Kings and Screens
Families watching TV together will have the new animated series “All Hail King Julien” to dive into come Dec 19—if they’re Netflix subscribers. It’s a spinoff of the Madagascar franchise and part a deal announced last summer between Netflix and DreamWorks Animation . We spoke with DreamWorks’ head of TV Margie Cohn, who stepped into the role last summer to execute against the deal. What’s the advantage of going with Netflix for King Julien? DreamWorks has been looking to expand from just being a 2 or 3 feature-a-year company to a global entertainment company… Netflix is expanding globally, DreamWorks movies have been tremendously successful globally… so [we thought it could] help create a must-have Netflix desire for families around the globe. What can we expect of the programming? We have a couple of originals—“Dinotrux” for example—that we announced. Part of the original intent of the deal was to bring beloved characters to the small screen. Also, when you develop a movie it can often take between 3 years to 7 years, and there’s a lot of stuff that would maybe live on the screen for a minute and a half, and all these worlds that are created that really aren’t exploited to their fullest capacity. So there’s a lot of opportunity for us in TV to create separate worlds, take little side characters and build them into stars like we did with Julien. He was the spice of the Madagascar movies, and as the star of his own show he’s just given us so much comic opportunity. So you consider Netflix TV? Yeah, and so do kids. I think it’s adults who make the distinction. Kids just think about TV as something entertaining. It’s their word for content. They’re watching TV, whether it’s on their iPhones or iPads, through their gaming systems or watching linear television. For the full Q&A see Cablefax.com. – Kaylee Hultgren
“The Affair,” season finale, Sun, 10p, Showtime. Before we emphasize good will to all, let’s squeeze in some pre-holiday bed-hopping Golden Globe style. Family man Noah (GG nominee Dominic West) has succumbed to love, or extended lust, and left his wife and four kids, including their 17-year-old who is preggers. Meanwhile Noah’s objet d’amour, married waitress Alison ( Ruth Wilson, also a GG nominee), discovers her husband’s family only appears to have a solvent business, which makes it a good time to leave. Lurking in the background is a murder. Aw, that’s just foreplay, right? — “Who the (Bleep) Did I Marry?” season 5 premiere, Sat, 8p, Investigation Discovery. It’s not like we’re intentionally dumping on marriage by touting “The Affair” and this returning series about spouses gone bad. It’s only coincidence. Honest. In the season opener, a single mom falls madly for a co-worker. All is good for 6 years, but then she notices his irregular hours and later finds (wait for it) a gun. Darn, we wanted a happy ending. — “Outlander” yule log and marathon, Christmas, 2:45p, Starz. Is Starz milking its best series with a Scottish-themed yule log leading into a season 1 marathon at 3pm? Indubitably. Yet this mix of romance, sci-fi and history was one of the year’s best. Grab your holiday kilt. – Seth Arenstein
