'Erased' TV Originals Return to Streaming, Nobody Cares
Media silence about 'Gordita' and 'Amy Schumer' on Hulu.
If you’ve read my big article on the hysteria surrounding the removal of streaming originals from platforms like HBO Max, then you should know that I’ve been highly critical of the popular ‘erasure’ narrative. In my mind, what studios have been doing to their shows has been vastly overblown and misrepresented by the media, who created the impression that any removal is tantamount to being erased from existence, while overlooking the fact that a removed streaming original actually has a pretty good chance of eventually returning to streaming or another format.
Case in point: while browsing the new Hulu (on Disney Plus) platform, I discovered two erased series that have popped back into existence.
The first is The Gordita Chronicles, the HBO Max ‘original’ that following its removal could still be seen while taking a flight via American Airlines or Jet Blue. After being in limbo for 15 months, the family comedy returned to Streaming on both Tubi and Hulu towards the end of March. Though interestingly enough, the Hulu listing was initially unreported - in a March 26 exclusive article, Deadline claimed that Tubi would be the show’s “exclusive AVOD home” while not mentioning Hulu at all. The latter platform is generally considered SVOD, though it has a key AVOD component (meaning you can select episodes of shows to watch with advertising).
Subsequently, showrunner Claudia Forestieri confirmed the Hulu release on Twitter, and a few articles followed, such as one in Popsugar. But the overall coverage of the show’s return didn’t seem to be anywhere as big as that of its ‘erasure,’ even though producer Sony had clearly negotiated new distribution deals for the series that are now bound to make it considerably more accessible than it ever was on Max.
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Yet whereas the return of Gordita was deemed worthy of coverage by at least one major media publication, that of Inside Amy Schumer, which has been covertly available in its entirety on Hulu since at least mid-April, has not. (This in turn means one can now access it via the Hulu hub on Disney Plus as well. Also, the series still remains to this day 95% available on the Amazon version of Paramount Plus.)*
* Correction: An earlier version of this article stated that it had been there since at least the end of February, but this was only an estimate. I can confirm that I definitely noticed it there in April 2024.
This is really weird, given that it seemed like a big deal among prominent TV critics from major outlets like EW, Deadline and Hollywood Reporter, when the Comedy Central sketch comedy series was pulled from Paramount Plus back at the end of June 2023. Just look at the following Google Search headlines:
None of these outlets have published anything about the show’s new home on Hulu, even as Schumer’s (recently cancelled) Original Hulu series Life and Beth generated multiple headlines and received critical accolades in the past year.
Perhaps this is because nobody from Paramount bothered with an official press release. Heck, Amy Schumer herself hasn’t mentioned anything on her Twitter (though to be fair, that account thus far hasn’t been updated since the end of 2023).
Why though? Do the people involved not want to spend anything on advertising? Or is stealth-dropping a previously removed series now just a general strategy?
Even then though, you’d think somebody in the TV press would’ve noticed. And maybe some people have, but don’t care to report about it, as that would undermine the nar-rative they’ve been pushing the year before. Or maybe it’s just not deemed interesting enough. Meaning, I’m certain that a lot of outlets only ‘care’ about such series to the extent that it helps attract attention and couldn’t give a crap about their actual status. After all, an outrage-inducing headline about a streaming company erasing a series to save on residuals for actors is bound to get more clicks than one about a show finding a new home and becoming potentially more profitable for everyone.
But I honestly have no idea.
Whatever the case is, the lack of coverage for such returning shows maintains the impression that they are ‘erased’ and in that sense, misleads the public by not keeping it informed.* Viewers deserve to know that pulled streaming content is not so much vanishing into the void, as moving to a new home after some time in limbo.
*Some commentators even went so far as to falsely equate such removals to the burning of film negatives by film studios in the days before preservation. In actuality, the closest comparison might be television cancellation. A show is discontinued, and soon stops airing on a channel altogether but might reappear elsewhere, such as on basic cable, a few years after the fact. In such cases, the asset is not destroyed but repurposed.
Indeed, I wouldn’t be surprised if there are other series that have stealthily made it back to another platform or format since the ‘Great Streaming Purge of 2023.’
One just hopes that the new landlords alongside the press will do a better job of helping us find them.
Bonus Material: "Furiosa" Black-and-Chrome Standalone Release on 08/13The alternate ‘tinted black-and-white’ version of Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2024, dir. George Miller) is getting a standalone video release today via digital retailers, like Amazon and Apple TV, meaning one won’t have to wait for a box set after all to see it.
But what about you?What do you think about shows now moving around different platforms and Netflix now showing what used to be exclusive content? Has there been a show you know of that has returned but has not been reported on? Is there an original series or movie from one streamer that you only checked out after it arrived on another one? Please,
I still feel comfortable falling on the alarmist side of the line. Sure, content could pop up elsewhere, and plenty has, but will it always? If it does, in what format - I'm thinking about how Disney+ has the notoriously bad Buffy remaster and no way to access the unedited 4:3 version (not that Buffy is a show that disappeared, or anything). Maybe a better example would be how music rights impact the ability to license and stream content (with plenty of replacement tracks being the path forward). And then, in Canada (or any place outside of the US), there's the added layer of 'how/when will it arrive here'? Critics have been raving about how we can finally stream Homicide Life on the Street (a show very impacted by music licensing), but Peacock is not available here, so the show is still unavailable here.
I also saw this, this morning, and was thinking of this question: https://x.com/shawnwrites/status/1827804048327848302
Alas journalism in its purest form no longer exists in such outlets. They would rather induce rage or fear in readers than keep them informed.