Netflix doesn’t commit to making a 40 episode series upfront. They would commute to maybe a six or eight episode series with the last episode having a built in way of introducing a second series if viewing figures suggest it’s worth it. Committing to a year long run of 40 episodes suggests to me that this project is more about the Afore keeping himself busy than it is about providing something of interest. If we take 6DIA as the pilot, didn’t viewing figures suggest that there was strong or even mild interest in hearing a year’s worth more about the subject matter? Why not do six really good episodes, and then review how they’ve been received , instead of throwing all the money at producing 40 episodes upfront? If it absolutely bombs and gets little to no interest after six episodes, it can be dropped. But it will be a source of huge embarrassment now if it bombs within six episodes and they have to push out the remaining 34 knowing that nobody is interested. It makes zero sense unless it is purely just a vehicle to pay for the Afore travelling, eating, and feeling important for another 12 months.Every show on Netflix has a unique “drop-off curve” — a graph showing where most people stop watching. Some lose viewers in the first 10 minutes, others after episode 3. For example, if 70% of viewers drop out by the end of the first episode, that’s a red flag. But if people binge two or three episodes before stopping, Netflix interprets it as mild interest — fixable through better marketing or recommendations.
Some might speculate about it being a way of washing donations through a third party, not me, I think it’s all above board. Yes, some might say the Red Brick Films are doing very well out of Interpreter despite how badly received their end product has been. They’ve won some Telly awards, right? Interpeter is transparent about this kind of thing. Isn’t it?