Saturday, November 25, 2017

Streaming Video Power Rankings #89

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving! Maybe you are still enjoying an extended 4-day holiday weekend. If so...I'm angry because I didn't have one. But I hope you are celebrating the American way--by streaming whatever you can in between football games.

1) Netflix: Kudos to the King of Streaming for premiering a lot of content this holiday week. I mean, much of it looks like garbage to me, but I admire the effort to unload a lot of new stuff when people will be home to watch it.

I should dock Netflix for my daughter watching Haters Back Off  while I was in the same room, but instead, I thank them for the fascinating Jim Carrey/Andy Kaufman documentary, the new Brian Regan special, and the old but always welcome Thanksgiving episodes of Cheers.

2) Hulu: Welcome to the home of Marvel Comics on streaming video! Sure, Netflix gets the headlines (for another few years), but Hulu debuted The Runaways this week, it quietly added Agent Carter (heretofore MIA from streaming), and will add FX's Legion season 1 next month.

Meanwhile, on the DC end of things, my kids sure are loving Teen Titans Go. I think it has made them forget about Disney Now.

3) Acorn TV: Honestly, Doc Martin is coasting at this point, but I still enjoy each episode and will watch it as long as it continues...which I think is one more season. Now that I have finished Series 8, time to move on to Count Arthur Strong and 800 Words.

4) YouTube: Tons of good stuff on here lately, as Sean MC  continues to bring it, plus that Andy Kaufman on Letterman compilation I mentioned last week is a great companion to the Netflix doc.

And I may not be smart to admit this, but I very much enjoyed the random episode of 1984 AWA All-Star Wrestling I watched when I probably should have been catching up on something else.

5) Pub-D-Hub: I always try to give extra credit to a service that offers a nice seasonal collection of content, and the Hub came through again with a Thanksgiving-themed section, though much of it was familiar and I wound up just watching an old Beulah episode.

6) The CW: Still behind on my "stories," but I made some progress this week. Hey, is anybody watching that new Dynasty?

7) Amazon Prime: Not only is it debuting The Big Sick, which is apparently a terrific movie, but it is just about that time of year I consider getting a month of Prime for the holiday shipping. Red Oak, here I come!

8) Warner Archive Instant: Major points for the Eight Is Enough I saw, and I even enjoyed the Dr.   Kildare with Cesar Romero as a crusty old town doctor. Wouldn't you know he'd turn out to have a heart of gold? The official Twitter account still hasn't done anything since October 22.

9) NBC: Thanks, NBC app/Roku channel, for making it possible to get a nice, clean uncut stream of the episode of Knight Rider we discussed this week on Battle of the Network Shows.

10) Brown Sugar: This week, I couldn't help but wish I were a current subscriber so that I could celebrate Thanksgiving the right way by enjoying the recent addition of 1974's Black Hooker.

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