Blockbuster Video. For 90’s and 2000’s kids, that name is a major source of nostalgia. Before video-on-demand, Netflix, Prime Video, and Disney+, if you missed a movie in theaters, you had your nearest Blockbuster store to save you. Not just that, you could catch up on old classics your parents and grandparents grew up on, thanks to Blockbuster. But as of 2019, the once-biggest movie rental service provider has just one store left in Bend, Oregon. Apart from the Great Recession of 2008, one of the biggest external sources for Blockbuster’s decline, was Netflix’s mail-order service. Customers could get DVDs delivered home through Netflix and they no longer wanted to go over to Blockbuster outlets. Of course, poor leadership is a big reason why the company eventually went bankrupt in 2010, but that also largely involved Netflix. As this Forbes article describes in detail, it was Netflix’s subscription model which made customers move away in flocks from Blockbuster. That’s more a fault of Blockbuster than a shrewd move on the part of Netflix though. No one likes to pay late fees, but they were a large source of income for Blockbuster. Subscribe to Netflix and that headache would be gone!
Corporate competition is never fair play if you ask me, or rather the employees who lose a job in the competition. But as long as it was about outplaying each other based on policies and winning over customers, it felt above board. Now, making money by invoking people’s nostalgia about the company you had an almost direct role in bankrupting feels a little less virtuous. Named after the company, the series Blockbuster follows the lives of the employees of the last surviving Blockbuster store. It’s reimagined to be located in a nondescript strip mall in suburban Michigan. The employees are Timmy (Randall Park), Eliza (Melissa Fumero), Carlos (Tyler Alvarez), Hannah (Madeleine Arthur), Kayla (Kamaia Fairburn), and Connie (Olga Merediz). The other important character is Percy (J.B. Smoove), Kayla’s father, who owns a party shop in the strip mall and is the landowner of the mall as well. Showrunner Vanessa Ramos, who has been a writer on noteworthy network comedies like Brooklyn Nine-Nine and Superstore, says the Netflix executives are aware of the irony about Netflix hosting Blockbuster, and that they were on board the idea of addressing Netflix’s role in the plight of the central characters.
But I still have a bone to pick with Netflix. Apart from maybe two memorable digs at Netflix, Blockbuster is pretty toothless when it comes to talking about the streamer. And not just that, there’s enough favorable talk about it too! There’s an entire episode where Eliza gets stuck in overtime work and complains about how she could be binge-watching a K-Drama on Netflix instead of being stuck at work. As a reflection of our lifestyle and priorities in the hustle culture, it’s a great bit, but it starts feeling self-indulgent of Netflix when all the other employees have to say in response is how great the show is and how they have all already watched it! None of them, not even the manager pointed out that this could be their way of getting back at Netflix by prioritizing their store (I think that fits the bill when it comes to the kind of gags on the show). It is irritating that Blockbuster has so many episodes focused on the strategies that help small businesses flourish, but most of them don’t depict characters hating on capitalism and big corporations, not even the manager Timmy!
