![]() But they’re even more remarkable when held up against the usual tendencies of streaming. Special’s installments are bite-sized even by the standards of conventional television, packaged as it is in 30- or 60-minute blocks. Viewers can run through the entire season in a lazy weekend afternoon, which is precisely what this writer did. And at just 12 to 17 minutes, the run times are positively skimpy. The sets are bare bones, the budget not particularly lavish. A semi-autobiographical account of life in Los Angeles as a gay man with cerebral palsy, Special is a self-made vehicle for its architect and star. Special, the new eight-episode series from writer and performer Ryan O’Connell, looks and feels like a web series of the old school. Yet every once in a while, even a megalith like Netflix finds a way to return to its roots. A field for upstarts this is decidedly not these days, “web series” is technically as accurate a descriptor for Orange Is the New Black as it once was for Awkward Black Girl. Some presences, like Apple and Amazon, are expanding their reach from established bases in areas like technology and e-commerce. Giants like Google and Facebook govern how we navigate and interact others, like Netflix, increasingly dictate what we watch. ![]() Media is just a microcosm of the medium-wide concentration of power into a few corporate hands. Hosting TV shows on the internet is no longer a sign of independence, because the internet, too, now has its own set of native institutions. Now, of course, entertainment’s balance of power has shifted. Web series entailed a lack of institutional backing, for better and for worse. Back then, “mainstream” was still defined as linear networks like Comedy Central and HBO, in contrast with the relative backwater of online platforms. Just a few years ago, internet TV was a scrappier, more unruly place, a Wild West for budding auteurs like Issa Rae or the Broad City girls to bootstrap their way into mainstream success. I imagine that this is a nod to Arturo Castro, the Guatemalan-born actor who plays Abbi’s roommate Jaime on the series.Once upon a time, “web series” used to be the underdog. After all, how can I not notice a quetzal? Whoa! Coming from a Guatemalan family, I couldn’t help but notice it and point out this easter egg. ![]() A subsequent, close-up shot reveals that the image is of a Guatemalan flag. (I told you this show was absurdly funny.)Īlmost immediately, I noticed on Abby’s helmet a sticker bearing an image of a familiar flag. To aid in their pure, unmediated experiences, they decide to ride their roller blades to a dog wedding at Brooklyn’s Prospect Park. The most recent episode, “ The Matrix,” involves Abby and Ilana leaving their phones at home to escape the digital matrix enabled by their digital devices. Over the last few weeks, we have watch each episode of the second season with each other. Not only is the second season as pee-your-pants funny as the first season, Andre is also a fan. It is an absurdly funny series featuring Ilana and Abby, two twenty-something–year-old women living in New York. One of the programs I’ve started to watch again is Broad City on Comedy Central. And, lately, I have been in no mood to do much of anything by myself. I stopped because most of my television watching was with Sarah, and in my new living situation, watching “my shows” was going to be a solitary affair. In the last few weeks, I started watching television again. ![]() Tagged: Broad City A Quetzal in Prospect Park
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