Paramount Pictures Shuts Down Television Arm amid Plan to Lay Off 15% of Its U.S. Staff

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Paramount Television Studios, the television arm of Paramount Pictures that is best known for its work on several popular shows, including Reacher, The Haunting of Hill House, Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan, and, more recently, Time Bandits, will cease operations at the end of the week, according to a pair of memos that have been sent out to impacted employees from company executives, including one from Nicole Clemens (President, Paramount Television Studios) that explains how the closure is part of a restructuring plan, one that was prompted by what's been described as a challenging and transformative time in the industry.

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Yeah there was a story going around this weekend about how Max, Paramount both got really bad financial news over the weekend.


 
Maybe not everyone and their brother are cut out to start their own streaming service and distribution network.

Yeah, I get it, you want to vertically integrate and control/monetize every aspect of your product. But ... sometimes that just doesn't work out like you planned.
 
They were making a bunch of baffling decisions lately. Like you were only able to stream the olympics if you subscribed to max, and then bought the additional sports package only available to max subscribers.

I wanted to sign up for Discovery+ for years, except it is not available in my region to this day.
They killed off the Eurosport streaming service twice in the last two years only to restart it as new service.

Every decision maker at WB deserves everything that is coming to them. But unfortunately they probably all have their stock options and golden parachutes to safely land, so this again only screws the employees.
 
Paying for streaming wasn't bad when there were only a couple options (Netflix, Hulu). But since every studio decided to ala carte things and make their own streaming services people don't want to pay for it. Not when you can get cable for the same amount as paying for all these streaming services, then you only have 1 company/bill to deal with.

All these services, Disney+, Max, Paramount+, Peacock, etc etc are all doomed to fail.

Good riddance.
 
Maybe not everyone and their brother are cut out to start their own streaming service and distribution network.

Yeah, I get it, you want to vertically integrate and control/monetize every aspect of your product. But ... sometimes that just doesn't work out like you planned.
A lot of the problem comes down to the garbage content they are making. They are spending a fortune on original content that sucks ***. In the case of Paramount, most of the Star Trek shows haven't been well received and they are extremely expensive to make. Thanks to Alex Kurtzman, they are making shows no one asked for or wanted in the first place.
 
We've enjoyed Lower Decks and Strange New Worlds, but aside from that, ended up regretting any time spent watching anything else and I really have no interest in any of the things they say are in development. There moments when I'm more optimistic but the true test is if we rewatch something and those are the only two that have passed that test. For the most part though, I agree that, regardless of services, the self-made stuff is pure crap. I feel even more strongly about that with Netflix though but its true for all of them.
 
We've enjoyed Lower Decks and Strange New Worlds, but aside from that, ended up regretting any time spent watching anything else and I really have no interest in any of the things they say are in development. There moments when I'm more optimistic but the true test is if we rewatch something and those are the only two that have passed that test. For the most part though, I agree that, regardless of services, the self-made stuff is pure crap. I feel even more strongly about that with Netflix though but its true for all of them.
As an avid Star Trek fan, I'd rather see the franchise go into hibernation for a decade than see anymore Kurtzman Trek. Most of it has been absolutely painful to watch. The Kelvin Reboot movies sucked ***, Star Trek Discovery is bar none the worst Star Trek series ever produced by a long shot. Lower Deck's is surprisingly good and Strange New Worlds is a mixed bag at best. Some episodes are absolutely ****ing cringe inducing and others are rather excellent. Picard Seasons 1 and 2 are the equivalent of digital rectal cancer.

That leaves Lower Decks, Strange New Worlds and Season 3 of Picard as being the only watchable entries in the franchise since 2009. Even then, when Strange New Worlds sucks, it sucks harder than a $20 hooker on payday. The musical episode was horrible. The episode where Spock becomes human was basically modeled after a ****ing sitcom.

I can write a ****ing thesis about how mishandled the Spock character has been on SNW. That's left overs from SNW spawning from Discovery. Because its all JJ/Kurtzman Trek, everything but Lower Decks seems to have been negatively influenced by both the Kelvin movies and the aptly named STD. The few issues I have with Picard Season 3 inherit their problems from Ronald D. Moore, because Terry Matalas is too busy choking on the guy's cock and was an avid Battlestar Galactica fan.

