The "TV Movie" in the Streaming Age: A Conversation with Episodic Medium

As many Revealers perhaps already know, we have a close association with Episodic Medium, a TV newsletter run by Myles McNutt, a longtime colleague who was a frequent contributor to The A.V. Club back when Keith and I were part of the editorial team. In fact, Episodic Medium is loaded with recaps from many esteemed TV Club writers from back in the day, including Zach Handlen, Noel Murray, Donna Bowman, and Erik Adams, just to name a few. And much like The Reveal, Episodic Medium recently made the move from Substack to Ghost, and they're in the middle of a subscription drive. Given the frequency and the quality of the coverage on there, Keith and I could not recommend it highly enough. Not only do you get a lot of bang for your buck, but they're having a 20% off sale, so you can get a lot of bang for few bucks if you click the button below.

Today, we're offering readers of both newsletters an exciting crossover event! As part of his Week-to-Week column, Myles has invited Keith and I to discuss the state of the TV movie in the streaming age. This year, the Emmy for Outstanding Television Movie happens to have quite a bit of crossover with our interests at The Reveal, since many of the nominees make the whole concept of the "TV movie" more elastic than ever before. Here are our thoughts, with Myles kicking off the discussion.

Myles McNutt, Episodic Medium: At the first night of this year’s Creative Arts Emmy Awards, the big winners were comedy frontrunner The Studio—on track to beat The Bear’s record of 11 wins in a single year for a Comedy Series—and drama frontrunners The Pitt and Severance, with the two series splitting the drama guest acting categories with Shawn Hatosy and Merritt Wever. Those are the narratives that will carry into Sunday’s ceremony, which we’ll be discussing live on the Episodic Medium Discord channel for those subscribed at the Loyal Viewer tier.

However, while categories like Guest Acting and Casting have always been a part of the Creative Arts ceremony, the Emmy for Outstanding Television Movie was once a mainstay on the primary broadcast. In 2019, Bandersnatch was the last “TV Movie” to be awarded on the main broadcast, with subsequent winners relegated to the Creative Arts ceremony. While there are a collection of reasons for this, chief among them is that the rise of Limited Series has all but erased TV movies from the rest of the Emmy categories. Last year, The Wrap reported on the “poor” TV movie category, noting that the five nominated films were entirely shut out from nominations in additional categories. This wasn’t a recent development, either: since Bandersnatch’s win in 2019, only Fire Island and Prey (both in 2023) managed to earn nominations for writing, with the latter’s Dan Trachtenberg the only director of a TV movie to be nominated.

This trend continued in this year’s nominees, with Apple’s The Gorge the only film nominated in an additional category (Sound Editing). However, this year’s nominees also continue an ongoing trend in the category toward films that challenge the definition of TV Movie, a subject on many of our minds given Joe Reid's piece at Vulture that published as I am editing this. While HBO’s Mountainhead is a direct throwback to an earlier era of films developed within the context of a television channel, the rest of the category is filled with distribution deals made by streaming services. Netflix paid $20 million at auction for the rights to Nonnas last fall on the festival circuit, while Apple acquired The Gorge based on a first-look deal with Skydance. Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy was a Peacock release in the U.S., but it was released theatrically by Universal internationally, where it earned $140 million. The category winner, Rebel Ridge, was technically made for Netflix by Jeremy Saulnier, but it represents the streamer’s first win in the category for a film that it effectively bought away from the traditional studio development system.

One of the first newsletters I wrote at Episodic Medium was a consideration of the blurred lines between streaming and theatrical films, as created by Disney’s release of Pixar films like Turning Red on Disney+, and the TV Movie category has been a discursive space of reckoning within the TV industry on this question. As much as I enjoyed Prey, and was excited by its nominations, it was only a “TV” film because Disney didn’t want to share its streaming rights with HBO Max based on the 20th Century Fox deal that predates their takeover. But if you policed the category based solely on how projects were developed, there probably wouldn’t be enough films to run the category at all, leaving no space to acknowledge singular long-form narrative’s place in the TV landscape.

While I haven’t written about any of the nominated films from this year, I did think this was a good opportunity to collaborate with you, Keith and Scott. You also recently made the move over to Ghost, and I had talked with you about discussing their approach to “streaming films” in their reviewing calendar last year. As Keith is busy with TIFF, Scott, I put this question to you: when you reviewed The Gorge in February, you wrote that “The Gorge is streaming exclusively on Apple TV+, along with other films that will never be heard from again.” I’m guessing this offers some insight into your take on film’s position within the streaming landscape?

