Speaking of exclusive content, I highly highly recommend Netflix's "Daredevil" (a TV series they developed with Marvel). It's seriously some amazing content.
I've only watched a handful of their shows, but I'm yet to watch a Netflix show that isn't great. House of Cards is fantastic, Daredevil as you say is amazing, Bojack Horseman is hilarious, and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt is a breath of fresh air.
season 3 of house of cards is trash imo. The rest was brilliant, and it hurts. I went from watching characters with an actual goal struggling and overcoming obstacles to meet that goal to watching a soap opera.
It was definitely the weakest season, but I think it mostly showed because season 1 and 2 were so good. I've still got high hopes for next season given how season 3 ended.
I don't want to spoil anything so I'll be vague. The problem is that the main character went from being a conniving underdog to the top of the stack way too quickly. Now the stakes are much lower because he already got what he wanted, and it's much less interesting to watch.
If you look at the British series, it's much shorter, and for good reason.
I feel like they butchered the character by making him 'angsty', and I personally hated the way the 3rd season ended. It exemplified everything I disliked about the 3rd season.
The opening scene for the season 1 had me hooked. They defined that character so well with that opening scene and I was immediately interested to see what this character was willing to do.
Then season 3 happened and I find he's turned into every other character in every other modern show.
I wish they had taken the approach of just making him ruthless towards the other nations in achieving the US's goals instead of the direction they went in.
They went beyond updating and Americanizing the British show, and ended up with contrived drama and bad Putin impersonation. Writing a good show is hard!
Daredevil is fine, but it certainly isn't good enough to sell Netflix to me. Netflix with only Netflix shows isn't something I'd pay $10 a month for unless they seriously up their game. HBO is the baseline they have to match, not a goal they should hope to reach for.
Bloodline is absolutely fantastic, I've been recommending it to all my friends. I can't praise it enough - also glad there's a second season coming in 2016. Apparently the creators (KZK) have a 6-season arc planned...
I'm almost finished with the first season and had to force myself to go to bed at like 1am because I wanted to keep watching more.
It's not quite "Breaking Bad" levels of tension and machination but it's a good, slow burn that really picks up as it moves along. Doesn't hurt that I just got back from my first visit to the Keys right as this came out.
Seconded. The fight choreography and photography are as good or better than John Wick if you're into that sort of thing. That hallway fight scene was amazingly well done. The casting is quite good too. (Although the actor could learn a couple of things from Chris Gorham, who did a really great job of playing a blind guy on Covert Affairs.)
Thirded. Another thing that sets it apart from other superhero shows is that how, after a while, the series spends time showing the main villain, who gains a human dimension.
I've really found the writing to be mediocre. The storyline is compelling and the direction has done a great job with cultivating that sort of hero emotion porn we've been seeing develop in the industry the last generation. But the dialog, man, it just kills it for me.
Daredevil is no doubt good but I wouldn't put it in the same league as HoC, as another commenter did. They could definitely go darker (though I couldn't say how, at the moment), take out the silly banter and little jokes mostly coming from or involving the long-haired lawyer.
Doesn't the light moments make the dark ones even darker, though? Or maybe that's it, that a story that's only dark seems a little silly and therefore safe, while a story that's both everyday light and really really dark becomes more unsettling because it can fit into the real world in a way?