Thanks, But No Thanks, Tubi: 'Hot Take: The Depp/Heard Trial'

By Jen Maravegias | TV | September 29, 2022 |

By Jen Maravegias | TV | September 29, 2022 |

The proliferation of streaming services has put us in the same position as we were when cable networks gave us the 24-hour television day. The hours must be filled, eyeballs must be engaged, clicks and views must be captured and counted. The quality of the content hardly matters anymore. Everything has an audience when “hate-watching” is a thing that people do for fun. The COVID-19 shut downs exacerbated this downward spiral and gave us countless reboots and questionable documentaries about clothing company scandals, women in peril, celebrities with morally questionable family histories, political action committees, dumb teenagers who got caught breaking the law, and a glamorous retelling of Jeffrey F’ing Dahmer’s cannibalistic terror spree.

Now, barely four months since the verdict, the Amber Heard/Johnny Depp trial is getting the true crime adaptation that literally NO ONE asked for. What are we doing, people? Are we really going to eat whatever the streamers throw at the walls to see what sticks? Everything? Is there a limit, or a line, that we as a society are willing to draw in the sand? When will we say “that’s enough exploitation, thanks though!” Ever? Or are we just going to continue inserting the popcorn-eating gif into every personal or social tragedy that makes headlines?

Anyway, here’s the trailer that no one should watch. For a based-on-a-true-story series, produced by Tubi, that no one should watch: