Tag: netflix

Subscribed

~ Sue ~ 2 Comments

See when apps like Netflix launched and allowed us to stream our favourite TV shows, it was revolutionary. Finally, we weren’t stuck watching shows at inconvenient times, we could watch what we wanted, when we wanted. And over the years, more services came online, and we had more choice than ever. It was a viewers market.

Until it wasn’t.

I can only speak for myself, but if you want to view all the content you may want, you can easily pay for 6-7 different streaming services at once. Which, considering streaming was originally a cheaper option to Satellite/cable, is now getting more and more expensive. The thing is, if people really use a service, and get their moneys worth, it’s fine. But, I find that most people don’t use their subscribed streaming services to their value.

I can only speak from my experience, and I think that there is too much stuff, spread across too many providers. I am a very indecisive person and really struggle with choosing to watch something new. It is why I am watching Gilmore Girls for the thousandth time on Netflix. It is also why I decided to shut my Disney+ account. I have an option activated across my devices, where they automatically ‘offload’ apps I haven’t used in like a month or so. Disney+ had been removed across all my devices. So I just cancelled my subscription.

The thing is, I am a huge Disney fan. I have so many of the movies on DVD still. I was trying to collect the whole animated classics series of films. But then, DVDs became harder to find, and people streamed instead. And when I was faced with all my favourite animated movies and tv shows, as well as new series and films and documentaries, I just got overwhelmed. I don’t know what it is about Disney+, but I just did not like the app’s layout at all. Don’t really know why. But I’d just open the app, look at the homepage, close the app, go into Netflix and put Gilmore Girls on.

I know terrestrial TV is struggling, as advertising money is shrinking. People don’t watch scheduled tv anymore. They prefer to watch 2-3 episodes of the same show in a row. Programs that make it to standard tv, has more chance of being renewed. Netflix and Disney are very good at cancelling shows after one season. And, if you look at things like Netflix’s Wednesday, by the time season 2 launches it will be 3 years since the first season premiered. That would never happen with traditional TV. For me, it means I have no intention of watching till I find out if the series is going any further, and that is a growing opinion amongst people. People aren’t going to invest their time and heart into a show that isn’t going to deliver in length or content.

It’s all a bit crazy.

Making Choices

~ Sue ~ 1 Comment

When trying to get one’s life in order, it becomes necessary to make changes. In fact, changes in life are inevitable, though it can be hard when you have to initiate it yourself.

It is very easy to get comfortable in your life, no matter how soul sucking it may actually be. That’s where I am at the moment, but I am focusing on my money management. Something I haven’t been good at. Ever. But I am particularly bad at paying for things I don’t use. Like, I subscribe to something like Netflix, and stay signed up on the idea that I might fancy watching something on it at some point. Even though I regularly scroll through Netflix, and then go to Amazon Prime or Disney+ instead, because I don’t actually find anything I like. Like, I should just cancel, but I have something that stops me. I think it’s the same thing that stops me from throwing out my old iPhone boxes.

I got thinking about this, because my premium plan for WordPress is due to renew next week, and I have just cancelled the auto-renew. Whilst I like the extra features that premium gives me, I don’t currently blog enough for it to be worth the money, as it is quite expensive. I still have the domain, which is good. I have had this site for a lot of years, and I would like to continue it. If I can get into the habit of updating more regularly, then I may get the subscription again. But, at a time when I am trying to save money for lots of things.

I just need to look through what subscriptions I use, maybe keep a tally on what I use, and get rid of what I don’t use. It seems pretty silly, but I am not very good at large changes. So, maybe small steps are better, as they all add up eventually.

Spoilt

~ Sue ~ Leave a comment

The internet has given the normal, average person so much opportunity. That may be applying for new jobs, which rather than popping your CV through letter boxes, has becoming emailing or filling in forms from the comfort of your own home. You can download computer games, movies and books at a touch of a button. Never have we had such information at our fingertips. It’s crazy.

It can be overwhelming. As much as I enjoy finding new things to watch and read, I am slow at ingesting such things. I take my time, as I can get bored doing the same thing for too long.

