Coming Soon: Lilyhammer

The future is now! Netflix has a trailer out for their first original series, the Norwegian/Mob/Crime/Thriller/Comedy Lilyhammer, starring Sopranos star Steven Van Zandt, which I thought was a joke at first. Netflix’s (I call it the ‘Flix, not to be confused with Flix) press release touts the fact that when the show premieres next month, all 8 first season episodes will be available for streaming. So take this as just another nail in the coffin of the conventional television business model we’ve all been worshiping for so many years. At least in its current incarnation. Netflix is only one in a pack of a scrappy upstarts — Hulu and Xbox are other names you hear popping up — throwing their hat into the original content game. Whether this new model will work out for them remains to be seen. Let the great experiment begin!