Netflix launches its ambitious move into original TV series programming today. It’s new streaming TV series is available today with all 8 episodes of its first season available all at once today, February 6th.
The new Netflix Inc. original series starring and co-written by E Street Band guitarist and “The Sopranos” actor Steven Van Zandt.
Mobster Stuck in Norway
The series brings back the mobster character we knew from “The Sopranos,” played by Steven Van Zandt. He stars as Frank “The fixer” Tagliano who gets forced into the witness protection program and moved to the town of Lillehammer in Norway. This is a dark comedy that looks pretty promising. This series might be successful for Netflix in the U.S. although I wonder if American’s distaste for subtitles might get in the way.
Subtitles?
The series was filmed in Norway and the only English dialog spoken in the movie is by Van Zandt. All other characters in the Norway setting are speaking Norwegian with English subtitles. I haven’t seen the first episode yet, but I look forward to checking it out. The series is already a hit in Norway and will be premiering in the U.S, Latin America and Canada as well.
Netflix Original Programing – More Coming Soon
This is only the beginning of Netflix’s move into becoming a “channel” of TV & movie content. Netflix will be bringing David Fincher & Kevin Spacey’s political series “House of Cards,” the new Netflix-exclusive season of “Arrested Development” and “Hemlock Grove”, Jenji Kohan’s (Producer of Weeds) new comedy “Orange is the New Black.” As you can see, Netflix is very serious about this “experiment.” Netflix has been bidding against HBO and AMC for some of this original content and they fully intend to bring original programming value to it’s network. This should be interesting as Netflix becomes more HBO-like and HBO becomes more Netflix-like with their HBO-go setup.
