Amazon premieres 'Alpha House' and 'Betas' comedy series

Netflix has had wild success developing original series, and now Amazon is following a similar lead by releasing two comedies. Alpha House is premiering November 15th and Betas on November 22nd, according to Deadline.com. All Amazon customers will get the first three episodes for free. After this, each series will release one episode at a time, and they will only be available on Prime Instant Video, Amazon's subscription service.

Alpha House revolves around four senators living together in Washington D.C. John Goodman leads the pack, with Clark Johnson (The Sentinel, director, actor on many television series), Matt Malloy (Hitch, producer and television actor) and Mark Consuelos (All My Children). These actors will be joined by Sex and the City's Cynthia Nixon, actress and writer Amy Sedaris, comedian Wanda Sykes, and Julie White (Transformers). 

Betas has a younger cast, Joe Dinicol (Scott Pilgrim v. the World), television actor Karan Soni, Jon Daly (of an award-winning New York sketch group), Charlie Saxton, and Maya Erskine. In keeping with the times, the plot deals with the development of a social networking app. A special guest star appearance is to come from St. Elsewhere's Ed Begley Jr, who you've more recently seen on Spinal Tap, Pineapple Express and Arrested Development. The series is directed and produced by Michael Lehmann, who has done films Heathers and 40 Days and 40 Nights and recent television series True Blood and American Horror Story episodes. He joins Alan Freedland, Alan Cohen and Michael London in directing and producing. 

The model for the new Amazon series isn't quite the same as Netflix. Director of Amazon Studios, Roy Price says,  "We're constantly experimenting and trying new things -- and we're eager to hear customers' feedback on this model," according to Deadline. The pilot program started this past April.

Will you be watching either of these series this month? Do you think it will catch on like Netflix has?