missmediajunkie

It's been a while since I've checked in with the state of internet streaming services. Last time around I was bemoaning the state of Hulu, which has become so user unfriendly and clogged with commercials that I took it out of my streaming rotation. Netflix suffered some setbacks after splitting their service, but they got a boost by successfully launching original content, notably "House of Cards" and "Orange is the New Black." Amazon, Hulu, and a few others have tried to follow suit, but their series haven't attracted nearly as much attention. Netflix looks to be back on top of the streaming game and entrenching itself ever more firmly into the media landscape while the traditional networks continue to decline.

I'd mostly ignored what Amazon Prime was up to, having concluded that most of the content mirrored what was on Netflix. Their movie selection in particular hasn't been impressive. However, a couple of recent incidents have changed my mind. First, my significant other got himself hooked on FX's "Justified," which just finished its fifth season. Amazon Prime has exclusive streaming rights to the series, and currently offers the first four seasons. He's been marathoning them all month. Amazon Prime is also the only place where you can catch up on "Orphan Black" and "Hannibal," two shows in their sophomore years that are quickly moving up my list of current favorites. Netflix has its own exclusives, notably Disney movies and the AMC shows like "Breaking Bad" and "Mad Men," but Amazon Prime is quickly stepping up its game in the content arms race.

And then the bombshell hit today. HBO, which vocally refused to have anything to do with Netflix in the past, announced that they have licensed a nice, big chunk of their older programming exclusively to Amazon Prime. Soon you can go binge on all the episodes of "The Sopranos," "Six Feet Under," and "The Wire" you like. Alas, no "Deadwood," which was the next show on my "To Watch" list. For those hoping for a standalone HBO Go service, no such luck either. New content is strictly off limits, so don't expect the ravenous hordes of "Game of Thrones" fans to flock to Prime for their fix. Still, this is a big win for Amazon, and a clear sign that the studios are becoming more and more willing to do business with the streaming services.

Full disclosure - I still own a couple of shares of Netflix stock, but as a media junkie, I couldn't be happier that they now have a real competitor in Amazon Prime. It keeps both companies healthy and on their toes. I don't expect Netflix is going to make another mistake like Qwikster anytime soon, because the stakes have gone up so high. Amazon will also have more incentive to make some much-needed improvements. Their user interface and queuing features remain pretty atrocious. Just look at the way they've both been handling pricing announcements. Amazon Prime recently bumped up its yearly fee by $20 a year, making it slightly more per month than Netflix currently. And Netflix just announced that their prices will go up a dollar or two per month in the near future, but for new customers only.

I'm happy to continue subscribing to both services, which together cost less than half of what I was paying for basic cable five years ago. I do miss Netflix's streaming and DVD combo plan, but swapping out between one and the other has been working pretty well for me. Keep in mind that I'm still watching mostly films on these services, and most of the big deals that have been coming down have been geared toward securing licenses of television shows, so their impact on me has been fairly limited so far. Ironically, the only time that I've really gotten excited over new content being available through a streaming service was back when Hulu landed a big chunk of the Criterion Collection. However, Hulu's treatment of it has been so poor that I'm now biding my time, waiting for the license to expire and for the titles to go somewhere else when Hulu inevitably folds.

That's the biggest fallout I can see from Amazon becoming a big streaming player. Netflix won't be going anywhere, having established themselves so firmly. Amazon has the ambition and the deep pockets to compete with them on even terms. However, Hulu is owned by a collection of the networks, and they have consistently been unwilling to give their customers not only what they want, but what they have come to expect from online streaming content. The fact that they're not only still running commercials on Hulu Plus, but have increased them to the point where the service is almost indistinguishable from regular television, is maddening. I really don't see them lasting much longer.
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I didn't see last Thursday's edition of "The Daily Show" until last night, so I'm a little behind on the newest political meme that has apparently taken the internet by storm - well, at least in certain circles. House minority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) recently released what's essentially two-and-a-half minutes of B-roll footage, just shots of him looking patriotic and competent without any dialogue or narration. The intention was for any pro-Republican PACs and super PACs out there he's not supposed to be coordinating with to to use the footage to generate supportive ads independently. More on that in a minute.