Scott Tobias, The Reveal: Yes, I get quite sarcastic about it. Generally speaking, when streaming platforms produce or purchase films to run exclusively on their service, it silos them off in a way that forbids the traditional points of access we have for home viewing. You can buy or rent a digital version. You can’t own a physical copy. You can’t pick it up from the library or attend a repertory screening of it. (Yes, Netflix does operate the Paris theater in New York City so there are some opportunities, but you get the point.) And just the nature of digital posting/publishing makes content of all kinds disappear from view, even when it can still be found on a given site. Once a movie like The Gorge has its initial day in the sun, other Apple TV+ shows and films will knock it off the home page and relegate it to the, well, deep dark gorge where it can languish alongside the Sydney Sweeney/Julianne Moore movie Echo Valley or On the Rocks, the minor Sofia Coppola comedy that will surely get you a nice 1% answer on Cinematrix one day. 

Admittedly, this attitude is a bit more cynical than it should be. Yes, I often talk about my streaming subscriptions giving me “visitation rights” on films, series, and specials that I cannot otherwise access, like The Unauthorized Bash Brothers Experience, which is reason enough to keep me clinging to Netflix. There are also times, specifically with Netflix, where certain crème-de-la-crème productions are liberated onto the Criterion Collection, like Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman, Alfonso Cuarón’s Roma, and Jane Campion’s The Power of the Dog, just to name a few. (Netflix is more sensitive than most streamers about courting filmmakers and critics who are unhappy with its brand of disruption.) But there’s something inherently limited about movies that do not occupy a physical space, which in a way is to streamers’ advantage, because if Netflix or Peacock or Paramount+ existed as a brick-and-mortar video store, it’d go out of business quickly for all the egregious gaps on the shelves. In a physical space, you choose what you want to see. In a virtual one, you choose what’s in front of you. (Sam Adams wrote a great piece for The A.V. Club 14 years ago on this phenomenon called “The Convenience Trap”) 

But I digress. Looking at the list of nominees for this year’s TV movie award at the Emmys is fascinating for all the reasons you mention, Myles. Mountainhead is indeed a pretty traditional made-for-HBO movie, and honestly a huge cut above what was once a woeful standard at the network. I don’t know much about Nonnas, but the other three are worth breaking down as examples of a certain kind of streaming picture. So let me take a shot at it:

The Gorge: This is a slightly more advanced form of what I call the “fake blockbuster,” a high-end production with well-known stars (Anya Taylor-Joy and Miles Teller) and a name director (Scott Derrickson, of Dr. Strange and Sinister fame) working on a much larger scale than a traditional TV movie. The Russo brothers have done this with Netflix duds like The Electric State and The Gray Man, and you can find other garbage movies of a similar ilk like Shawn Levy’s The Adam Project or, my personal non-favorite, the Gal Gadot spy thriller Heart of Stone. (Her name is Stone and there’s a “heart” as the film’s MacGuffin.) I think the idea with these movies is to fool subscribers into believing they’re getting the value of a theater-quality blockbuster while, in reality, nobody would actually pay any money to see this piece of junk in a theater. While The Gorge isn’t a piece of junk, exactly, it’s certainly junk-adjacent enough to fit that description.  

Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy: I don’t have much to add about this movie that Keith didn’t already say in his recent newsletter entitled “Looking for Comedies in the Streaming World.” What we have here is a depressing example of a successful franchise that’s moved into an era where its entire genre, the rom-com, is no longer viable as a theatrical moneymaker. And per Keith’s remarks, that’s not a slight on this film at all, which gives fans of the Bridget Jones character all the cringe-y fun they might desire. Which leads me to…

Rebel Ridge: … our reason for optimism. I loved this film, which continues Jeremy Saulnier’s tradition of smart, hard-hitting, thematically loaded thrillers like Blue Ruin and Green Room. There’s no existing market in the theatrical world for a mid-budget genre film, so I can only feel grateful that Netflix bankrolled Rebel Ridge and gave it a home that it otherwise might not have had. If Hollywood studios are limiting themselves mostly to big blockbuster swings and avoiding whole genres entirely—there was plenty of talk last month about The Naked Gun being the savior (or death knell) of screen comedy—we must be grateful for what we get. 

But how grateful, Myles? Does it seem like thin gruel to you? How do you see awards-quality TV movies shaking out in the future? 

MM: Scott, your objections to original streaming films’ intangibility are well taken, and I often wonder how filmmakers of Netflix films that haven’t been rescued by the Criterions of the world (e.g. Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Tick, Tick…Boom!) feel about the illusory nature of streaming distribution. It seems like such a boon, with hundreds of millions of people having access to your art: in a Deadline story, Nonnas producer Gigi Pritzker is “delighted that Nonnas has found a great home at Netflix, where it will be widely seen and enjoyed.” But accessibility and presence are two very different things, culturally, and the algorithms dictating these platforms seem disinterested in the “archeology” of their libraries.

