Here’s the dealio. After Veronica Mars was canceled, I gave up television for awhile. I even stopped watching shows I used to like. You’d think I would find my productivity go up, but alas, I discovered THE INTERNETS.
Things a TV addict can find on the internets:
- Funny or Die: a Youtube-like website featuring actual funny. I’m a bit of a Charlyne Yi addict, so the fact that she’s a part of many of the videos on FOD is a big draw for me.
- alluc.org: although the legality (and morality) are a bit questionable, alluc is great for bbc/ch4 addicts like myself. My college doesn’t offer BBC America (and really, there is no ch4 America), and after watching them on sketchy Japanese websites, I end up buying all the series’ I like anyway. The mere existence of the internet requires that I a) avoid blogs (hi, impossible) or b) find a way to watch the shows I like. Stupid blogs. We should get rid of ‘em. The way alluc.org works is by hosting the links to off-site videos. On the sites they link to, the videos remain untagged and cloaked under a different name (i.e. the latest Dr. Who episode, “The Fires of Pompeii” is on one site labeled “Video of my trip to Rome to visit David“), as to avoid being detected by network bots. Alluc.org gets away with it because they issue a disclaimer every time you click one of the links: “By clicking on ‘continue to content’ you will be redirected to the episode of your choice. We have to point this out to make sure we can’t be held liable for content uploaded by others.” So far the German-run website has been able to evade legal action.
- hulu.com: great-quality, legal, free, full episodes of current and former tv shows from Fox, NBC, SciFi, FX, The WB, Bravo, and USA, among others. After a seven-second “Brought to you by” voice-over, the episode of your choice begins, and is only interrupted 5 times for 15-30 second commercials in a 45-minute show. Hulu gets it’s revenue from advertisers, but it also helps the networks out by putting up only a few seasons of TV shows to prompt addicts into buying the other seasons (and sometimes even the season they’ve already seen) on DVD. Hulu has caused me to spend over $200 in TV on DVD, so it seems their scheme is working. Favorites of mine on the site include Roswell and Buffy.
- io9: a new Gawker Media blog focusing on science fiction. My favorite of the daily features is “Morning Spoilers.” Every morning they post rumors and pictures from scifi TV shows and movies. Nowhere else can you find Doctor Who, Iron Man, Dollhouse, and Wall-E spoilers all in one place.
So no. TV is not worth watching any more, because the few shows on-air that are still good (30 Rock, How I Met Your Mother, The Office) can all be found online the next morning, with fewer commercials, and on demand. I watched TV for the first time in 3 weeks this past Thursday, due to the 30 Rock/The Office premiere. And I was disappointed by both.
Shows I’ve been watching a lot lately:
- Torchwood
- Doctor Who
- The IT Crowd
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer
- Roswell
- How I Met Your Mother (despite the gimmick casting)
- Freaks and Geeks
- My So-Called Life