Anyway, "The Daily Show" found the footage and had so much fun setting the bland, boring visuals to a variety of pop songs, including Simon & Garfunkel’s “The Sounds of Silence,” Salt-n-Pepa’s “Whatta Man,” and Sir Mix-A-Lot’s “Baby Got Back,” that they devoted a whole segment to it. Then Jon Stewart put up a "#McConnelling" hashtag and invited his audience to join in the fun. The internet hasn't disappointed - my favorites so far include ones set to The Offspring's "Pretty Fly for a White Guy," and the "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" theme song. McConnell does look strangely like cartoon turtle from the right angles. Another tactic has been to stick McConnell into the credits of old TV shows as a featured guest star. I expect we'll be getting a compilation of the best videos when "The Daily Show" comes back from break next week.

Media reactions have been fairly muted. The meme is silly and tame enough that it would come across as pretty ridiculous to try and take any offense. McConnell's people have embraced McConnelling, even adding links to some of the blander mashups on the Congressman's official website. I'm not sure that he understands that he's being mocked, though. Most of the successful McConnelling videos are playing on the total incongruity between McConnell's milquetoast appearance and songs full of sex and angst and ninja turtles. And I don't think that many of the participants really understand the full implications of what McConnelling has done.

The internet, at the instigation of "The Daily Show," has essentially appropriated the footage meant to be used for some fairly shady campaigning and made it impossible to take any of it seriously. I don't know that I'll be able to watch at any ad using this footage with a straight face. And there's a pretty good likelihood that future Mitch McConnell ads are just going to be mined for more material if this meme sticks around through the next election cycle. However, I don't feel too badly for the guy because he essentially brought this on himself by putting the original footage out there, and making it pretty obvious what it was intended to be used for. He can't really complain about McConnelling being appropriate because the ads they were intended for are hardly appropriate in the first place.

There have been lots of spoofs of political ads over the years, and election seasons practically demand them. One of my favorites to emerge from the internet was a fake John McCain ad from back in 2008, where a couple of clever filmmakers put together a campaign spot as if it had been directed by Wes Anderson, complete with a Bowie song and captions in Futura font. However, I think it's telling that McConnelling happened almost spontaneously, outside of the context of any serious campaigning going on. Most McConnelling videos are almost aggressively apolitical, and I expect that any attempt by either side to inject any politics won't be well received.

Consider the wider implications of this. The internet culture is now moving so fast now that we're essentially spoofing political ads that don't exist yet. This should be a good wake-up call for everyone that was scoffing about President Obama doing the "Between Two Ferns" appearance on Funny or Die last week. It doesn't matter if you don't engage with the Millennials because the Millennials are eventually going to engage with you, and good luck trying to keep control of the message when that happens.

I don't think that McConnell is going to be too successful if he tries to capitalize on his newfound fame with the meme-generating set. Fortunately, I don't think he has much interest in doing so. Responses in interviews regarding the McConnelling phenomenon have included the usual requests for help with fundraising, but mostly his people have been pretty quiet, which is probably for the best. Politicians who have tried to capitalize off of memes haven't had a very good success rate.

Remember the "Janet Reno Dance Party" sketch from "Saturday Night Live"? Yeah, now do you remember the "Janet Reno Dance Party" fundraiser when she was trying to run for governor of Florida back in 2002? Not the best idea, as it turned out.

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Funny or Die is not part of my usual media consumption rotation. Sure, I watch their videos occasionally when they go viral and I get linked to one. I've seen a couple of installments of "Between Two Ferns" too, the site's no-budget anti-talk show hosted by comedian Zach Galifianakis where interviewer and interviewee exchange insults with each other in stark contrast to the love-fests that most celebrity interviews have become. Actually, I've seen more memes spawned by the show than the actual show, particularly the one with Jennifer Lawrence mocking Galifianakis's weight.

