Who will mourn the name of Quibi? Who will take quick bites from the tree of sorrow, and weep for all the Murder Houses yet un-Flipped? Grieve, friends: The food cannons have been silenced; Chrissy’s Court is closed. The golden arm has lost its luster, Singled Out has gone the way of Singled Out, and Survive simply… didn’t. Quibi is dead. Quibi has lost everything. And now, it’s even lost its name.
Which is to say: Roku, having decided to avail itself of the vast Quibi library after the phone-based streaming service bit it super fucking hard last year, has decided to rebrand its new and numerous bite-sized acquisitions for their 2021 revival. No longer “quick bites,” the various Quibi properties soon to be available on the ad-supported Roku Channel will now be dubbed “Roku Originals,” which will definitely fix the problem. (Certainly, streaming a bunch of content specifically shot to be aired on phones on your house’s TV won’t look awkward as hell.)
But, while we made fun of Quibi for a couple of things over its short life—its bad name, its bad concept, its seeming belief that all its (bad) problems could be solved by throwing Jeffrey Katzenberg-sized piles of cash at them—the fact is that it did give a lot of people a lot of money to make their thing, and that the Roku acquisition will mean that at least a dozen shows that never even aired on the streaming service will get their chance to broadcast. Plus, hey: Reno 911! Can’t say no to beloved Roku Original Reno 911!, right?