I love reality TV. True crime anthologies are my jam. A good docu-series about passionate professionals creating, building and exploring? Sign me up! Yet, in the month since Max relaunched, I haven't watched a single show that came over in the new flood of Discovery Plus content.
Over the past few weeks, I've used Max to watch The Other Two season 3 (hilarious), Avatar: The Way of Water (fine), The Idol (awful), And Just Like That season 2 (improved) and The Righteous Gemstones season 3 (a riot). But I would've seen all of them when the service was called HBO Max.
All the new stuff is just sitting on my home screen, wallflowers who haven't been picked to be streamed. Maybe this isn't weird for HBO fanatics who only boot up the app on Sunday nights. But Max feels like it was designed just for people like me — viewers who enjoy prestige television and easy reality TV.
Still, I haven't so much as started Smartless: On the Road, even though the podcast is one of my favorites. Nor What Am I Eating With Zooey Deschanel, Before the 90 Days season 6, Fixer Upper: The Castle, Before the 90 Days season 6 and Summer Baking Championship, all of which seem right up my alley.
If Max is going to hold onto the top spot on our list of best streaming services, it will have to make some changes.
Appointing viewing vs. laundry TV
As my colleague Henry T. Casey wrote a few weeks ago, Max is missing one obvious feature for Discovery Plus shows: channels.
"We don't watch HBO and Food Network shows the same way," he notes. That's true. HBO shows are appointment viewing. Over decades, the premium network has become a destination on Sunday nights with the likes of The Sopranos, Game of Thrones, The Last of Us and Succession.
I would happily tune into an "Eating Around the World" type channel
Discovery Plus shows, meanwhile, are what i call "laundry TV" — background filler you kinda-sorta watch while doing chores. Discovery, Food Network, TLC and ID are all strong brands that have fans. But in ye olden days of cable, you tuned into a channel and watched whatever was playing. Maybe it was a new episode of 90 Day Fiance, maybe it was a marathon of Chopped.
As Casey suggested, Max channels would be very helpful. They could be network-based, mimicking cable, or show-based, so you could binge Fixer Upper or Deadliest Catch. They could be themed, like "Celebrity Cooking Shows" or "True Crime Murders" or "Finding Love."
I would happily tune into an "Eating Around the World" type channel that streams random episodes of Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy, Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations, José Andrés and Family In Spain, Bobby and Giada in Italy, Eva Longoria: Searching for Mexico and whatever else is in the WBD catalog.
Curated channels would solve the biggest problem for many modern-day streaming customers: Decision paralysis.
Outlook: I keep scrolling, scrolling, scrolling ...
Right now, there are around seven major streaming services, plus a handful of minor ones, all releasing new content on a daily basis. Max alone releases dozens of titles every month.
It's a lot. Too much, really. I know I'm not alone in scrolling aimlessly through a service, trying to decide what to watch and eventually giving up.
For all the talk about discovery and algorithms, viewers still have to make so many decisions before a TV show or movie actually begins playing. Which streaming service? How much time do I have (show or movie)? What genre am I in the mood for? What looks good?
If this new content isn't getting watched by its prime audience (me), then it was all for nothing.
I think this is the reason why I, a reality TV fan, have yet to watch any of it on the new Max. It's easy to remember to tune into HBO shows on Sunday nights, but selecting something to stream while I'm folding laundry is so much harder. I love Barefoot Contessa, but how do I decide where to start? I can't, so I just don't.
Changing the name from HBO Max to Max was a dumb move on the part of Warner Bros. Discovery, jettisoning cachet for what was essentially an announcement that the service had added a bunch of new content.
If this new content isn't getting watched by its prime audience (me), then it was all for nothing. Max needs to improve how it serves up the wide variety of content in its library, rather than treating every title the same. If it can solve decision paralysis, Max will leave its rivals in the dust.
