As though Netflix didn’t already pose a threat to cable providers, what with their growing list of streaming TV shows available to subscribers, the streaming video service is planning to launch original programming, including David Fincher and Kevin Spacey’s House of Cards, not to mention the highly anticipated return of Arrested Development. But first, Netflix will premiere their first original series Lilyhammer.
Netflix released an announcement today that their upcoming new original series Lilyhammer will become available via Watch Instantly on Netflix in the U.S., Canada and Latin America beginning February 6, 2012. The series, which consists of eight episodes, all of which will be made available to view next month, stars The Sopranos’ Steven Van Zandt (also of E Street Band) as a New York mobster named Frank “The Fixer” Tagliano. He moves to Lillehammer in Norway as part of the witness protection program and attempts to adapt to the snowy life there.
I doubt I’m alone in automatically associated Lillehammer (or “Lilyhammer” as Frank refers to it) with the 1994 Olympics. In fact, I know I’m not alone as that’s apparently what Frank associates with the Norwegian town. His idea of the cozy, snow-filled Olympic village full of beautiful women isn’t quite the reality in which he arrives, as you’ll see in the trailer below.
?What do you think? Looks like it could be funny in a fish-out-of-water sort of way. In the meantime, Lilyhammer is just the first of at least a few original series for Netflix. For those of us who are paying subscribers, it gives us even more reason to use the service.
