Fun
Frisky
Nostalgic
Intense
Adventurous
Choked Up
Curious
Romantic
Weird
As far as problems go, too much entertaining TV is a good one to have. From the ebullient charms of NBC’s The Good Place to the acerbic wit of You’re the Worst, DVRs are working overtime to keep up with the surge of superior content. Along with cooling temperatures and millions of people being deceived into believing apple picking is a fun way to spend an afternoon, October is known for the new fall television season. This is Us? Back for Season 2! The Big Bang Theory? The CBS sitcom returned for Season 145 last week! As network and cable television continues to thrive, Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon have also established themselves as viable destinations for the very best in Peak TV.
The influx of top-notch programing makes it easy for a relatively new venue for original content to get lost in the shuffle, but YouTube Red’s upcoming slate of originals offer a mix of intriguing new programs that could help to transform the service into the next streaming darling.
YouTube Red’s newest batch of shows certainly isn’t lacking in name recognition. The streaming site is broadening its mainstream appeal with the Dwayne Johnson-produced Lifeline, a sci-fi time-travel series starring Friday Night Light standout Zach Gilford, and the Dan Harmon-produced Good Game, a comedy about a ragtag group of gamers who form an eSports team (which is now available to stream). Sure, the big names help to attract more clicks, but the issue is audience sustainability not brand awareness. If someone hasn’t heard of YouTube they are almost certainly a newly-arrived time traveler from the past — that’s just Common Sense 101, friend — but YouTube Red only officially launched in October of 2015, so recognizable names with built-in fanbases and a proven track record of producing quality content is paramount if the company hopes to join the ranks of the streaming goliaths and become associated with original content. While Lifeline and Good Game delivered promising pilots, it’s the platform’s upcoming comedies, Ryan Hansen Solves Crimes on Television* and Rob Huebel’s Do You Want to See a Dead Body?, that break through to provide the streaming service with two, distinctly hilarious, wholly original must-stream shows.
Ryan Hansen Solves Crimes on Television* is just so much silly, silly, stupid fun. Also starring Orange is the New Black star Samira Wiley, the off-kilter sitcom is a super meta series that deftly skewers the buddy cop genre, Hollywood, and, most importantly, the fact that the name YouTube Red sounds eerily similar to a popular porn site. From director Rawson Marshall Thurber, the half-hour comedy centers on Hansen joining a task force that pairs Hollywood actors with homicide detectives. The show is even more ridiculous than its description, and I mean that in the best way possible.
Hansen radiates charisma as he portrays a heightened version of himself, and Wiley is predictably pitch-perfect as his no-nonsense partner. The two leads share a breezy chemistry as the show gives two perennial scene-stealers a chance to shine. The series premieres on YouTube Red on October 25th.
Comedy virtuoso Rob Huebel has one question for you: Do you want to see a dead body? If you answered no, you’re not alone. Many of Huebel’s celebrity friends — including Adam Scott, Judy Greer, and Terry Crews, among others — are bamboozled into reluctantly following Rob on a delightfully deranged journey that generally devolves into unpredictable mayhem in the aptly titled Do You Want to See a Dead Body? Based on the Funny or Die series of shorts, the eight-episode comedy is the perfect fit for Huebel, a seasoned improviser who possesses an inherent knack for making every scene he’s in just a little bit funnier.
The series is just as absurd as the name suggests. Produced by Abominable Pictures and Funny or Die, the show has an audacious, Adult Swim-esque feel to it that fans of sketch, improv, and offbeat comedy in general will appreciate. Do You Want to See a Dead Body? is set to premiere on October 18.
One advantage YouTube Red will always have over other streaming sites looking to attract a larger audience is brand recognition. For some subscribers, original content is just the prize inside the Cracker Jack box as they fork over the $9.99 monthly fee for ad-free content and the ability to watch videos offline, but you can’t deny that people are watching. As The Verve reported back in June, the first season of YouTube Red Originals garnered just under 250 million views. While many of those clicks came from viewers under the age of 18, the variety offered by Red’s new programming should help to attract an older audience.
When you factor in the expansion of YouTube TV and the company’s plan to invest hundreds of millions of dollars over the next year to produce more than 40 new original shows and movies — including ad-supported programming from A-listers like Kevin Hart and Ellen DeGeneres and the hotly-anticipated Karate Kid sequel series — you don’t need Ryan Hansen’s cracker-jack detective skills to deduce that the streaming service could very well be on its way to becoming the next streaming darling.
