Begun, the genre TV wars have: Netflix vs Amazon vs HBO vs Disney

Showtime is readying a show based on Patrick Rothfuss’ Kingkiller Chronicle. WarnerMedia has a Dune show in the works. Disney is making a bunch of series about Marvel superheroes. HBO has a Game of Thrones prequel on the way. And it goes on and on like that. There are a lot of expensive shows about heroes, villains, wizards and space cowboys coming our way. This question has been rattling around my brain for some time: What on Earth are all these platforms thinking by going for big-budget genre shows in the post-Game of Thrones world?

Look, I know I’m playing fast and loose with what qualifies as genre here, but that’s because the word itself, in this sense, is fast and loose. Anything that’s beyond the standard drama and comedy is genre, and there’s so much genre to wade through these days.

Even as there are more outlets willing to take gambles on genre properties than ever before, there’s almost too much of a good thing happening — or, more accurately, there’s going to be too many bad things and not enough good things.

Whether that’s a surfeit of sub-par shows or too many streaming services leading to a collapse, this move just doesn’t make sense. Let’s list off just some of the shows that are on the way: Sandman (Netflix), Watchmen (HBO), The Mandalorian (Disney+), The Lord of the Rings (Amazon), The Wheel of Time (Amazon), His Dark Materials (HBO), Wild Cards (Hulu) and The Witcher (Netflix). And those are just some of the shows that haven’t even aired yet; genre shows like Westworld, Stranger Things, The Umbrella Academy, The Expanse, The Handmaid’s Tale and more are already on their way.

Logic dictates that not all of these shows are going to be good, and that not all of them — perhaps none of them — will consume the world like Game of Thrones did. You get the idea that this all-consuming success is what these platforms are after, and a failure on that score might very well lead to the conclusion that the Great Genre Revolution of 2020 was a bust and consign us to an era without big-budget sci-fi and fantasy stories on the small screen.

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More and more, there’s a sensation that we’re in a bubble of content that’s going to burst sooner rather than later. Fans probably won’t be able to keep up with all of these shows in the timeline that production companies probably want, which is going to make it look like they’re not worth the investment which will lead to cancellation. Meanwhile, the passionate fans who fall in love with these shows will be disappointed.

There seems to be this emphasis placed on Game of Thrones being big because of its fantasy status, which isn’t the whole story. I’ve said it before talking with Dan Selcke on Take the Black Live, and I’ll say it again here: There probably isn’t going to be another Game of Thrones in the sense of this all-encompassing fantasy property. That seems pretty obvious, but entertainment companies are willing themselves into believing it isn’t so, that they’re show will break through and dominate the conversation like Game of Thrones did at its peak. All they need is a well-known genre property and they’re off to the races, right? Right?

Not right.

At some point, this collapse might lead to a total abandonment of genre as a concept among the big-budget TV producers. Of course, that doesn’t mean it would go away entirely; there’s room for lower budget fantasy and genre! But the kind of visibility that companies like Disney and HBO can give…that’s on a different level than Syfy, not to knock Syfy.

But if this little section of prestige television wants to sustain itself, trying to imitate a show that has defined television as a whole probably isn’t the way to do it, even if we as fans will enjoy it in the short run.

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