After last week's premiere of Game of Thrones season 7, audiences certainly came back hungry for more. The first episode of the season was a bit heavy on exposition, but it's clear now that it was merely setting up for an action-packed season. Who were the winners and who were the losers in this week's episode?
It just wouldn't be the San Diego Comic-Con without Marvel there to make a bunch of announcements about its ongoing movie and TV series. This year, that means trailers and news about the extended Marvel Cinematic Universe and the various franchises tying-in with the Avengers, as well as the various superhero TV series Marvel has going. We've already covered the new Defenders trailer, but here we'll run down everything else Marvel revealed.
The San Diego Comic-Con is now in full swing this weekend, and Marvel was there to show off the newest trailer for The Defenders just a few weeks before its debut on Netflix. While fans have been enjoying the Marvel Cinematic Universe's ultimate team-up movies, The Avengers, for years now, The Defenders will finally bring together the four heroes of Netflix's stand-alone series: Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and Iron Fist.
YouTube TV is now available in 10 additional markets, representing a big uptick in the number of still-limited regions in which the livestreaming television service is available. YouTube TV is, in case you hadn't heard, Google's own alternative to DirecTV NOW, Hulu Live TV, PlayStation Vue, and Sling TV, giving consumers access to (in this case) a skinny bundle of channels delivered straight over the Internet.
HBO has plans for a new series, and it may prove to be controversial. The network will be home to a new series called 'Confederate' from the team behind 'Game of Thrones,' and it'll focus on an alt-history timeline in which the confederacy was to some degree successful, slavery still exists, and the US is a divided nation with a demilitarized zone along the Mason-Dixon line.
Beware: everything that follows after this paragraph contains thorough and unrelenting spoilers for last night's Game of Thrones episode, “Dragonstone.” If you haven't watched it yet and you don't want the story spoiled for you, do not read on. You have been warned.
It's that exciting time of the year when Netflix begins revealing when its biggest and baddest shows will be returning with new episodes. We recently heard that BoJack Horseman's next season will be arriving the end of next month, and we know the coveted second season of fan-favorite 'Stranger Things' will be back right before Halloween. What about Narcos? That, too, is readily inbound.
Remember back in June when it was discovered that Netflix would be removing Futurama from its catalog at the beginning of July? That takedown has come and gone, making a lot of Futurama fans angry in the process, but now we know why it happened in the first place. Fox has penned an agreement with Hulu that will see the streaming service become the exclusive platform for its animated shows.
It's been nearly a year since Netflix shared its first details on the second season of Stranger Things. Throughout the past 10 months, we've been subjected to occasional teases with no real talk of an actual premiere date. We finally have that launch date we've been waiting so long for, and with it, we're seeing Netflix stick to the original Halloween commitment it made during the Super Bowl.
Can't wait for the return of BoJack Horseman? The show's team has revealed that it will be returning on September 8, giving Netflix subscribers access to the entirety of season four. The animated show (one decidedly for adults) has been a big hit for Netflix, surviving the recent round of show cancellations the company dished out. Critics have had good things to say about the show, and we're all hoping that quality will persist through its fourth season.
Livestreaming television service PlayStation Vue has dropped its cheapest television plan, making $40 the new lowest price point at which you can get the service. This is compared to the previous pricing tiers, which started at $30/month for the 'Slim' channel package. The change, at least according to a Sony spokesperson, was part of the plan all along.
Some days are worse for television ratings than others, and TV networks know this. Nielsen stands chief among data companies when it comes to TV ratings, and so it is perhaps no surprise that networks have found a way to game the system. As it turns out, some networks are deliberately misspelling the names of their shows on days they know are likely to have poor ratings, helping preserve their ratings and their public image.
