At the beginning of the trailer for Amazon Prime’s Homecoming Julia Roberts drop a line that perfectly sums up my opinion on most of television.

“I just couldn’t get into it.”

With an avalanche of scripted shows being produced to fill the libraries on an ever-expanding universe of streaming services, there is bound to be some trash. A lot of trash.

Not only is it getting harder and harder to find those diamonds in the rough like Mr. Mercedes or Manhunt: Unibomber but the amount of time wasted on unearthing something of consistent vision and integrity is also increasing.

The volume goes up, the quality goes down and we, the viewers, are left chasing the Breaking Bad dragon only to get a bad hit of Netflix political messaging around episode 6.

I will give Netflix a lot of credit for being upfront with their agenda in The Punisher. That saved me at least a few hours right there.

However, Amazon Seems Different (Maybe?)

I’ve only seen one Amazon show: Bosch.

It’s everything that Netflix, Showtime and HBO are not these days.

It’s deliberate. It’s conventional. There is no writer’s room bag of tricks. There is no signaling. The characters are familiar and normal yet interesting and idiosyncratic — you know, more like the real world.

Maybe because the show is based on a long string of best-selling novels or maybe it’s something that carries across Amazon’s entire lineup.

In either case, Amazon is 1 for 1 in my book. And that pretty damn good these days.

The show itself seems like another “mystery box” type situation. Which can go either way: the success of a Jacob’s Ladder or the mind-numbing tomfuckery of a Lost.

I’m going to give it a chance though. It’s from the Mr. Robot guy, who has a pretty bleak view of the world. And as we all know, sometimes bleak is better.

Homecoming drops on Prime November 2.

Side Note, Is She Bathing In Virgins’ Blood?

Well, Well, Well…