by Neumann Sennheiser » Sat Sep 28, 2013 5:57 am
With my move from Bremerton to Port Ludlow Washington this month, I have given up traditional television providers entirely and am now strictly streaming my TV, mainly from Hulu.
Not available in Canada I hear? That's a shame as it's providing most of my viewing at zero cost to me.
I watched the season premieres of both Michael J. Fox's new series and the James Spader vehicle Black List the day after they aired on their respective networks. I also had access to the season openers of both Modern Family and Parks and Recreation.
The Michael J. Fox Show features a great cast of supporting players coming directly from winning programs like Breaking Bad and HBO's Treme and, of course, Michael himself is, as always, charming and funny. NBC is riding a lot on this one and the lead up promotion has created anticipation and great expectations from everyone. Of course it couldn't possibly live up to the hype and it doesn't. It's not that bad though and has potential to get much better but, so far, not enough funny in the writing. We all WANT to like this one, don't we.
Bad List, on the other hand, has a lot bad going on. The first 5 minutes looked brilliant but rapidly fell into cliched writing concepts and characters. Spader is simply playing the same character he always portrays (a la Robert California, the replacement manager from The Office). This one is trying to emulate the atmosphere of AMC's award-winning Homeland and not quite hitting that sweet spot. Black List will probably survive anyway. The remade Hawaii 5-0 did so, and that only held me for a one-episode tryout.
Returning hits like Modern Family and Parks are coming back with the same winning formulas that got them to the top and will continue to enjoy the largest weekly audiences. HBO remains the network that delivers the creme' with Boardwalk Empire already four episodes into the new season and Treme returning later this year and Game of Thrones in the spring. AMC says farewell to Breaking Bad tomorrow night and, with the new season of Homeland opening right after, they should draw the most eyeballs this Sunday. They also have Mad Men to look ahead to as well but that one's also going away after this final season.
I'm finding ways (legal) to access all of these and am not missing regular, traditional television networks at all.
Well, except for NFL football.
Sundays, I now drive 12 minutes to the local cowboy tavern in Port Hadlock to watch the games with fellow Seahawks' fans enjoying social camaraderie, free popcorn and one of the best cheeseburgers I've ever tasted.
Like the red-head from the Wendy's commercials would say: "Now THAT's better".
"You don't know man! I was in radio man! I've seen things you wouldn't believe!"