I am working my way through Pretty Little Liars, which is on Netflix. Other people I know, binge watched the series from their bed. I like to dip in and out, so I’ll maybe watch one or two episodes whenever I can be bothered. The final episode aired a few days ago, and spoilers popped up everywhere. Seeing as I am still early in the final season, I avoided everything. And was doing really well, till I saw a post on Tumblr that spoilt everything.

Back when I started getting into watching dramas and the like on TV, episodes were released weekly. And sometimes the channels, here in the U.K., would get programmes months if not years after its original release in America, or where ever. That was fine, with my short attention span. But, now? Series are released online either in the one go, or as they air in their country of origin.

This is good. But it also means that people get up to date, and post spoilers. I don’t mean, this character comes back, or something which is covered in the general synopsis. I am talking about people telling the world about what happens after major cliff hangers. Well, that happened today. I have been watching Pretty Little Liars for years, and have noticed people saying that the final episode was rubbish. But, I didn’t get any other information till today. And finding out the actual ending has kind of made me want to stop watching the rest of the show. I want to stay in the episodes where I am not disappointed, where I feel happy with the series. I feel like my experience of the show, as it ends, is now worse because of the ending.

It frustrates me that people don’t understand that. They are called spoilers for a reason, you can spoil a show for someone. Which sounds silly, but to watch a standard drama series, you have to invest hours of your life in the storylines and characters. And it kind of feels a bit crap, that you don’t get a ‘first reaction’ like other people. You have a pre-conceived idea before you reach that particular episode.

Truth be told, maybe I should just learn to watch things quicker.

TV Binge

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How annoying is normal TV? You have to work with a schedule which usually only allows you to watch one episode, once a week. There are very few programmes where I have the patience to do that with. The last show on TV that I actually watched with the schedules was Death In Paradise. Which is a bit like Midsummer Murders, on a Caribbean Island. It is something that I could easily watch after a day at work, something that would normally be dubbed as ‘Sunday Night TV’. But that is about it.

If I don’t watch the scheduled TV, then what do I watch? Mostly a mixture of things from Youtube, Netflix or Crunchyroll. I like watching stuff this way, because I can watch content that I like, that I find engaging. Which is a good thing, it is important to fill your time up with things that you find interesting. And there is usually enough content which could keep you entertained for hours. Just one episode after another.

The problem is, most of the animes on Crunchyroll, or vlogs on Youtube are short. At the most they are only 20 minutes long, which is a nice manageable size for a programme. It also means, it is very easy to watch through multiple episodes. Whereas, long programmes, like one on Netflix, can last about an hour. Now because the storyline is stretched out to cover that amount of time, it might not be as fast paced as the shorter programmes. This has lead me to have a bit of an attention problem with shows that have longer running times. I can maybe make it through a couple episodes, but then that’s it.Whereas I can watch anime for hours, like I re-watched Naruto and managed all 220 episodes in under a week.

When speaking to people, I understand that less and less people are watching what is scheduled on the standard channels. People now have the ability to watch what they want, and they are utilising that ability. It just makes me wonder, how much power do the TV networks actually have, now their audience share is going to other places to get content. It was bad enough when satelite TV came into play, with all these different channels. Like for years in the UK, we had 4 basic channels, and then it increased to 5, and with the digital switchover, every home had access to more and more channels. Which means the audience is split between all these channels, and that is not including the audience that streams their content online. Obviously this means that the networks (other than the BBC), make less money, so I would like to know how stuff is going to change. Are we actually going to see a bigger variety of programming?? Hopefully so.

Netflix Recommended :Series

~ Sue ~ 3 Comments

I am one of those people who can take or leave a Netflix binge. I like watching one or two episodes, but normally, any more than that and my attention starts to fade. So I thought I’d make a list of what I have been watching recently.

The Big Bang Theory – This program is repeated a lot on TV here in the U.K., but it is always the same episodes that I seem to catch. So it’s nice to flit back to the start, and have it on whilst doing housework.

