By
October 16, 2020
Maybe you had Lightbox as part of your Spark account but didn’t check it out. Maybe you want to ditch satellite TV but are afraid you’ll miss out on movies or the next big binge series. Maybe you’ve been through everything on Netflix … yeah, right.
Whatever the reason, if you’ve not thought about Neon TV, this is the time, especially since Neon and Lightbox merged their content to create a platform that is a genuine rival to Netflix.
Sky’s decision to buy Lightbox – and its 130,000 subscribers – means the new Neon has the best of non-Netflix content you can lay your eyeballs on. HBO and Hulu are two powerhouse networks in the United States and the combined offering – available at $9.95 for Spark customers or $13.95 otherwise – is as good as you can get (if not better) than on Netflix.
Here's a breakdown of what TV series Neon has to offer:
Boxset Classics
During our first Covid-19 lockdown from March to May plenty of people took the time to rewatch classics. If that’s your go – or maybe you missed some of these the first time around – then Neon has everything (and don’t argue, we mean EVERYTHING) you could wish for.
The line-up of enduring cultural beacons is unrivalled: The Sopranos, Breaking Bad, The Americans, Game of Thrones, The Wire, West Wing, Dexter, Justified. You could entertain yourself until we have a Covid-19 vaccine.
On the comedy side it’s equally compelling. All of Seinfeld? Check. All of the Veep? Check (an enduringly relevant series). Sex And The City? Check.
Homegrown gems such as Outrageous Fortune and Westside are there too.
The best of what’s new(ish)
If the idea of watching six, seven or eight seasons of classic shows is overwhelming, there are a handful of new(er)comers that have defined streaming TV over the past four or five years and which require a time investment measured in days as opposed to weeks.
Take Westworld. If you didn’t have Sky when this came out, catch up now. There are only three series and while the third is debatably average compared with the first two, it’s worth watching if you want some existential problems to ponder. From the rise of artificial intelligence to questions of memory, reality and past lives, right through to moral quandaries about killing robots, Westworld has it all.
Then there’s the dystopia of The Handmaid’s Tale, which was the hook for signing up to Lightbox for many. Now in its third series, it’s a hard-watch in places as much because it seems so close to possible these days.
If there’s one show worth the admission price, as it were, for Neon it’s Succession. An incredible family-drama based around the collapse of a media empire (there are echoes of the Murdochs here), the first two series are there, with the promise of a third.
And great new shows seem to get added to Neon every day – the content is piling up faster than a Covid-19 testing station in Auckland.
Lovecraft Country, which combines the talents of Jordan Peele (Get Out) and JJ Abrams (Lost, Westworld) is the latest genre-bending must-watch new release for fans who love the cosmic nature of Dark or Stranger Things.
One and done
Listed under mini-series in the Neon menu, these one-series wonders are great.
As we all know, the first series of a show can be amazing but it if runs out of steam in the second and is positively gasping for air by the third season – either because the producers are milking it or they’ve just run out of ideas – we feel like we’ve over-invested our time. Better to be left wanting more.
Chernobyl is one of these. It’s probably the best TV show to grace our screens in the past year and you finish it wishing it could go on.
This format is great for the biopic and there’s a couple at Neon that are unmissable including Loudest Voice, where Russell Crowe is outstanding. And Mrs America – created by and starring Cate Blanchett – is a look back at the rise of feminism in 1960s and 70s America and how it, in turn, sparked the conservative Christian movement as a counterpoint.