HBO Go is still relatively new in the market — it only launched in the Philippines in December 2019 — but it definitely wants to challenge the Big Red N.
While Netflix hasn’t released subscriber numbers in the Philippines, it now claims it has 167 million subscribers in 190 countries, making it the dominant player in the global streaming market. It also recently announced that during the pandemic, it grew by almost 16 million new subscribers.
But as the number of people streaming videos spike with the stay-home orders, HBO Go Asia is making its big play for your attention by making the first season of 15 of its acclaimed HBO original series available to anyone to watch. Even without a subscription.
Just go to hbogoasia.ph and click on Watch Free Episodes. (Tapping our link will take you straight to the freebies section.)
This list includes crime dramas The Wire and Sopranos, two of the most critically acclaimed shows from last decade’s golden age of TV.
Here’s a list of twelve shows they’re promoting on their social media pages, along with official descriptions from HBO:
Succession
Genre: Comedy
Succession tracks the lives of the Roy family as they contemplate their future once their aging father (Brian Cox) begins to step back from the media and entertainment conglomerate they control.
Ballers
Genre: Comedy-drama
Success hits hard. Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson stars in this series as a retired football superstar trying to reinvent himself as a financial manager for current players in sun-soaked Miami.
Veep
Genre: Comedy
Former senator Selina Meyer (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) finds that being Vice President of the United States is nothing like she hoped — and everything everyone warned her about.
Barry
Genre: Comedy-crime
Bill Hader stars as a depressed, low-rent hitman from the Midwest who falls in love with acting while on a job in LA in this series.
Silicon Valley
Genre: Comedy
From Mike Judge (Office Space, Beavis & Butthead) comes this tech-savvy satire about programmer Richard Hendricks (Thomas Middleditch), whose game-changing compression algorithm becomes the subject of a valley-wide bidding war.
The Wire
Genre: Drama-crime
In the drug-ridden streets of West Baltimore, there are good guys and there are bad guys. Sometimes you need more than a badge to tell them apart. From creator David Simon, this is The Wire.
The World Between Us
Genre: Drama
The World Between Us is a ten-part, hour-long series that follows the aftermath of a mass shooting where the killer, the victims, the victims’ families, the media and defense teams’ fates are all intertwined.
Miss Sherlock
Genre: Crime
Re-envisioned and set in modern day Tokyo, Miss Sherlock is a bold interpretation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s “Sherlock Holmes,” with the iconic characters played by women.
The Sopranos
Genre: Drama-crime
Hailed as one of TV’s essential dramas, The Sopranos follows James Gandolfini as Tony Soprano, a husband, father and mob boss whose professional and private strains often land him in the office of his therapist.
Folklore
Genre: Horror
Directed by six of the continent’s up-and-coming directors, the unnerving series is an exploration of deep-seated superstitions that have permeated Asian cultures for generations.
Invisible Stories
Genre: Drama
Invisible Stories is a six-part anthology series that digs deep into the underbelly of familiar neighborhoods in Singapore, telling the stories of marginalized and alienated characters, all living in the same public estate.
The Teenage Psychic
Genre: Horror-comedy
A day in the life of a teenage psychic: School. Boys. Talking to spirits.
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