It seems that a rumor that Apple TV+ would be moving away from the Netflix model of dumping every episode of a show out there immediately may have been wrong. At least with regards to Apple’s Dickinson series about the life of poet Emily Dickinson.
Star Hailee Steinfeld appeared on last night’s The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. She confirmed that all 10 episodes of the show will be available November 1 when Apple TV+ launches. “And it’s, in my opinion, very easy to binge,” she said.
Dickinson will play fast and loose with genres. There will be elements of drama, comedy and romance. The Apple TV+ show looks like it’s somewhat reminiscent of Baz Luhrmann’s film Romeo + Juliet, mixing historical and contemporary styles. It will feature songs by artists like Billie Eilish.
During her interview with Jimmy Fallon, Steinfeld said that the launch of Apple TV+ was very exciting. “It’s been so wonderful to see it all sort of come together. It’s actually finally happening,” she said. Fallon was driving the hype train, describing Apple TV+ as “changing the game.”
Steinfeld also talked about her role executive producing the Apple TV+ show, and the casting of rapper Wiz Khalifa in the role of death. “We wanted basically the coolest person ever,” she said.
She briefly talked about what it was like to work for Apple. “Oh yeah, it’s really incredible,” she said. “They are — I mean, it’s Apple. They’re pretty special.” In addition, she mentioned meeting Oprah at Apple’s star-studded Show Time event earlier this year.
Will Dickinson reflect Apple TV+ approach to releasing shows?
It will be interesting to see whether Dickinson will reflect Apple’s broader plans with releasing TV episodes. A Bloomberg report previously suggested Apple could release three episodes of a new show at once. It would then follow these with a new episode each week thereafter. The idea would be to stop subscribers from binging on shows and then cancelling their subscription straight after.
The fact that this was one of just a few questions asked by Fallon shows that Apple’s keen to clarify that point. Interestingly, Steinfeld phrased her answer in a way that suggests things might not always work like this.
“Is it like Netflix where, like, do you get all the episodes at once?” Fallon asked. “So, in our case, you will be able to get all 10 episodes of Dickson on November 1 when the platform launches,” Steinfeld responded.
Early on, Apple TV+ is going to have a shortage of content. While it’s undercutting rivals like Netflix and Disney+ with a $4.99 monthly fee, Apple TV+ will launch with just a small library of shows. If it added further constraints by limiting shows to one episode a week, that would diminish things even further. I expect that Apple will therefore debut its first shows in a Netflix-style dump. Later on, maybe it will switch to releasing them more gradually.
What approach do you think Apple should take to releasing shows? Let us know in the comments below.
