Beware: The Great Streaming Service Tsunami Of 2019 Is Coming

Hope you’ve got a few bucks stashed away for the months ahead, viewer of the small screen, because the era of free-to-air TV seems to be drawing to a close. Oh, of course there’ll still be television as it once was but the commercial networks appear to be increasingly desperate in their rolling of the dice, hoping that the ludicrous likes of The Masked Singer spark enough car-crash curiosity that the discerning coach potato will swivel away from what’s on Netflix or their streaming service of choice for a few precious seconds.

With that in mind, I do love that stations like Seven are pulling a bit of a re-brand in order to emulate the streamers and pay TV providers. I’ve yet to check out the upcoming Secret Bridesmaids’ Business - which looks like another Big Little Lies knock-off a la Nine’s Bad Mothers – but I couldn’t help but be amused by the Netflix-esque tagline ‘A Seven Studios Original’.

Back to the main point of this column, though, which is the incoming influx of new streaming services vying for your entertainment dollar. If you want more sweet, sweet Star Wars and Marvel content, Disney+ launches in Australia on 18 November and based on the trailers, teasers and scuttlebutt the Mouse House has been doling out lately, it’ll probably be worth the nine bucks a month they’re asking for. Hell, this show alone looks like it might make up for Rogue One:

Werner Herzog and Gina Carano – together at last!

Add to this some interesting swerves on some second-tier Marvel characters – Hailee Steinfeld in a Hawkeye series! Vision and Scarlet Witch in a suburban sitcom! Tom Hiddleston’s Loki getting up to mischief in various eras! – and I’ll probably forego a few little luxuries to have Disney cluttering up my bandwidth.

At this stage of the proceedings, however, I am less impressed by what Apple TV+ is shilling prior to its November 1 launch. (Also, what’s with all the plus signs, people? We get it: YOU’RE ADDING VALUE!) But maybe it’s just a sign of my immaturity that my interest is piqued more by space operas and superheroes than the complicated lives of stressed by dedicated white collar types working hard to bring us blue chip breakfast TV (that’s Apple’s flagship drama Morning Wars, starring Jennifer Aniston, Reese Witherspoon and Steve Carell, which comes off as a terribly self-serious Sorkin rip-off).

Ugh.

But the bulk of Apple’s stuff strikes me as unimaginative and uninspired – commercial TV concepts juiced up with a few extra bucks in the budget and some bigger names on the marquee. Jason Momoa in some adventure drama that’s got both post-apocalyptic and prehistoric vibes? Something about true crime podcasts? M Night Shyamalan doing something spooky? Uh, pass. (And I say that as a Shyamalan fan, aka a Shyamafan.) The only Apple project I’m intrigued by is Dickinson, which tells the story of poet Emily Dickinson through a new and distinctly modern lens. The afore-mentioned Hailee Steinfeld in the title role and David Gordon Green behind the camera are alluring enough, but casting John Mulaney as Henry David Thoreau? Yeah, I’m in.

Before the Great Streaming Service Tsunami of November 2019, however, there are a few things to enjoy on pay TV in the coming weeks. October is shaping as comic book central, with Foxtel premiering an array of shows starring second-and-third-tier DC characters like Doom Patrol and Swamp Thing (the Swamp Thing series, co-produced by James Wan, is great fun). The big ticket item, however, is the mid-October premiere of Watchmen, Damon Lindelof’s big budget HBO “remix” – Lindelof’s words – of Alan Moore’s 1988 seminal superhero deconstruction. This version of the story is tackling social and racial disharmony in a near-future America, with one of the main storylines following costumed crimefighter Sister Night (the great Regina King) as she investigates the rise of a white-nationalist militia group reportedly inspired by OG Watchmen character Rorschach.

“We treat the original 12 issues as canon,” Lindelof said in a recent interview, referring to the Watchmen graphic-novel run. “They all happened. We haven’t done any revisionist history, but we can manoeuvre in between the cracks and crevices and find new stories there. But… we wanted to make sure our first episode felt like the beginning of a new story rather than a continuation of an old story".

Watchmen premieres on FOX SHOWCASE 21 October (sorry for yelling, our pay TV provider has done some all-caps rebranding). We’ll tell you more as that date approaches, but in the meantime, get a load of this trailer. I’m a little excited.