Amazon has finally set the premiere dates for their two new original comedies Alpha House and Betas. Both series will begin rolling out this month, with the first three episodes of each show made available for free to Amazon customers, while the episodes that follow will be made available to Amazon Prime subscribers exclusively. Alpha House will debut November 15, while Betas is set to launch November 22.
Amazon produced a number of comedy pilots earlier this year, which they made available for viewing for free through their Instant Video service. Viewer feedback was said to be taken into account when they made their decision to move forward with Betas and Alpha House, but not some of the other pilots. It looks like they’re taking a different approach from Netflix in how they’re rolling out these new shows. Instead of delivering them to Prime subscribers all at once, they’re posting the first three of each show through Amazon Instant Video — compatible with Kindle Fire, iPad, iPhone, Roku, Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, Wii U and your web browser, in addition to other devices — for free, and then posting one episode of each show exclusively through Prime each week after that. Each series’ first season will include eleven episodes.
Alpha House comes from Garry Trudeau and centers on a bunch of misfit senators who rent a house together in Washington DC. In addition to John Goodman, Clark Johnson, matt Malloy and Mark Consuelos, who play the mentioned senators, the series features Cynthia Nixon, Amy Sedaris, Wanda Sykes and Julie White. Watch the Alpha House pilot via Amazon Prime here.
While I don’t love the weekly approach, that could be due to Amazon trying to get these shows on the air sooner rather than later. Now seems like the right time to push Prime too, with the holidays approaching. In addition to access to Amazon Prime’s streaming video library, the service also includes free two-day shipping for many of the items available for sale at the site. With the holidays just around the corner, those on the fence about subscribing to Prime to see Amazon’s new shows might be further swayed by the money they’ll save on shipping if they’re frequent Amazon shoppers.