Pretty Little Liars – I love this show, and I found it through Netflix. Alison DiLaurentis goes missing, suspected dead, and her friends are pulled into a mess. Some mystery, and a whole lot of drama.

Gary Tank Commander – Gary McLintoch is a Tank Commander in the British Army, in this funny comedy from BBC Scotland. Gary and his pals mess around, and seemingly make a mess of everything. I mean, a program that tries to reference cheesy pasta whilst talking about the war in Iraq is worthy of a look.

The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air– The role that brought Will Smith to the world. This program was something I watched nightly on BBC 2 after my dinner, it was shown after The Simpsons. The program is still really funny. Will is a teenager sent from Philadelphia to live with his uncle in the posh Bel-Air, and the comedy that comes from him being completely mis-matched with his new surroundings. A bit of 90s nostalgia is good for you.

The Gilmore Girls– another nostalgic turn. The story of the life and loves of Lorelai Gilmore, and her daughter Rory. The story starts with Lorelai getting Rory into a private school, so that she can achieve her dream of attending Harvard. The series was revived this year by Netflix, and continued where the original series left off. It’s a nice easy watch, and I suggest anyone to check into Stars Hollow.

It’s not very many, but as I said before, I am not a ‘watch a series in a day’ kind of girl. I am more, watch a few episodes and forget for a month. So I am ALWAYS behind.

Movie Time: Remembering Sunday

~ Sue ~ Leave a comment

Length: 96 mins

Dirextor: Jeff Bleckner

Starring: Alexis Bledel, Zachary Levi, Merritt Weaver

I was a huge fan of Alexis Bledel in the Gilmore Girls and Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants movies,  so when I saw Remembering Sunday popped up on my Netflix recommended, I decided to watch. It is a made for TV movie, which was shown on the Hallmark Channel in the US, starring Alexis as waitress, Molly, who meets jewellery shop worker Gus, played by Mad Men’s Zachary Levi.

This is very similar to 50 First Dates, in that Gus has had a brain disorder which has left him unable to make new memories. Gus meets Molly, when he is waiting for his friend in a cafe, and he is recording his thoughts on a voice recorder (he transfers these new memories to a computer when he gets home). He is nice to Molly, and as such she falls for him. He tries to hide the fact that every day he wakes up with no memory about what happened the day before, so as they see each other more, Gus records the conversations they share. Gus plans everything to exact detail, to hide his issues from Molly, and gets slightly frazzled. Playing Gus’ sister Lucy, is Merritt Weaver, also known as Zoey from Nurse Jackie . She appears to be Gus’ rock, and does it well, working out a system so that Gus can understand what has happened so that he can survive every day, and relearn what has happened since he became ill. She also warns Molly about understanding that there is no quick fix for Gus’ memory issue, and that she has to accept that he may not be normal. Which is a tough issue that a lot of films and TV shows wouldn’t touch on. It gave a bit of an extra dimension to the story.

Molly dreams of opening a floor shop, but due to cash-flow issues, she finds herself ‘waiting for life to start’, working in the cafe, attending college and renting a room in her friends apartment. She feels that she has had awful luck with men, and has trust issues. And seems to doubt everything that happens, like when Gus forgets one of their dates.

I am not going to post too many spoilers, because that takes away the joy of watching a movie, right? If you thought 50 First Dates was good, this is the same, but more chick-flick slush rather than laugh out loud. It is very sweet, and has moments where it is genuinely touching. But, you can tell this is a made for TV movie, it seems to go a little askew at the start of the second half, as I lost attention, as changes start to happen, as the character’s lives move forward, I didn’t feel involved enough to be part of the journey with them. It was cute, it was watchable, it just lacked the oomph that makes me really care about a movie.

If you are spending a quiet afternoon to yourself, this is a movie for that. It is easy to watch, and is something to kill a few hours. Because the general storyline is very similar to that of 50 First Dates, I found myself missing the laughs, as there wasn’t much to be found here. I wouldn’t pay for the movie to rent, but if you have Netflix, it is worth a look.