Quibi is dead, but at least we got this batshit insane TV show out of it

You need to see it to believe it...

Good morning! Some sad news arrived in my inbox today: the peak TV streaming wars appears to have its first major casualty when Quibi, the quick-bite service that launched just six months ago, folded overnight.

If you haven’t heard of Quibi, it was kind of like the TikTok version of Netflix. That sounds pretty awful but Quibi’s premise was solid. Episodes of its shows and movies only lasted 10 minutes, designed to be binged while waiting for a bus, or commuting on a train, or sitting at the airport.

Of course, no one has been doing much of any of that in America lately. Everyone’s stuck at home because of Coronavirus, which means they’ve got time to watch more than just 10 minutes of television at a time. One of the guys on The Watch podcast admitted recently that he’s been watching about 10 hours of TV a day.

That’s a tough world for a quick-bite service like Quibi to fit into. Especially when we already have YouTube.

It couldn’t last. It didn’t last. Launched during a pandemic, Quibi only stuck around for six months. “The world has changed dramatically since Quibi launched and our standalone business model is no longer viable,” its creator, Jeffrey Katzenberg, said in a statement to the LA Times. It struggled to gain advertisers, and viewers, so Quibi will soon be gone.

That’s not long. In the streaming world, that’s about as much time as one of Quibi’s 10-minute shows. Competing against juggernauts like Netflix, Disney+ and Amazon Prime Video, Quibi couldn’t get a look-in. It shows you how brutal it is out there for anyone wanting to compete in the streaming service world right now.

But - there’s always a but - Quibi did have some great content. Many of its shows have more than an 80 per cent approval ratings on Rotten Tomatoes. The Stranger is a superior horror series following a rideshare driver in Hollywood, Punk’D was rebooted with Chance the Rapper as host, and they nabbed Liam Hemsworth for the dystopian thriller Most Dangerous Game.

Quibi had more than 40 shows. I haven’t seen many of them, but I was planning to review it soon for my newsletter. I was going to start with a show called Skrrt With Offset. It’s about the very rich Migos rapper and his collection of cars. But I don’t care what it’s about. Any show called Skrrt With Offset is something I have to see at least once. And hey, it’s only a 10-minute commitment.

But the best, nuttiest, most batshit insane idea for a Quibi TV show, or any TV show ever for that matter, has to go to something called Dishmantled. How do I describe Dishmantled? It’s the craziest cooking show ever made. It’s like Leigh Hart’s Speed Cooking filmed inside a wind tunnel. It’s like Gordon Ramsay smoked too much meth in a shop that sells WWII gear. It’s freaking insane.

Dishmantled’s premise is this: delicious fine dining meals are loaded into a cannon and shot out at two chefs wearing protective gear who then have to crawl around on the floor scooping up the remains and eating them, then head into a kitchen in an attempt to cook and recreate the meal they just ate.

I’m not making this up. Just watch the trailer. And go check out Dishmantled’s full season on Quibi while you can. It sounds like it won’t be up there for much longer …