their shows. After all, more than half of their customers still use the by-mail service.