Variations of the phrase “10-hour movie” are synonymous with creators and actors seeking to prove that their project has more in common with cinema than television. No matter how many movie stars flock to the small screen or how much this material dominates the cultural conversation, there is adesire to quantify aTV show’s worth alongside the hallowed world of filmmaking. “Fuck you! No you’re not! Make aTV show. You’re in the entertainment business,” The Boys creator Eric Kripkesuccinctly put in response to this sentiment in2022.
Streaming has blurred some lines, but what those “10-hour movie” creatives don’t realise is that the best shows tend to be the ones that embrace the form in which they are broadcast rather than aspire to cinematic box ticking. Take the critical acclaim and rapt audience attention that horror-comedy Widow’s Bay, crime thrillerFurious, and YA dramaSterling Point have all earned this summer. This unlikely trio embrace their format and deliver afresh take on well-established genres, illustrating adesire for original material in familiar settings.
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Long gone are the days of US network or cable television dominating the conversation. Yet the impact of the pre-streaming era is evident, asWidow’s Bay, Furious, andSterling Point all have roots in atraditional 20-plus-episode model. Katie Dippold has been working onWidow’s Bay for at least 15years. The story of the cursed Massachusetts island community began as aspec script that led to Dippold’s hiring by sitcom maestro Mike Schur as astaff writer onParks and Recreation in 2009. Dippold would go on to write features includingThe Heat andGhostbusters, but she never let go of the haunted town. Cut to this summer, when Widow’s Bay took Apple TV by storm, culminating in last night’s record-breaking 14 Emmy wins. The weekly release strategy has been fruitful in building momentum: Each episode depicts adifferent monster or scare, culminating in afinale that answers enough questions while leaving viewers eager to return to this spooky destination.
Widow’s Bay might conjure images ofStephen King,The X‑Files,Twin Peaks andThe Twilight Zone; it might also remind you ofParks &Rec andThe Office. Scenes oscillate between frights and laughs. Anyone who says this isn’t acomedy is being obtuse. The nods to obscure and popular horrors come thick and fast without ever having to forfeit originality or fall into pastiche or parody. The blend of episodic and serialised storytelling helps this world feel lived-in; as does the stacked cast of TV faves, withMatthew Rhys leading the ensemble as Mayor Tom Loftis. At no point does Dippold feel like she is hiding the TV narrative framework behind cute conceits, and while the writer is king in this medium, the collaboration with director Hiro Murai is integral in capturing apotent cocktail of terror, humour andheart.
Dippold is not alone in pairing her comedy background with another genre. Elizabeth Meriwether’s trajectory post-New Girl has mostly steered away from single-camera sitcoms. Still, the dialogue inThe Dropout,Dying for Sex, and now Hulu’sFurious is not without laugh-out-loud moments, despite heavy subject matter like terminal cancer and sex trafficking.
Loosely based on the 1987 psychological thrillerBlack Widow, Meriwether takes the cat-and-mouse conceit of an FBI Agent tracking afemale serial killer and shines aspotlight on how abusive cycles prevail. Crime dramas are acornerstone of TV on both sides of the Atlantic, from long-running procedurals (Law and Order: Special Victims Unit is about to enter its twenty-eighth season) to more recent offerings like the Emmy-nominatedTask and belovedLudwig. Meriwetherhas said that dark British murder shows served as apalate cleanser at the end of along day spent working in comedy writers’ rooms; her knowledge of the genre is evident in how various threads connect in each episode. She also never loses sight of the humans in this story, including female serial killer Catherine (Lola Petticrew) and FBI agents Alice Black (Emmy Rossum) and Nora Washington (Quincy Tyler Bernstine), who are hot on Catherine’s heels – and uncovering corruption within the New York field office.
As withWidow’s Bay, the leads and supporting characters expertly navigate the challenging tonal shifts.Scoot McNairy’s NYPD homicide detective Danny Kelly is ahangdog romantic, awisecracking cop (particularly opposite Steve Way’s Alden), and adeadpan investigator. Bernstine’s weary veteran agent self-medicates with tequila. However, just when you thinkFurious is about to head down awell-worn path of crime thriller clichés, Meriwether cleverly sidesteps that by not letting alcoholism define Nora’s entire personality. The same applies to the odd-couple pairing of Nora and Alice as mentor-mentee, with one-on-one interactions that add aprickly layer on top of another.
Spending eight episodes with Alice and Nora only makes you want more; the dilemma of streaming-era TV is whether ashow was intended as aone-off before leading to disappointing follow-ups. While Meriwether has been sticking to the limited series in the years sinceNew Girl,Furious has been renewed. The next obstacle is how long it will be before season two hits screens. Not everything takes multiple years to produce, asThe Pitt andSlow Horses have set the bar for consistent streaming output.The Pitt is the closest HBO Max has to anetwork-style show, and the creative team (including writers who worked on ’90s and ’00s juggernauts likeER andThe West Wing) illustrates the value of collaborators with long experience in the TV business.
Likewise, Prime Video’s YA drama Sterling Point has an executive-producer duo who immediately signal that we are in safe hands. Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage are best known forThe OC andGossip Girl, two of TV’s definitive teen titles. While the first season ofThe OC had astaggering 27 episodes (a figure that was high even for the era),Sterling Point has fewer than athird of that, clocking in at eight. Regardless, creatorMegan Park (who got her Hollywood break acting onThe Secret Life of the American Teenager) has crafted aworld that has the mood of those classic titles, serving up adolescent shenanigans with adash of parental strife.
Most of the action takes place on the titular island in Canada’s idyllic Lake Muskoka, blending summer holiday hangout vibes with life-alerting discoveries. Annie (Ella Rubin) is about to turn 18 when she learns adeep family secret that has her questioning everything for the first time. What follows is amix of melodramatic revelations and grounded reactions that make this genre so appealing, evoking the vibe of shows likeGilmore Girls, Dawson’s Creek and The OCwithout feeling derivative or relying too much on millennial nostalgia. The Gen Zcast exudes charm, and will make you want to while away warm days with them as they navigate queer romance, love triangles, and new friendships.
Sterling Point is less scary thanWidow’s Bay, and far less fraught thanFurious, but each of these shows is not pretending to be something they aren’t, and viewers are responding accordingly. Maybe we want TV to feel like TV afterall.
