General Discussion

Besides The Following, House of Cards has been one of my most anticipated shows of the year. There are two reasons for this and both of them are fairly important. First of all, I am intrigued by the show itself. It is the first time that David Fincher, Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright have all been lured to work in television. That is a big draw and I am very interested in what they will be able to do in the medium. I am not going in with blinders, because I was very excited about The Following and that disappointed me greatly. However, I think this show just looks great. I like this trailer slightly less than the first one, but think that it is still incredibly intriguing. The show follows Spacey's character who is the Majority Whip who will do anything to become President...and I think that means anything. I love The West Wing with all my heart, but also am more than happy to have a show that looks at the sordid underbelly of politics in Washington. So much so that I am considering canceling all my plans this weekend to watch all 13 episodes. Report to follow.

Which brings me to my other excitement about House of Cards this weekend. It feels like it could be a very historic moment in the history of the distribution of television. For the first time in years, Netflix is actually attempting to use a new model and it is one that could change things forever. I'm not saying television will be different overnight, but with such a big high profile show premiering in this manner - if it becomes a success for the streaming service, it could lead to much more content created and released in this manner. Netflix has already said they will not be releasing ratings for the show as they are a subscription based business and would like all reports to be based around that business model. We'll see if that changes if there is good news. I also appreciate the fact that a content service is actually acknowledging the different viewing habits of audiences and how so many people have become used to and prefer the marathon style now. This really broaden options. Netflix will have another chance at success with this model when Arrested Development is released this summer. That is another highly (highly) anticipated new (old) show of the year.

On the other hand, this experiment could fail miserably for Netflix, but more than anything I am happy that there are some original plans out there for content delivery and hope networks/distributors/creatives are just working on more.

Who's with me and will be watching this weekend?! (Forget that little Superbowl thing.)

Well I'll defiantly be watching this. Since it sounds like you are going to write about it are you going to do one long post or individual episodes based ones? Man I forgot the Superbowl was this weekend, lets see to watch commercials or not to watch commercials.

@MrMazz: That's a good question I hadn't figured out exactly yet. I will likely do an initial spoiler-free thoughts like I did for The Following, so it will help guide people if they should watch or not. Then perhaps, I'll do individual recaps and post over the next couple week so people can read as they watch or all at once. It is interesting to think about how this model is not necessarily conducive to recaps, which has become such a big part of television culture. Also, how will people stay spoiler free if everyone can watch episodes at different times. Wow, this is all fascinating to me how it is going to play out. Also, if anyone has any suggestions on how best to write about it, I'm open.

@staceywi: I've kind of given up on being spoiler free since Game of Thrones started. It'll be interesting to see how Twitter/Internet reacts to this and new Arrested Development, it's watercooler talk 24/7 now not just the day after. Going with a big initial thought post and then episodic ones sounds like the best idea. Would honestly be curious to see what kind of shelf life something like House of Cards and the shows like it has on the internet thanks to the big batch release. With BrBa you get a solid 3ish months of just constant chatter but what if you could see it all at once, and not just the press like that one season of The Wire.