Three of the biggest online streaming services available today.
ONE of the guiltiest pleasures of life has to be binge watching television shows – be they long-running series lasting up to dozens of episodes stretched over weeks, months and even years; or close-ended short ones of limited episodes.
In the past, before the days of streaming, Netflix, the Internet and illegal torrents and satellite dishes, we only had extremely limited selections and choices insofar as entertainment programmes were concerned – be they televised on our 24-inch colour televisions, dependent solely on the largess and purchasing power of the local television stations (mostly run by the government or some appointed authority), or viewed via illegal satellite dishes, which were the craze then.
Those were the days when black and white television transmissions had ruled, when ‘I Love Lucy’, ‘Bonanza’ and ‘Rawhide’ as well as Saturday morning cartoons were primetime television attractions.
As for us here in Sarawak, television itself had only came to us on Aug 31, 1975; and colour TV, in 1978. We only had our own Sarawak-based television network called NTV7 in 1998, which was founded by Tan Sri Effendi Norwawi, with Michael Lim at its helm.
I remember well my very first experience of watching colour television – it was on a 24-inch Sanyo set imported from Japan, and I had it at my company bungalow along the beachfront of the Brunei township of Kuala Belait – it was in 1975, and while Sarawak had just launched its black and white transmission, over in Brunei they had gone straight to colour.
The very first colour TV series that I had enjoyed and had waited anxiously for each and every week to follow was called ‘Space 1999’ and it had starred Martin Landau and Barbara Bain, and was an ITC English production.
I was glued to the television screen for that series for the length of the period it was on for the next couple of years – do remember that this was long before the days of ‘Star Wars’, which only appeared in 1987, and the rest of the superlative special effects that came much later.
I remember well the TV series that we were all watching in those early years of television; there was ‘All in the Family’ in 1971 with Archie Bunker (Carroll O’Connor); ‘The Waltons’ in 1972 with Ralph Waite and Richard Thomas; ‘Little House on the Prairie’ with Michael Landon and Melissa Gilbert in 1974; ‘Family’ in 1976 with Sada Thompson and Kristy McNichol; and much later, ‘The Cosby Show’ with Bill Cosby.
In 1976, everything changed when ‘Charlie’s Angels’ burst onto our small screens with Farrah Fawcett, Jaclyn Smith and Kate Jackson. The world seemed to have changed overnight with these three sexy spy agents entering the scene onto a normal espionage spoof – from then onwards we had more of the same, as in the ‘Six Million Dollar Man’, then, ‘Bionic Woman’, and countless other rip-offs and imitation series for years after.
It wasn’t until 1999 that a brand new television commercial channel called HBO (Home Box Office) had bravely launched a brand new series called ‘The Sopranos’, which had lasted eight years and won 21 Primetime Emmy Awards; being nominated 309 times and had 122 wins.
‘The Sopranos’, HBO’s first and biggest TV series hit.
Today, my personal favourite binge-watch TV series, on my personal recommendations as to what to watch would be as follows:
- The Sopranos
- Succession
- Yellowstone
- Game of Thrones
- The Thorn Birds
- The Crown, and,
- Downton Abbey.
The very successful ‘Yellowstone’ series, now onto its fifth season.
Within these seven multifaceted series, you’d get the entire range and episodic tales of insider and observer viewpoints of everything you can ever think of or expect in a real life time experience.
All that matters happens within the framework of the script, the writing, the screenplay and the surrounding ethos of the many delicate and complicated situations.
The screenplay writers have all excelled themselves!
As someone within the industry itself, I had felt that the time, effort and budget that had been ploughed into the making of the entire ‘Game of Thrones’ series was more than well spent – the locations were fantastic, the special effects top notch, and the writing and casting were all superlative
‘Game of Thrones’, at US$10 million per episode, the most expensive TV production in the 2000s.
We were indeed blessed with such fantastical productions that we were able to enjoy; during those days, they had cost only around US$10 million per episode to make!
As a comparison, the current ‘House of Dragons’ costs US$20 per episode on average.
But my personal favourites among binge-watching TV series would be a toss-up between ‘The Sopranos’ and ‘Succession’.
For me, ‘The Sopranos’ had everything, if you had loved ‘The Godfather’ and you were into the 1980s Mafioso thing, you’d have loved the entire ambiance and environment that the era had evoked – that there was this romanticised group of power dealers who could do anything they had wanted and be able to get away with it without any repercussions.
‘Succession’, based on the Rupert Murdoch’s media empire, as real life as it gets.
In so many ways, it had also contributed to my love for the other sentimental picks of shows like ‘Family’, ‘Little House on the Prairie’ and ‘The Cosby Show’.
In ‘Family’, we had seen the ‘mother figure’ who had reigned supreme in the family unit, and who ensured family was everything; in ‘Little House’, the subject was extended to the larger family and of course, by the time we reached ‘The Cosby Show’ it was that family was everything – there was no room for any further discussion.
Today, I happily enjoy my binge watching of the TV programmes and series that I love.
My taste has even widened with subtitled downloads from all over the world – Spain, France, Korea, Japan, China, Hong Kong, Brazil and so many other countries where they are producing really great movies.
One can only wonder why Malaysia has lagged so far behind.
However, there is still hope as the Indies and the independent film producers and content creators in Malaysia have been hard at work and producing really great stuff, that much I know and am aware of – except that most of it would never be seen, shown, or be available locally.
Censorship and patronage still inhibits the industry!
For those who have followed my column and may be inclined to be swayed, my personal favourite binge-worthy watch on either streaming, television, Netflix or what have you, have been listed here and I really hope you’d look for them and enjoy them as much as I did.
Do let me know if you’ve anything else you might like to add.
Meantime, enjoy and happy bingeing!