Amazon offering ‘Transparent’ season 1 for free … for 24 hours only

If you’ve seen a few of our articles over the past couple of days, then you should know already that we’re pretty high on “Transparent.” This comedy, starring “Arrested Development” standout Jeffrey Tambor, is making waves not just for humor, but also its poignancy as it presents a different look at transgender life and social relations. It’s also coming off some big Golden Globe wins both for Tambor, and the series itself.

So with all of this in mind, we cannot say that we are particularly shocked by the announcement that Amazon is making its entire first season available for streaming, for free, on Saturday. This is an opportunity to check out the show for yourself, and see what all of the hype is about. Only a select few may be able to get through the show in a single day, but the marketing ploy here is obviously to get some people hooked so that they eventually sign up for a Prime account.

In a statement, Amazon head Jeff Bezos had the following to say:

“We’re incredibly proud of everyone involved in the making of Transparent — the team took a risk and it paid off … Big kudos and congrats to Jill, Jeffrey, and all the cast and crew.”

While Amazon has been developing a number of pilots over the past two years, this is the first real critical hit that they’ve had to the point where it has award-show nominations. It makes sense that this would be a show that they would market like this, and we very much think that it will pay off.

Of course, Amazon also offers a free trial of the Prime service, for those of you who have not used that yet.