Photo Credit: Netflix/Media Rights Capital
Like Hulu, Amazon Prime doesn’t seem to be interested in matching Netflix move-for-move. Keep in mind, Amazon’s primary business is selling almost everything that can be purchased online. The Amazon original series are primarily an incentive for users to subscribe to Amazon Prime. While Amazon Prime also allows users to stream episodes of classic television series, the number of original series on this streaming service appears to be primed for an increase in the near future.
The Best Amazon Prime Original Series: Bosch
What’s wrong with an old-fashioned detective show like Bosch? Not a god-damned thing. Bosch doesn’t try to reinvent the wheel or shock its audience. It simply relies on strong storytelling and a very compelling turn by Titus Welliver as renegade LAPD detective Harry Bosch.
The second season of Bosch premiered last month, and the third season is already on the way.
The Best Amazon Prime Original Series: Mad Dogs
Since creating The Shield, Shawn Ryan has earned a reputation for producing amazing original dramas… that fail to get second seasons. Terriers, The Chicago Code, Last Resort, and now Mad Dogs are among Ryan’s shows that just couldn’t attract an audience large enough to sustain them. Trust us, that’s not an indictment of the quality of each series.
Mad Dogs was based on the British TV miniseries of the same name, and it followed a group of American tourists on vacation in Belize as they became unwillingly drawn into a web of murder and corruption. It stands complete at ten episodes, but there could have been even more…
The Best Amazon Prime Original Series: The Man in the High Castle
The Man in the High Castle has the distinction of being Amazon’s most ambitious original drama. It’s based on Philip K. Dick’s alternate history novel in which the Axis powers won World War II and they carved up the United States between them. Nearly twenty years later, a fragile resistance movement attempts to stay alive as Germany and Japan edge closer to war.
Perhaps the most impressive aspect of The Man in the High Castle is that it treats its leading antagonists as human beings instead of over-the-top villains. For example, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa’s Nobusuke Tagomi was a very sympathetic character despite his position in the Japanese occupation. Even Rufus Sewell’s SS Obergruppenführer John Smith has his vulnerable moments of humanity, which don’t negate his monstrous qualities.
The second season of The Man in the High Castle is expected to premiere later this year.
The Best Amazon Prime Original Series: Mozart in the Jungle
Mozart in the Jungle is one of the shows that would have probably never happened without the advent of Peak TV. Which cable or broadcast would have given the greenlight for a dramedy set against the backdrop of the New York Symphony? And yet, Mozart in the Jungle is one of the few Amazon original series to earn a third season pickup.
Gael Garcia Bernal’s performance as conductor Rodrigo De Souza has earned Mozart in the Jungle most of its critical praise, but the focus is also on Lola Kirke’s Hailey Rutledge as she attempts to find her place in the music world.
The Best Amazon Prime Original Series: Transparent
Photo Credit: Amazon Studios/Picrow
The reality of American television is that neither cable nor broadcast networks appear to be ready to showcase a series solely focused on a transgendered character. However, Amazon went ahead and did it anyway with Transparent, a comedy series about Jeffrey Tambor’s Mort as he becomes a woman named Maura, while her family reacts in various ways to this pretty significant change.
Unexpectedly, Transparent has become one of Amazon’s signature shows and it’s most critically acclaimed series. Transparent has also been renewed for a third season.
