But there are so many shows now, on so many channels, “You” may simply have gotten lost, or been written off as little more than a rehabilitation project for a has-been heartthrob. Lifetime has spent nearly 40 years peddling what often feels like a misogynist’s idea of “women’s programming.” The network has been attempting to slowly rebrand, as fans of shows like “ UnReal” already know. So why did the show find success on Netflix and not Lifetime? Part of it is expectations. Those who would like it didn’t watch, those who watched, didn’t like it. In the end, execs threw in the towel and sold off the promised second season to Netflix, along with season one for streaming. 6 million viewers on average over the season. Lifetime was so sure it was going to be a hit, it greenlit a season two before season one even aired. The channel put plenty of advertising dollars behind it, and my inbox can attest to the PR campaign. And its surprise ending, involving a past girlfriend the audience has assumed to be dead, gives the show’s next season a million new directions to go in.īy rights, “You” should have been Lifetime’s first big hit in ages. The show is both unsettlingly creepy and riveting television. She is “you.” Even when the show switches to Beck’s perspective in the final episodes, it feels almost too late for the audience to get in her corner or feel much sympathy for her fate. This also changes how we think about Joe’s victim Beck, because the audience doesn’t identify with her. Expected, clichéd stereotypes are revealed to be creepy when viewed through the lens of a controlling man like Joe. But by taking the story and telling it from the killer’s perspective, viewers are in on it from the start, changing how Joe’s actions are perceived. “You” is a creatively bonkers take on a standard Lifetime movie trope: woman meets charming man, woman trusts man, man turns out to be a monster.Īs with all such tales, audiences figure out this romantic love story is too good to be true long before the heroine does.
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