Despite a presence in more than 10 million UK homes and the backing of one of the world's largest companies, the streamer has long struggled to make any genuinely impactful British dramas.
This week, Sophie Turner leads the cast of Steal, a brand new thriller set and filmed in London, which follows investment firm employee Zara after she is forced at gunpoint to aid a violent robbery.
At first glance, the two shows wouldn't appear to share much in common, but take a closer look and parallels begin to emerge which could signal where Prime Video is headed with its UK originals.
Both are unjustly overlooked in their elitist workplaces due to classism, but use this to their advantage in vengeful schemes involving rather hopeless men, i.e. Daniel (Laurie Davidson) and Luke (Archie Madekwe).
While The Girlfriend takes a more darkly humorous flavour to Steal, the base recipe is remarkably similar and shares ingredients with Prime's other recent UK drama, Malice; another star-led revenge thriller with the rich and powerful in its crosshairs.
It's an ironic target for a company whose founder is one of the world's wealthiest men, with a personal fortune that would dwarf the most moneyed characters in The Girlfriend, Steal and Malice combined.
Suffice it to say, they aren't revolutionary or particularly ambitious. Nevertheless, such watchable mystery thrillers are a sturdy foundation to build on as Prime Video executives attempt to revitalise their UK scripted output (as reported by Ankler).
These bread and butter projects might be enough to draw a healthy crowd. They could even pick up the odd award nomination, like The Girlfriend, although I suspect that was largely out of respect for director and star Robin Wright.
The fun-but-frivolous drama wasn't a frontrunner in either of its categories, nor did it turbocharge conversation on a mass scale like fellow miniseries Adolescence – which Prime Video infamously passed on.
Instead, executives should take a cue from their own US output, which is a balance of crowd-pleasing vanilla flavour like Reacher, The Summer I Turned Pretty and Bosch, with more offbeat fare like Mr & Mrs Smith, Overcompensating or The Boys.
The former marks an overdue investment by the streamer in British comedy; a genre it has inexplicably overlooked despite early success as the BBC's international partner on Fleabag.
Will these gambles be enough to draw people away from Netflix? That's unclear, given that the rival platform seems to have the easiest time launching hit British shows, regardless of their quality.
Steal and The Girlfriend are available to stream on Prime Video. Sign up for a 30-day free trial of Prime Video and pay £8.99 a month after that.
Check out more of our Drama coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
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