What I think of that show is its own subject, but the out of place conflicts and super dark lighting all come from that influence. Despite this, Picard Season 3 came out pretty good for the most part. It would have been better without the BSG influence and without having inherited baggage from Seasons 1 and 2 of Picard. Under the circumstances and despite his knee level worshipping of Ron Moore, its probably as good as can be under those circumstances.

Every episode of Discovery is basically as painful as the Voyager Warp 10 episode. The best episodes of that show are only as good as Spock's Brain or the episode of TNG where Doctor Crusher has sex with a ghost.

As for Netflix and everyone else, its still a mixed bag. Netflix's movies and TV shows are generally awful but they've got a lot of cheaply made documentary shows that are decent if you are into that. Though some of them like "Making a Murderer" show clear bias and leave out a lot of information.

The whole industry has been making garbage for the better part of 10 years now. There are very few truly successful movies every year. There are very few successful TV shows. Franchises that once printed money are floundering and the companies behind them throw out every excuse they can while failing to acknowledge the real problem. Beyond being creatively bankrupt and out of steam, their attempts at social engineering, the infusion of identity politics and girl boss nonsense is causing them to bleed money and subscribers.

It's self-immolation. These services will self-destruct. Not only because of the **** content they've produced, but because people are sick and tired of being nickeled and dimed to death paying $10 here, and $15 there for a ton of streaming services with nothing good to watch on them. Having all of these essentially gives you an old school $100+ cable bill again. People are fed up and only subscribe to services that have something to offer.

At this point, I subscribe to Crunchyroll through Amazon Prime. It and Prime are all I have. Prime video comes with my Amazon Prime subscription (paid annually) and so I pay $7 a month for streaming services. I dropped all the rest because they have little to nothing to offer me.
 
SNW and Picard Season 3 are the only watchable ST in the last 10 years. In fact I recently rewatched Picard season 3.
 
I dont know why they didnt keep the previous pipe to netflix model: milk the material for a good while, then sell rights to netflix later on.
Oh well.
 
I liked Picard S3 but it was so weird after watching the first two seasons that I still doubt it actually happened. S2 essentially retconned S1 and S3 did the same to S2 and somehow there's a flimsy Q/Picard plotline that's supposed to tie it all together. If not for those issues I'd give more props to S3 but I'm just too annoyed by it all.
 
I never subscribed to their streaming service. I never really seen anything on there that I just had to watch. It is a shame that more people are losing their jobs though.
 
I liked Picard S3 but it was so weird after watching the first two seasons that I still doubt it actually happened. S2 essentially retconned S1 and S3 did the same to S2 and somehow there's a flimsy Q/Picard plotline that's supposed to tie it all together. If not for those issues I'd give more props to S3 but I'm just too annoyed by it all.
Picard Season 3 essentially ignores Seasons 1 & 2 of the show. It only makes some vague references to a couple of things that happened in the earlier seasons. Specifically, Captain Shaw references the Borg encounter in Season 2 as "that weird ****" and states those aren't the real Borg and the real Borg were still out there. This naturally foreshadows their actual return in the last two episodes of the show.

Riker and Troi make references to how much they hate living on that planet by themselves in the middle of nowhere referencing their appearance in the first season. They also reference their son dying, though only indirectly. I think a couple names are dropped here and there and of course, the Romulan chick appears in the first episode.

Lastly, Q's death from Season 2 is mentioned and Q more or less states that their understanding of time, space and causality is limited. Effectively hinting at the Q either not dying out, or dying out in an extremely distant future in which Q traveled back to visit Picard and that the Q seen from Season 2 isn't Q in the present.

All of this is Terry Matalas retconning trash decisions from the earlier seasons. This was necessary given the baggage he inherited by doing a third season of a **** show. Given the circumstances he did about as well as he could have. Despite my issues with Terry Matalas's hard on for Ronald D. Moore and Battle Star Galactasuck which deep throats whale cock, he's an obvious super fan of Star Trek and much of what he did was narratively necessary, it gave the fans what they wanted and even had some spite sprinkled in with it.
  • Troy and Riker talking about hating that planet can be taken as hatred of that particular narrative choice from the first season. Basically, they got the Jake Skywalker treatment for no reason. So their portrayal in Season 3 is more in line with their original appearances in TNG and in the TNG films.
  • Showing a real Constitution class starship in the fleet museum shows Discovery and SNW to be in an alternate timeline as their versions of the Constitution aren't being acknowledged.
  • The decision to kill off all the Q wasn't particularly popular, so that was basically undone.
  • Shaw and his comments about the Borg basically confirmed that the Borg we saw in Season 2 weren't the real Borg. (We knew that since they require consent for assimilation now. No, I'm not making that up.) This is further evidenced by the return of the actual Borg Queen from the TNG films and Voyager. (Such as she is.)
If the earlier seasons weren't trash, he wouldn't have had to waste so much time retconning garbage narrative decisions but it is what it is.
 
