While the extremely short-lived streaming service Quibi might be long gone, several of its shows found new life — and success — this past May over on Roku’s free streaming channel. Now, Roku is going even more in on the short-form television series and bringing 23 additional Quibi shows to its streaming channel Friday, August 13, including four of which that were previously unseen.
According to Roku’s official blog post announcing the big news, the 23 shows include everything from “new alternative programming to suspenseful scripted shows and feature “some of Hollywood’s biggest names,” which seems pretty accurate based on the star-studded trailer above. Some of the new shows coming to Quibi include Elba vs. Block, which follows Idris Elba and Ken Block as they “go head-to-head to see who’s the best behind the driver’s seat,” Gone Mental with Lior, in which a trained mentalist attempts to read the thoughts of celebrities such as Zooey Deschanel, and Mapleworth Murders, a Murder She Wrote spoof that earned the cast three 2021 Emmy acting nominations.
Among the four new shows Roku is adding to its original line-up are the Josh Groban-hosted cooking competition series Eye Candy, as well as a ten-part docuseries called What Happens In Hollywood that “looks at how Hollywood has framed our ideas about sex and sexuality.” With the addition of these 23 series, this brings the total number of Quibi shows on Roku to 53, meaning the service still has 22 additional programs it purchased from the now defunct Quibi it could still bring over to its own channel. This all comes as an attempt to bolster Roku’s original content and appeal following the success of streaming services such as Disney+, Netflix, Hulu, and HBO Max, and seeing as how much the first wave of Quibi shows boosted Roku’s viewership, it could be a viable tactic. All these new shows hit Roku starting August 13.
