Anna Daniels
BoJack Horseman will soon be wrapping up its sixth and final season with a final batch of episodes debuting on Netflix on January 31. That means creator Raphael Bob-Waksberg is free to throw some shade at the home of his critically-acclaimed animated series – specifically at how the streaming service handles the end credits.
Any Netflix user can tell you that once a movie or show is over, after a few seconds of rolling a small amount of the names who worked on the given film or series, the end credits are minimized into a small window in favor of teasing a Netflix original project. That’s frustrating to Raphael Bob-Waksberg, who finds it disrespectful and hopes to work with a distributor who doesn’t treat series creators and the creative minds responsible for making movies and TV shows so flippantly.
During the Christmas break (via LA Times), Raphael Bob-Waksberg took to Twitter to support letting credits roll:
A show represents the cumulative tireless work of hundreds of creative artists who dream of one day having their names shrunk into a tiny box and then cut off abruptly by a trailer for The Witcher.
— Raphael Bob-Waksberg (@RaphaelBW) December 24, 2019
It’s not only Netflix that has this problem. Bob-Waksberg also expressed disappointment with how quickly Amazon moves from one episode to the next, specifically citing the series Undone, which he also co-created.
When I watched Undone, they put up an ad for the next episode, over the picture, BEFORE it even hit the credits. The person I was watching with got so distracted, we had to go back and watch the ending again because she missed it.https://t.co/abxOEWU3Sv
— Raphael Bob-Waksberg (@RaphaelBW) December 24, 2019
Amazon actually moves much more rapidly to the next episode of a series than a show on Netflix. And Bob-Waksberg further expressed his frustration with this practice in response to a fellow creative who respectfully disagreed:
Audiences can skip whatever they want – I went to the bathroom three times during the last Avengers movie and I don’t regret it – I just resent distributors making the decision for them, especially when their default sidelines the people who make the content.
— Raphael Bob-Waksberg (@RaphaelBW) December 24, 2019
Also, just from an artistic standpoint, I want to give my audience a beat to digest the episode they just watched before skipping to the next one. I feel like the people who watch my shows are getting a worse experience when they aren’t offered that opportunity.
— Raphael Bob-Waksberg (@RaphaelBW) December 24, 2019
Most general audiences probably don’t care about seeing the names of everyone who worked on a show or movie. After all, even when the credits aren’t minimized in a movie theater, most of the crowd leaves as the credits roll unless they know there’s a credits scene they need to stick around for. But that doesn’t mean creators don’t deserve at least the default respect of having the credits roll, giving subscribers the option of skipping them if they so desire. Doing it by default just seems rude.
Beyond giving respect to creators, which should be a good enough reason not to minimize the credits, Bob-Waksberg also makes a valid point about giving audiences enough time to process the end of an episode before moving on to the next. I’m sure the sooner a new episode starts the easier it is to keep someone hooked on a series, but some shows require the drama to simmer a little bit before rushing right into the next episode. That’s part of why recent shows like Watchmen on HBO and The Mandalorian on Disney+ were so much more fun to enjoy week-to-week, instead of the typical binge model that now dominates entertainment. Netflix doesn’t seem likely to abandon the binge model anytime soon, but maybe they can give creators a little more of the spotlight when an episode wraps up.
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