First Netflix bagged Fincher, now Amazon fires back with Woody Allen. The two towers of US subscription based television are at war and we, dear friends, look like being winners all the way.

The fact that Woody Allen has partnered with Amazon means that a) Amazon will have given him a clean slate and final cut and b) we’re going to see Woody Allen’s work as never before.

No stranger to TV his career began writing jokes for Sid Caeser in the late 50s, his stand-up shows of the next decade are still some of the funniest examples of the art you’ll ever find, but a full TV series is uncharted territory.

One cannot underestimate the effect Allen has had on entertainment. Though there aren’t many films which follow on from his work it is impossible to see Girls, Arrested Development, even bear the soft and desolate drudgery of The Office without finding toes dangling in Allen’s gene pool.

As a director who cannot bear to watch his own work (his BBC Scene by Scene programme featured the oddity of Allen literally not turning around to watch the clips of his work as they played) it will be very interesting to see how Allen approaches this new project.

Another Amazon director, Nicolas Winding Refn, spoke to us about seeing his on/off show Barbarella as a ’13-hour movie’. Perhaps Allen will do the same? Could this be Annie Hall for the 21st Century? Will his whimsical, almost magical, touch of his recent films carry on to the small screen? As you can see – all we have are questions.

Even though Allen is quoted as saying ‘I don’t know how I got into this. I have no ideas and I’m not sure where to begin.’ anyone who has had a film out almost every year for four decades can’t be lacking in the ideas department.