And then yesterday, President Obama (identified as a "Community Organizer") showed up and took a seat between the ferns and everyone went nuts. He was plugging the Affordable Healthcare Act and Healthcare.gov, of course, and specifically targeting the young internet-loving demographic that comprises Funny Or Die's core audience. And the great thing was, he was in on the joke. He and Galifianakis lobbed some relative softballs at each other, but there were still a few zingers on sore subjects - birth certificates, basketball, and "Hangover 3" among them. The tone was right, the comedy wasn't compromised, and both the site and the president came away from the outing looking great.

Here I should add all the usual disclaimers that though I voted for Obama last time around, I do not agree with all of his positions and policies, the actions of his administration, and certainly not his approach to handling some very serious issues. As a campaigner, however, he's rarely made a wrong step. From a marketing standpoint the "Between Two Ferns" appearance was a shrewd move, right up there with Richard Nixon's cameo on "Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In." There aren't many other politicians I can imagine going toe to toe with Galifianakis. When they do feature in comedy bits like this, it's usually something like Stephen Colbert unleashing absurdity on a member of Congress in a "Better Know a District" segment of "the Colbert Report," where the politician plays the straight man (or woman). Or Ali G. maneuvering poor Pat Buchanan into making an idiot of himself.

This also signals a big moment for new media. Sure, Twitter has become a default talking point, and a Reddit IAMA session has become a regular stop on press tours, but you rarely see the mainstream really participate in the internet culture of viral videos and mash-up parodies made way outside the bounds of the traditional production system except to point it out or comment on it. Funny or Die might be considered a borderline case, as it has many famous contributors and backers, employs a professional writing staff, and recently partnered with HBO briefly to produce a short-lived sketch. However, by and large it has remained largely a web-based phenomenon that follows the anarchic, DIY, bare-bones aesthetic of most user-generated web content. In fact, the last time I checked the site, a good chunk of the Funny or Die website's content was still user submitted.

I'm right at the upper age limit of the intended target audience here, so I can appreciate what Funny or Die is doing while recognizing how alien the approach is to outsiders. The rules and the expectations of web content are very different. The set of "Between Two Ferns" consists of the two ferns, a few chairs, and a table, and the graphics package that looks like a relic of the early '80s, purposefully evoking the feel of an old public access show. The celebrities who appear don't behave they would on a regular talk show, engaging in ironic self-mockery with the understanding that they're playing to a very different audience. We're starting to see the same kind of humor appear on late night talk shows and in commercials, but there's still a significant divide between web culture and the mainstream media. That divide got a whole lot smaller when Obama dropped in for an interview. The President of the United States is about as mainstream as it gets, and exudes legitimacy.

It's been fascinating to look at the reactions to the appearance. Right wing pundits have been predictably outraged, though past presidents have employed similar tactics in the past. Capitol Hill stalwarts have been confused and worried about whether the appearance was appropriate or the best use of Obama's time, considering everything else that's going on in the world right now. The general public doesn't seem to care all that much one way or the other, and many remain completely unaware that the POTUS deigned to grace a lowly comedy website with his presence. However, the results are clear. Healthcare.gov got a healthy boost in traffic thanks to the "Ferns" interview after millions of people watched it on Funny or Die, and some of the visitors signed up for plans.

I have to wonder if a traditional marketing campaign would have been remotely as successful.

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I finally managed to ditch Comcast internet service a few months ago because I had moved into an area where a local provider offered competitive prices and I was no longer in an apartment that had made a deal with them for service. I didn’t have too much trouble with Comcast, probably because there were always several local options that kept them on their toes. Still, they did manage to cause their share of headaches. I’ve moved around a lot the past couple of years and had to disconnect and reconnect service repeatedly. At one point I could only access my current bill by going to an old account number and pulling up the electronic statements online - though customer service swore that the old account had been terminated.

