The story
A weed courier known simply as The Guy makes his rounds across Brooklyn and beyond, dropping off orders for a sprawling client list. He is the connecting thread rather than the main event: each episode wanders into the lives of the people he delivers to, from lonely shut-ins to tangled couples and struggling creatives, building a mosaic of New Yorkers at their most ordinary, awkward and quietly tender.
Why it matters
High Maintenance is one of the purest web-to-TV stories: micro-budget Vimeo episodes, each made for under $1,000, that Vimeo itself later bankrolled as original programming before HBO came calling. Its loose anthology format, free of fixed running times on the web, survived the move to half-hour television, and critics praised how smoothly it made the jump.
From web series to TV
Ben Sinclair and Katja Blichfeld released High Maintenance as a Vimeo web series from November 2012, making each early episode for under $1,000. Vimeo then funded six episodes as original programming before HBO picked the show up, and the half-hour HBO version premiered in September 2016.
Notable facts
- Each early web episode cost less than $1,000 to make. (source)
- Vimeo funded six episodes through its Vimeo on Demand originals push before HBO picked the series up. (source)
- The web episodes ran from about 5 to 20 minutes; on HBO the show expanded to a half-hour format. (source)
- In all, it comprised six web cycles followed by four HBO seasons, released between November 2012 and April 2020. (source)