I’ve been on the verge of canceling Paramount+ for quite some time now.
There are the political and Succession-y corporate conglomerate reasons, though as someone who loves great television deeply and covers it on Pop Thruster, I try as much as it is possible to keep such aspects at an arm’s length.
But then there are the “I can only pay for so many streaming services” aspect we all factor in with this age of an insane number of choices but with only so many good to great new TV shows to actually consume at any given point in time.
Landman brought me to the realm of Paramount+ to begin with. It’s a TV show that The Ringer crew, across podcasts like Bill Simmons’ flagship pod, The Watch, The Rewatchables and others obsess over, and so I signed on to see what the buzz is about.
The first season is great fun, its second much more mixed. I was also well aware that subscribing to Paramount+ opened up my viewing world to Taylor Sheridan’s offerings, Landman chief among them.
Therefore, in my early Paramount+ months I binged a bunch of the shows that are part of his empire, including Mayor of Kingstown and Tulsa King. In both of those cases, the first season was fun and intriguing and then… well, just less so after that. A common plight with many shows to be sure – but the better ones manage to keep the fun train a-rolling.
Note that I did not mention the highly popular Yellowstone or one of its offshoots, including 1883, 1923, or perhaps some other years that I may be missing. I watched four or five episodes of Yellowstone’s first season and decided that while it’s decent, it’s not really for me. Maybe I’m a prestige TV snob at heart, but the doings of John Dutton (Kevin Costner) and crew out in rural Montana just didn’t interest me all that much.
The one remaining Sheridan show that truly interests me is Lioness, a show that walks the line well between pulpy action and effective spy drama. Like Landman and some other Sheridan World shows, it’s the arguably overqualified cast that helps make it appointment viewing when it’s at its best. In this case, that means the likes of Zoe Saldaña, Nicole Kidman, Morgan Freeman, and Michael Kelly.
Now obviously there’s a lot of other stuff on Paramount+ beyond Taylor Sheridan shows, though they do seemingly take up a weirdly large chunk of that service’s content offerings.
Also important to keep in mind: Sheridan has already decided to bail on Paramount+ himself, in a $1 billion deal that will take his show running services to NBC Universal.
While I’ve fallen out of the universe of Star Trek movies and TV shows going about these days, I found myself pleasantly surprised by Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, which has a fun high school drama vibe layered on top of the Star Trek universe, with Holly Hunter clearly enjoying her role as Nahla Ake, in charge of the academy, and Paul Giamatti tearing through every scene he’s in as the Big Bad. However, upon learning that the show is a one-and-done after only its inaugural season, that leaves one less reason to stick around Paramount+ long term.
Then there’s stuff that I might have been more inclined to stick around for in the past: UFC stuff, Jersey Shore universe reality TV, something from the relatively paltry number of high-quality Showtime dramas available these days (I’m good without Dexter spin-offs in my life, thanks).
That leaves just one other show that I’m sticking around Paramount+ for at the moment: The Agency. Like Lioness, it’s a taut spy drama with an otherworldly cast (Michael Fassbender, Richard Gere, Jeffrey Wright, and John Magaro for starters) that leans into a chilly, paranoid vibe that I could not get enough of.
The show largely rests on the shoulders of Fassbender, who goes by the codename of Martian working out of the CIA’s London Station. Everything he does is interesting, calculating at each moment where the truth and lies intersect across his personal and professional lives.
Okay, so where does that leave things with me and my personal financial contribution to the billionaires (ugh) who own Paramount+?
We all have to make compromises in this life, and here’s my tiny one here: The Agency Season 2 kicks off on June 21st, with Lioness Season 3 premiering on August 2nd.
You’ve been put on notice, Paramount+. My current plan calls for me to turn off the money spigot come the fall, so get your act together.
Or tease me with a fast turnaround of more seasons of Lioness and The Agency. Either way.