How ‘House of Cards’ Led the Way for New Television

Kevin+Spacey+as+Frank+Underwood

whybother.ie

Kevin Spacey as Frank Underwood

Robert Cafarelli, Entertainment Editor

On February 27th, the acclaimed Netflix original series House of Cards returns for yet another season. After a year of being away, there were rumors as to whether there would ever be another season, and after Emmy and Golden Globe wins, the conniving Frank Underwood is back for more.

 

House of Cards is the show that started most of the wave of a full streaming series, utilizing the popular method of “binge watching” when you watch the whole season one episode after the other. With Netflix already having shows like Breaking Bad and other online channel services like HBO Go being around to let fans watch a season the whole way through, there was already a place for people to enjoy a season all at once. There was hardly any wait after the phenomenon caught on, that Netflix decided to jump on and release a series all at once. They had dabbled at first with the crime-comedy show Lilyhammer, but a huge hit hadn’t happened until they released the first season of House of Cards. The Academy Award nominated writer of The Ides of March,Beau Willimon, combined with Oscar winning actor Kevin Spacey, and Oscar nominated director of Fight Club and The Social Network David Fincher was a combination for success. The show continues on to this day with the sleek and powerful style of David Fincher (after his direction of the first two episodes), the fast, witty, and politically smart dialogue of Willimon. It is captured perfectly filled with all the southern drawl and breaking of the Fourth Wall by Kevin Spacey as Underwood.

 

Since last season, the world of fully released seasons of TV shows have more than doubled compared to the break between seasons one and two. The show Orange is the New Black premiered its second season to be given 10 Emmy nominations, 3 Golden Globe nominations, and a huge following of fans and discussion between them. The show Marco Polo was added with a new season already being renewed, and the weird Animated-Adult BoJack Horseman premiered and now already garnering a cult following. Netflix has future plans as well. It wants to finish its horror series Hemlock Grove, and premiere a series for Marvel’s Daredevil, a new reboot of kids show Inspector Gadget, and a series based off of the cult-comedy of the same name Wet Hot American Summer, is planned to be available to stream in 2015. More superhero shows are in the future line up like Luke Cage, a talk show by host Chelsea Handler is slated to start in 2016, and TV show adaptations of A Series of Unfortunate Events and Legend of Zelda have yet to have a release date announced.

 

With this new season coming after all this phenomenal news and future plans for Netflix, this makes House of Cards not only stay a staple and precedent in the world of released in one day programming, but it makes us more interested in what could happen next. This is similar to being around for The Sopranos in its prime and creating change for drama television, or having Friends grow with sitcoms reviving and becoming more popular and notable. It’s part of TV history, and is being released via a website. It can only get more interesting.

 

House of Cards Season 3 is being released on Netflix on February 27th.