The success of House of Cards has encouraged Netflix to expand its original content offerings. And next up for the streaming content service will be a sci-fi series called Sense8.
The show is being developed under the guidance of the Wachowskis, who are responsible for smash hits like the Matrix series of films, V for Vendetta, Cloud Atlas and Speed Racer, as well as J. Michael Straczynski, the prolific TV and comic book writer who gave us Babylon Five and had a long run on Spider-Man
The series marks the first entry into TV for the Wachowskis.
With Sense8, Netflix Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos explained that the Wachowskis and Straczynski are some of the most popular content creators on the Netflix Instant platform. “Their incredible creations are favorites of Netflix members globally and we can’t wait to bring Sense8 to life.”
Sense8 is being produced by Georgeville Television in association with Studio JMS. According to the release, the series is “a gripping global tale of minds linked and souls hunted.” It will debut on Netflix in 2014.
But Babylon 5 isn’t on Netflix streaming?
I know, right? Where’s the love?
Yeah, didn’t it used to be available there? I could have sworn they used to have B5 🙁
B5 was at one time on Netflix streaming. I also remember that a little over a year ago a whole slew of contracts that Netflix had with numerous studios allowing them to show their TV shows and movies had expired. It was rumored at that time that Netflix was going to go under, but through the use of original programming, as well as the signing of new contracts with other studios (Disney for example) allowed them to stay afloat.
Personally I would love to see them bring back all of the B5 related content. I’m not holding my breath however which is why I’m converting all of my B5 shows and movies into digital files for my AppleTV and various iDevices will be able to handle.
Netflix’s license for Babylon 5 expired about 2 years ago, but at the time, all of the episodes were still available on thewb.com, and I think Season 1 and Season 2 were still on Hulu, including the original version of the pilot.
I haven’t checked to see if those streaming options are still available since sometime last year, though.
Yeah I’m not sure on that either… has it really been 2 years now… sigh.
To be honest while annoying for the franchise that it isn’t easily accessible, personally it doesn’t impact me too much since I can pop in my dvds of the main series, movies and Crusade. 🙂
What chaps my ass is that there are 212 different channels you can find airing reruns of Star Trek, while Babylon 5 hasn’t seen syndication in over a decade. How is that fair?
Yeah,
While B5 might not be a great example one thing I never understood with a certain networkis even when they ran syndication of classic sci-fi shows they would have like an entire afternoon each week dedicated to a single show…
There is more than enough older genre content out there to schedule an ep a week or a night and rotate through the stuff slower but get more shows out there…
especially in our modern dvr world where airing a classic at 2am doesn’t mean no one will see it.