The ElectricNOW app has been one of the best streaming options, and it’s about to get even better. Electric Entertainment is adding original projects that are exclusive to the platform, giving audiences even more to look forward to, in addition to the existing library of fan-favorite titles like Leverage and The Outpost.

Dean Devlin returned to TVBrittanyF.com to talk about ElectricNOW’s new adventure, as well as the continued growth of the app and the brand. He also reflected on building an entertainment brand that’s captured the imagination of fans around the world. Keep reading to find out what’s next for ElectricNOW—which is still free to stream!

Brittany Frederick: ElectricNOW originally started as a hub for all of the Electric Entertainment shows, but it’s become something much more than that. What made this the right time to launch original content?

Dean Devlin: As you said, we really started this more as an aggregator of our fans than we did as a business. We just wanted our fans to get to know each other. But the fans themselves grew the platform [with] their support. And so the more that they became loyal to it and watched it regularly, the more we felt we owed it to them to make this a better site. We tried to improve as we could, but our technology was somewhat limited, so we thought, all right, let’s really upgrade the platform to a much higher level.

We thought part of that would be, let’s create two original shows that are just for the app—just as a reward to the people who watch the show. So the first one is the show that’s out right now, called The Poly Couple. And then at the end of the year, we’re gonna have another animated sci-fi show called Sloane and the Cosmic Schlep. Hopefully our users and fans will appreciate having a show that’s exclusively for them.

That first original series is also like a first impression, so what was it about The Poly Couple that made it the right fit for ElectricNOW?

I’m not a guy who does market research or anything like that. My whole career has always been as a kind of a nerdy fan, what entertains me—and if it entertains me, I always take the position that there’s probably other people who will share my enthusiasm for watching it.

I like exploring worlds we don’t know, whether it’s the world of high-tech criminals, or if it’s the world of a magical library, or even being on other planets. And for a lot of people, the idea of being in a polyamorous relationship is as strange as being on an alien planet. I thought this is a really thoughtful show. It’s done with great humor, a lot of sensitivity, it’s fun to watch. And I thought our audience might just get a kick out of it.

It’s not meant to be championing the idea of polyamory. It’s just really exploring if you are polyamorous and you live in Los Angeles, it’s not so easy. And this is an examination of what that lifestyle looks like. I just found it so compelling that I wanted to share it with our audience.

Since you control the ElectricNOW platform, do you set a statistical goal with original shows, especially since this is a brand-new part of the app? How do you know what works?

By having the ownership of our own platform, we don’t really have to rely on other people for data. When you do a TV show for a network, forever you were looking at Nielsen ratings, and that was really just 1000 families across the United States representing 50 million people. It didn’t seem like a really fair representation. And now, if you sell your show to a streaming platform, they don’t really share the data with you. They’ll tell you your show’s a hit, or they’ll tell you some [data], but you have no way to verify it. When you did a feature film, you could look at the box office. You knew how you did. But when you have a show on Amazon, you really have no idea how well your show is doing or not doing until they tell you, and even then, you can’t verify what they say.

So having the ElectricNOW app, we can actually see how much time are people spending watching a show? How many people are coming to watch the show? Are they rewatching the show? And so it really gives us a sense of whether or not it’s working for our audience.

At the same time that you’re doing this, though, it’s important to note that ElectricNOW is still continuing with the existing Electric shows that viewers know and love. That part of the app isn’t going anywhere.

Not only our classic shows like Almost Paradise and Leverage and Librarians and The Outpost, but we have The Ark. The first season of The Librarians: The Next Chapter is going to be available for free soon, and the third season of Leverage: Redemption is going to be on the app soon. So all your favorites are there.

We’ve also acquired some really, really good shows. If you get a chance, there’s one show on there—it’s a limited series called The Messenger from Australia, and it’s dynamite. Also, if you’re a Doctor Who fan, we have a show that was created by Russell T Davies called Aliens vs. Wizards, which is a hoot, and it has three seasons of that. So there’s a lot of new stuff that we’ve brought to the app that we think our fans are going to like.

We’d be remiss if we didn’t talk about the many other things Electric Entertainment has going on, including new seasons of The Ark and The Librarians: The Next Chapter. What else should fans be looking forward to?

The two biggest things are Season 3 of The Ark; we went nuts on Season 3. I’m so over budget it’s ridiculous. [Laughs.] But we went crazy. It’s a way bigger season. It takes place both in the colony, on other planets, and out in outer space, simultaneously with the largest cast we’ve ever had. It’s really great.

And then Season 2 of The Librarians will be out later this year on TNT, and our recurring villain this year is Dominic Monaghan from Lord of the Rings and Lost. Both seasons I could not be more proud of.

Given everything that the Electric Entertainment brand has done, in film and TV and now in streaming, do you ever find yourself awed by what you’ve accomplished? Has there ever been a moment where it’s sunk in?

I don’t, with one exception, which was a year ago or so. We did an Electric convention; we called it Electric Con, and we did it in New Orleans. And when I originally agreed to do it. I thought this will just be a hoot. Meet some of the fans, sign some autographs. do some panels, it’ll be cool.

But the response was so overwhelming that all of us from Electric spent most of the weekend in tears from people telling their stories about why the shows were meaningful to them, or what it had done for them in their lives and and what it meant to be a fan, and how many friends they made connecting with other fans, it was so much more emotional than I was prepared for. And so that was probably the one week where I thought, hey, we did something good.

Get started with ElectricNOW here for free, no subscription required. Photo Credit: Courtesy of Electric Entertainment.

Article content is (c)2020-2026 Brittany Frederick and may not be excerpted or reproduced without express written permission by the author. Follow me on Twitter at @BFTVTwtr and on Instagram at @BFTVGram. For story pitches, contact me at tvbrittanyf@yahoo.com.