What’s compelling to me about the evolution of the TV Movie category is how it’s threading a very particular needle. Ultimately, if Netflix views one of their films as an “awards contender,” they’re going to give it an Oscars qualifying run, thus taking it out of Emmy contention (hence why KPop Demon Hunters is positioning #1 hit “Golden” as an Oscars frontrunner). This means that the films that end up at the Emmys have to have been underestimated in one way or another: maybe it’s a matter of genre films, a historically tough sell with the Academy, or maybe it’s cases like Fire Island where a smaller-scale queer story (originally intended as a Quibi series, of all things) would have gotten relegated to minor and marginalized award shows within the film side of things. Either way, at some point Netflix had to decide that a film wasn’t Awards-quality, within the siloed space of film at least.

In this way, we return to my interest back in 2022: what kind of stigma is attached to a film that appears only in a streaming context? The Emmys, like all awards, are a space of recognition, where in this case films occupying this liminal space between prestige and populism can be recognized for their contributions to art and culture. As you point out, Scott, this year it feels like the Emmys have recognized a film that speaks to the very real potential for streaming to fill a gap in how traditional studios are operating. But do we feel the same way about last year’s winner Quiz Lady, a movie that I watched and haven’t thought about for a single second since? And will we feel the same way when Happy Gilmore 2 vies for a nomination next year?

I raise these questions here because I do think that how critics write about these films shapes their cultural footprint. I don’t cover a lot of streaming films myself, what with Episodic Medium being so TV-focused, but I do wonder: while The Reveal’s paired weekly reviews creates limited space, how often y’all consider but ultimately decide not to review streaming releases? Do you need to watch a movie to determine whether it’s a hearty-enough meal for the newsletter, or is it something about how a film presents itself that gives it space within the critical consciousness?

Keith Phipps, The Reveal: Honestly, I wish we had time to watch everything for review consideration before we assign films review space. But we’re a two-person operation, so basically we review everything we see. And though this might not be fair, we tend to turn to streaming movies when the theatrical choices are either distressingly thin or simply unappealing—except on the occasion when there appears to be an obvious standout like Rebel Ridge. Is that snobbery on our part? Maybe a little. Though, I should add that I like The Gorge more than Scott. I am a man of the monster-movie people.

Ultimately, though, I think we’re in a transitional period when it comes to streaming movies. Or at least I hope we are. I’d rather see a movie like The Gorge in the theater (especially if the film had been given a slightly more generous budget) and it baffles me that the terrific Predator prequel Prey has only played on Hulu. Also, I suspect Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy’s success elsewhere suggests it could have found a place in American multiplexes if given the chance. (That it’s actually quite good probably wouldn’t have hurt). 

Ultimately I suspect, as I argued in The Ringer earlier this year, TV movies will start to look more like Mountainhead. More like TV movies, in other words, where the smaller scale can be an asset not a detriment. There’s a long, mostly honorable tradition of feature-length films tailor-made for living rooms rather than movie houses. The streaming world’s blockbuster ambitions have introduced a kind of category confusion but it often feels like TV movies are starting to revert to type. Last week I watched Thursday Murder Club on Netflix, a film with big-name stars (Mirren! Brosnan! Imrie! Kingsley! Ackie!) that would feel wildly out of place playing on a big screen. And it was exactly the cozy mystery my family and I were hoping it would be. Well, it could have been a little better, but it was good enough.

I’m not sure I answered your question, however. So let me throw it back to you in a slightly modified form: Whose responsibility should reviewing these movies be? The Reveal’s or Episodic Medium’s? (Please note: this determination is not binding. You can review whatever you want and so can we.)

MM: “Can’t someone else do it?”

But seriously, it’s fitting we end in the existential reality of what streaming movies are. Ever since Hulu proclaimed “movies are TV now too” in an ad campaign I can’t find a copy of, we’ve been reminded at how streaming platforms risk flattening the distinction between forms. The TV Movie category at the Emmys is but one battleground in a larger discursive war over media specificity.

In true newsletter spirit, though, I turn this question to our respective audiences: how do you think about streaming movies in terms of your cultural consumption? Does tuning into A Simple Favor 2 on Amazon feel like watching a movie at home, or does the process seem more like the ritualized viewing of television? Or has it become its own third thing, forever doomed to exist in limbo between formats?

Thanks to everyone for reading. If this arrived in your inbox twice, we both thank you for your patience and your patronage of both newsletters.