Pilot season continues to pay off for Amazon Studios. After testing single episodes of numerous potential series with audiences in the fall, the online retailer has announced that it will add five new primetime series and three children’s shows to the Amazon original content library. Three other series, Red Oaks, Hand of God, and Tumble Leaf, have all been renewed for another season.
It seems that Amazon managed to strike a chord with viewers with almost all of the half-hour and one-hour series the studio recently piloted. Of the six series that were part of the fall round, five earned a spot on Amazon Studios’ lineup. The primetime batch is varied, ranging from a bio-series to a dark comedy.
Three of the new series are half-hour shows: Highston, a comedy about a 19-year-old whose parents make him get psychiatric help against his wishes; One Mississippi, a dark comedy about a woman dealing with her mother’s recent death; and Z, a bio-series pilot based on the life of Zelda Fitzgerald, both before and after meeting F. Scott Fitzgerald. Two others are hour-long scripted series: Good Girls Revolt, which centers on a group of young female co-workers fighting discrimination in a newsroom; and Patriot, a political thriller about an intelligence officer who is assigned to keep Iran from going nuclear.
Amazon hasn’t forgotten its younger audience. The new originals geared toward kids are Danger & Eggs, which centers on the adventures of fearless D.D. Danger and her more anxious best friend, Phillip; If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, a 26-episode series based on the well-known series of children’s books; and Niko and the Sword of Light, which is based on a graphic novel and follows a 10-year-old boy’s quest to defeat darkness.
Children will also get more of Tumble Leaf, which was renewed for a third season. The series, which was created by Community‘s Drew Hodges, has made a name for itself, winning four Daytime Emmys, including Best Preschool Series, among other awards. The show is executive produced by Hodges and Bix Pix Entertainment’s Kelli Bixler.
Dramedy Red Oaks will be back for season 2, now that it has been greenlit by Amazon Studios. The series is set in the New Jersey suburbs in the ’80s, and is the coming-of-age story of David Meyers (Craig Roberts), a college student and assistant tennis pro at a country club. Red Oaks comes from Gregory Jacobs and Joe Gangemi, both of whom executive produce alongside David Gordon and Steven Soderbergh.
Hand of God has also been renewed for season 2 and will continue following the story of Judge Pernell Harris (Ron Perlman), a man who goes on a vigilante quest to find a rapist after suffering a mental breakdown. The series also stars Dana Delany, Garret Dillahunt, Andre Royo, Alona Tal, Julian Morris, and more. Ben Watkins is the creator.
All of the series will be made available exclusively on Prime Video in the U.S., U.K., Germany, Austria, and Japan. There’s no risk of members running out of original series to watch anytime soon. The streamer has continued to roll out new content, while announcements of still other originals being put into development seem to come constantly.