Picard Season 3 essentially ignores Seasons 1 & 2 of the show. It only makes some vague references to a couple of things that happened in the earlier seasons. Specifically, Captain Shaw references the Borg encounter in Season 2 as "that weird ****" and states those aren't the real Borg and the real Borg were still out there. This naturally foreshadows their actual return in the last two episodes of the show.

Riker and Troi make references to how much they hate living on that planet by themselves in the middle of nowhere referencing their appearance in the first season. They also reference their son dying, though only indirectly. I think a couple names are dropped here and there and of course, the Romulan chick appears in the first episode.

Lastly, Q's death from Season 2 is mentioned and Q more or less states that their understanding of time, space and causality is limited. Effectively hinting at the Q either not dying out, or dying out in an extremely distant future in which Q traveled back to visit Picard and that the Q seen from Season 2 isn't Q in the present.

All of this is Terry Matalas retconning trash decisions from the earlier seasons. This was necessary given the baggage he inherited by doing a third season of a **** show. Given the circumstances he did about as well as he could have. Despite my issues with Terry Matalas's hard on for Ronald D. Moore and Battle Star Galactasuck which deep throats whale cock, he's an obvious super fan of Star Trek and much of what he did was narratively necessary, it gave the fans what they wanted and even had some spite sprinkled in with it.
  • Troy and Riker talking about hating that planet can be taken as hatred of that particular narrative choice from the first season. Basically, they got the Jake Skywalker treatment for no reason. So their portrayal in Season 3 is more in line with their original appearances in TNG and in the TNG films.
  • Showing a real Constitution class starship in the fleet museum shows Discovery and SNW to be in an alternate timeline as their versions of the Constitution aren't being acknowledged.
  • The decision to kill off all the Q wasn't particularly popular, so that was basically undone.
  • Shaw and his comments about the Borg basically confirmed that the Borg we saw in Season 2 weren't the real Borg. (We knew that since they require consent for assimilation now. No, I'm not making that up.) This is further evidenced by the return of the actual Borg Queen from the TNG films and Voyager. (Such as she is.)
If the earlier seasons weren't trash, he wouldn't have had to waste so much time retconning garbage narrative decisions but it is what it is.
Season 3 was the ending to TNG the fans wanted/deserved.
 
Picard Season 3 essentially ignores Seasons 1 & 2 of the show. It only makes some vague references to a couple of things that happened in the earlier seasons.
I totally agree with you on everything you state I just think at that point they've should've done a name change (Picard whatever saga) like some shows do when they essentially abandon their previous seasons. We did re-watch a few episodes, which is usually a good thing but every time I think about S1+S2 I don't even want to try and re-watch S3. To be fair though, I'm feeling that way about a lot of stuff these days and choosing to sleep rather putting time into things I'm not that into any more.
 
I totally agree with you on everything you state I just think at that point they've should've done a name change (Picard whatever saga) like some shows do when they essentially abandon their previous seasons. We did re-watch a few episodes, which is usually a good thing but every time I think about S1+S2 I don't even want to try and re-watch S3. To be fair though, I'm feeling that way about a lot of stuff these days and choosing to sleep rather putting time into things I'm not that into any more.
Terry Matalas probably had no control over how the show was branded or marketed.
 
Supposedly this also affects Reacher S3 which is produced by Paramount. Hopefully they can find someone else to write the checks, I like that show.
 
Supposedly this also affects Reacher S3 which is produced by Paramount. Hopefully they can find someone else to write the checks, I like that show.
That's probably the only unfortunate casualty of that mess. I mean, SNW has decent episodes but I'm not convinced its worth saving either. It's also likely that S3 of SNW and Lower Decks Season 5 are already done. LD is confirmed to be on its final season. SNW and Reacher are at least financially successful, but as divisive as Kurtzman Trek has been its almost certainly lost more money than its made.
 
I don't know at what point in production Reacher season 3 is currently at but I think it's likely it will be finished assuming it is even affected by this. There is also the possibility that someone can come in and rescue Reacher even if it is on the chopping block.
 
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