Quibi is either launching at exactly the wrong time or exactly the right time.
The entire model of the shortform programming streamer founded by Jeffrey Katzenberg and Meg Whitman was built around providing viewers with “quick bites” — the name, pronounced “Qui-Bee,” therefore really ought to be “Qui-Bye” — of drama, comedy, unscripted content and news that could be watched on your phone during pauses in ordinary life: mid-commute, waiting for a meeting to start, etc. With much of the population in quarantine, “ordinary life” is wishful thinking. However, shut-in audiences are hungry for content, and Quibi surely has that in abundance.
“Abundance” is currently the service’s primary selling point. If you want a whole show where Will Arnett makes fun of arcane moments in Canadian pop culture, Quibi has you, and perhaps only you, covered for five minutes with Memory Hole.
On the other hand, there’s little evidence in the 24 programs debuting Monday (the cost is $4.99 per month with ads, $7.99 per month without ads) — all in episodes running between four and 10 minutes — that artistry or storytelling are baked into the Quibi mantra, which boils down to a variation on the classic Annie Hall punchline: The food is mediocre — and such small portions!
Quibi has sent critics between two and five episodes of the initial launch shows. In the spirit of the streamer itself, here are reactions in quick bites.
(Excerpt) Read more in: The Hollywood Reporter