by intern Andrew Dubbs
Photo credit: Andrew Dubbs
Last February, the streaming service Netflix entered the realm of content production with House of Cards. The show was the first of it’s kind in that all of the seasons’ episodes were released at once.
Subscribers had access to all 13 50-minute long episodes. The show is a D.C political drama starring Kevin Spacey. Spacey is a proponent of the format saying, “…in a way it’s giving the television and film industry an opportunity to learn the lesson the music industry didn’t learn: give the people what they want, when they want it, in the form that they want it, at a reasonable price, and they’ll buy it, and they won’t steal it.” The show had both critical and mass appeal, and garnered four Emmy Awards this year.
Online retailer Amazon had a screening for it’s first original show Alpha House at The Newseum. While Netflix gave away the entire season, Amazon is holding it’s cards closer to it’s chest, only releasing a couple episodes for streaming at a time.
Alpha House is very much so an answer to Netflix in that it too is a D.C political show, but where House of Cards is a cynical drama, Alpha House is a laugh out loud comedy, starring John Goodman.
Those in attendance at the screening were shown the first three episodes of the show. To date, there are not four episodes available to Amazon Prime customers.
Matt Malloy, Antoine L. Douaihy, Alicia Sable, Joe Lewis, Mark Consuelos
John Goodman, Clark Johnson, Matt Malloy, and Mark Consuelos all play republicans who are all roommates. The show’s writer Garry Trudeau admitted he got the idea from reading a New York Times article that talked about representatives’ living conditions. He also admitted that, “life is a little livelier in our house…”
Matt Malloy and Alicia Sable
With House of Cards, Kevin Spacey pointed out a lack of realism in the portrayal of the government because it showed a government that was actually effective. Similarly, Trudeau made the creative decision of making the republicans the minority in the house.
Yara Martinez and Mark Consuelos (on-screen couple)
“Our guys (the four main republican characters) are all in crisis because they are all being primaried by the tea party, and narratively, that’s much more interesting than anything I could think of with the democrats.”
Ben Rameaka with Producer Antoine L. Douaihy
Cast member Ben Rameaka said that compared to a typical production that Amazon “is more fun, it’s more laid back, more talent, everyone’s more attractive. Typical productions really cut corners, and Amazon really did a good job getting the best people possible. Everyone is so talented and so easy to work with.”
It certainly shows! In the pilot episode, they had Bill Murray to do a quick cameo and later in the season, Amazon got Tom Brokaw and Anthony Weiner to make appearances as well.
