Earlier this year, a New Yorker profile of Netflix executive Bela Bajaria introduced a useful new term to describe the kind of shows Netflix is now trying to make: “Gourmet cheeseburgers.”
Gourmet cheeseburgers (as defined by Bajaria and Jinny Howe, the Netflix drama series VP who coined the term), are shows that are “premium and commercial at the same time.” The article cites the historical romance series Bridgerton as an exemplary gourmet cheeseburger. It has lavish period costumes, racy sex scenes, and—thanks to the commercial instincts of executive producer Shonda Rhimes—the crowd-pleasing spirit of Grey’s Anatomy. Gourmet cheeseburgers have high production value and could be enjoyed by people who primarily watch broadcast dramas. Most importantly, they’re fun.
As Netflix continues to move toward cheesy, beefy fare like The Night Agent—the surprise action thriller smash that wouldn’t have been out of place on Fox’s fall 2005 broadcast lineup—other streaming services are following suit. And one streamer in particular is doing the “premium” part of gourmet cheeseburgers even better than Netflix. It has two terrific shows that could be on NBC if they had fewer F-words.
I’m talking about Peacock, the formerly also-ran streaming service that this year has emerged as the source for broadcast network-style dramas with a high-end twist (admittedly with a tiny sample size on a much smaller scale than Netflix). And the juiciest, most artisan-bunned cheeseburger on TV right now is Peacock’s Poker Face.
The amateur detective dramedy became a bona fide hit when it premiered in January and has since been renewed for Season 2. Poker Face is a gourmet cheeseburger because it takes an ancient broadcast TV form—the “howcatchem” procedural popularized by Columbo in the 1970s—and updates it with prestige flourishes for the streaming era.
Poker Face follows a woman named Charlie (Natasha Lyonne), who has a preternatural gift for being able to tell when people are lying. She travels around the country getting mixed up in crimes. She always knows who did it, but not why or how, and she cannot rest until she figures it out. Every episode has an almost entirely new cast, with recognizable stars like Adrien Brody, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and Hong Chau making guest appearances. It was created by Rian Johnson, an Oscar-nominated writer-director who understands how to do crowd-pleasing prestige better than anybody (Glass Onion? That’s a gourmet cheeseburger).
It’s the kind of show you don’t have to watch every episode of to understand, because each episode has a self-contained story that follows a familiar, repeated template. That kind of purely episodic structure is anathema to the “ten hour movie” format that has been the de rigeur style for streaming dramas. But Poker Face is making procedurals cool again by figuring out a way to make them work on streaming. It blends premium cable sophistication with broadcast network entertainment value in a best-of-both-worlds way that no previous streaming drama had figured out, or even really attempted (shows like Lucifer and Evil that started out as broadcast series before moving to streaming don’t count). We’ll probably start seeing more shows like it, including ones on Netflix, now that programming executives know the model works.
For now, Peacock following up Poker Face with a new gourmet cheeseburger shows the streaming service is serious about making elevated but fun shows. The genre-bending dramedy Mrs. Davis is a smart variation on a different type of broadcast drama: The mystery box sci-fi show. You do need to watch every episode of these to understand them, but they’re supposed to be fun, and Mrs. Davis knows how to have a good time.
The series follows a nun named Sister Simone (Betty Gilpin) on her mission to destroy an all-powerful artificial intelligence called Mrs. Davis. It’s set in an alternate 2023 where humanity has essentially handed its free will over to a computer program, which provides them with gamified tasks to perform in exchange for “angel wings,” an essentially meaningless social media status symbol similar to a blue checkmark on Twitter. Simone is part of a small minority of people who refuse to engage with Mrs. Davis, but for some mysterious reason, the algorithm needs something from her. So they make a deal: if Simone completes the quest Mrs. Davis assigns her, the algorithm will turn itself off. Every episode follows a mission that’s part of that larger quest.
Mrs. Davis is in the tradition of beloved broadcast sci-fi mysteries like Fringe, Person of Interest, and the ultimate mystery box show, ABC’s Lost. Of note, Mrs. Davis was co-created by Lost showrunner Damon Lindelof, along with Tara Hernandez, a former writer for The Big Bang Theory, a show that was a decidedly non-gourmet cheeseburger but was made by people who really understood how to make popular entertainment. After Lost, Lindelof made two prestige mystery box shows for HBO, The Leftovers and Watchmen. Both shows are excellent, but they’re thematically and emotionally heavy. With Mrs. Davis, he’s back in the Lost mode of narrative complexity with accessible fun.
“Fun” is the operative word for both gourmet cheeseburgers generally and Peacock originals specifically. “I really want entertainment that truly entertains,” NBCUniversal Television and Streaming’s chairman of entertainment content Susan Rovner told Vulture recently. As head of Peacock’s programming, Rovner is the person picking the shows that are setting the streamer’s distinctive tone. She’s avoiding dark shows, and she wants all of her series—from reality shows like Love Island to dramas like Poker Face—to be fun and good. “For me, what all these shows have in common is that they entertain you, and we want to do them all in a premium, quality way,” she said.
Peacock can’t compete with Netflix on volume—it reached 20 million paid U.S. subscribers in the fourth quarter of 2022, while Netflix has more than 230 million all over the world—but it’s figuring out how to compete on quality. Poker Face and Mrs. Davis have Rotten Tomatoes critic scores of 99% and 89%, respectively. On Netflix’s list of its all-time top 10 English-language TV shows, which contains gourmet cheeseburgers like Bridgerton and Wednesday, there are zero shows with Rotten Tomatoes scores over 90%. Netflix’s most broadcast-style dramas—The Night Agent, The Recruit, and The Lincoln Lawyer—simply aren’t very good. They’re popular, and they don’t make you want to turn the TV off, but they don’t wow you. People aren’t writing articles about how cool and smart they are. They’re not going to get nominated for any Emmys (I predict Poker Face will get several nominations, but maybe not any wins).
Poker Face and Mrs. Davis are giving Peacock a distinct identity it previously lacked. It’s the streaming service that makes broadcast-style dramas with high production values and in-demand actors and producers. As streaming becomes more and more like traditional TV, these are the kinds of shows people will gravitate toward. Peacock has perhaps found a better formula for them than some of its competitors—Paramount+’s expensive strategy of relying on Taylor Sheridan and Star Trek for everything is not sustainable—and is currently beating Netflix at its own game. Maybe Peacock only has two critically adored, fun, broadcast-style dramas so far, but that’s two more than Netflix.
Liam Mathews is an editor at The Messenger. He’s also written for TV Guide, Entertainment Weekly, and Polygon. Follow him at @liamaathews.
For all the latest TV news, reviews, lists and features, follow @Paste_TV.