Streaming Video Power Rankings #95

A combination of weather and other factors led me to indulge in even more streaming than usual this week, so look out, everyone!

1) Hulu: The Handmaid's Tale is a big winner and is being called Hulu's first real original hit. Plus Hulu just keeps adding shows--last week it was Animaniacs and Tiny Toons and Lost; this week it is announced that Living Single, Everwood, and One Tree Hill are on the way. I don't watch any of those last 3 shows, but Hulu really is providing something for everyone in addition to offering next-day broadcast TV.

Stuff I do (and did) watch includes: The Golden Girls, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, I Spy (Don't worry, I still loathe Cosby, but I felt like getting back to the reruns), and the compelling original doc Batman and Bill, which is about the creation of the iconic hero but also about a lot more.

2) Netflix: News-wise, Netflix was overshadowed a bit by its competitors' success, particularly at the Golden Globes, but, boy, did I appreciate it this week.  I didn't even get to the new David Letterman talk show yet, but I did get back into Daredevil, and GLOW may be my favorite series of 2017 (never mind the fact that I am watching most of it in 2018). It's getting competition, though, from the delightful docuseries The Toys That Made Us. And for now, Netflix still has some of my favorite old CBS-distributed comfort shows, like Cheers and Star Trek.

3) Amazon Prime: I just discovered that virtually all of the Shaw Brothers movies are on Prime Video. Well, maybe "virtually" is not as accurate as "nowhere near all of them" since the Shaw studio made, what, 800 movies? But the classic kung fu flicks are on there, and I have started checking them out.

Also, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel was a big award winner, and Amazon did a cool thing by making the series free to non-subs this weekend. Philip K. Dick's Electric Dreams looks interesting.

4) Warner Archive Instant: Yeah, it's still a ghost town, but I saw two classic Eight Is Enough episodes this week (plus a not-so-classic one), and honestly that excites me more than, say, The Polka King premiering on Netflix.

5) YouTube: My favorite find on here this week = the pilot of The New Andy Griffith Show, a series in which Andy Griffith played someone not named Andy Taylor who lives in a small North Cartolina  town not named Mayberry and is visited by Barney, Goober, and Emmett who act like he IS Andy Taylor. Oh, and this Andy has two kids with wife Lee Merriwether and shares his house with a sister-in-law played by Millie Helper.

6) WWE Network: It added almost two years (early 1980s) of Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling this week, and that has me tempted to subscribe/

7) Nosey: I'd love to tell you I used some of my extra leisure time this week to watch some of the intelligent, stimulating, and provocative documentary programming on CuriosityStream. But I actually watched 3 or 4 "vintage" episodes of Sally on Nosey.

8) Pluto TV: Because it actually added a Gorilla Channel this week.

9) Boomerang: Magilla Gorilla is much better than I remember, but then, I was like 5 years old when I saw it in reruns. That Mr. Peebles, though, is a real pill. And, Boomerang, I am not interested in these newer series you are touting. Just add, like, every cartoon made before 1990, please.

10) NBC: You know, I saw the first episode of Charles In Charge here the other day, and it is a lot funnier than I expected. I think this is more embarrassing than admitting I was watching Sally. I love that NBC offers so many old shows free of charge and in decent quality, but the commercial load on here is brutal.