Other people in the U.S. don’t have it so lucky, stuck with Comcast or Charter or Time Warner or Cox as their only real option in a geographic area for internet service, and their customers tend to hate their guts. These are consistently among the lowest rated service providers in consumer satisfaction polls. Constant complaints of poor service, high prices, and crummy broadband speeds have been lobbed at them from all sides. The United States currently has average internet speeds that are less than half of what you find in countries like South Korea and Romania. Some put-upon tech geeks are so frustrated by the limited options that they’ve been pinning their hopes on Google Fiber, which has been ever-so-slowly rolling out service that is exponentially faster than the average broadband speeds offered by the big companies.

So surely the announcement that Comcast is buying Time Warner Cable for $45 billion should set off the anti-trust alarm bells, right? These are two of the largest internet providers in the country. And with so many people already complaining about the near-monopoly these companies have in some places, surely the Justice Department and the FCC aren’t going approve this merger, are they? Well, Comcast and plenty of financial analysts are betting they will. Comcast has announced that it’s willing to let go of as many as 3 million subscribers in order to make sure the new company has less than 30% of the broadband market, the maximum market share that a single company can control before it runs afoul of antitrust regulations. They’ll probably do this by selling off part of Time Warner’s cable business to another company.

They’re still facing a steep uphill battle though. The merger is deeply unpopular, and public interest groups have been up in arms about the impact on consumers. They predict higher prices, service disruptions, and little incentive to fix the problems that customers have complained about for years. Moreover, the merged company would potentially have the clout to affect content providers and other media companies. Apple TV and Netflix are among the potential losers here, content platforms that were trying to negotiate deals with Time Warner before the merger was announced. Now that the courts have dealt a blow to Net Neutrality, Comcast and Time Warner controlling up to a third of the market reduces the VOD services’ leverage and could put them in a very bad position. Time Warner shareholders aren’t happy either. One of them has already filed a class action lawsuit trying to put the brakes on the deal moving forward, though it’s not expected to be much of a hurdle.

Comcast insists that the merger will be a benefit to consumers, that the efficiencies of scale will allow them to build faster networks and offer new products. However, single companies controlling large market shares tend to do the opposite. I can’t help thinking of the monopoly Comcast affiliate NBC currently has over the coverage of the Sochi Olympics, and the utterly appalling job they’ve been doing. No live broadcasts. Not nearly enough hours devoted to coverage. Horrible editing and obnoxious packaging of events. And, of course, invasive, inappropriate reporting tactics that reduced a bronze medalist to tears over the weekend. The NBC coverage was so bad at the London Olympics two years ago, I haven’t even bothered to try watching any of it this year, catching a few of the CBC and BBC highlights on Youtube instead whenever something newsworthy comes up.

If you want the full coverage, though, it’s NBC or nothing. And if you want broadband internet in some parts of the country, it’s going to be Comcast/Time Warner or nothing. Internet access is such a major necessity in my life now that I’ll be keeping a close eye on how this situation plays out. There are rumors that Charter might be going after Cox if the Comcast and Time Warner merger is approved. And if I move again in the future, having a choice of service providers may end up being one of the deciding factors.
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I've gone on something of a movie theater binge over the last couple of days, thanks to a couple of gift cards I got for Christmas and an unusually strong Oscar season. Expect the flood of film reviews to continue over the next few weeks. However, there's also the very strong likelihood that this is the last Oscar season I'm going to be able to really be able to fully participate in for quite some time. You see, I've got a major life change coming my way this year that's going to mean my ability to go out to see movies in theaters is going to be drastically, drastically curtailed. I'm looking at my once-a-month habit going down to maybe one or two special trips to the theaters a year for the next couple of years.

This doesn't bother me too much, really. I've known it was coming for a long time now, and there really aren't all that many movies that I'm anticipating so much that I feel I have to see them in theaters. I've been going out less and less often anyway. Ticket prices have been going up in my area again, to the point where the cost of my usual morning matinees finally broke the $8 mark - that's a month of Netflix or Amazon Prime, remember. On the horizon, the next "Star Wars" movie in 2015 is probably the only title I'd seriously consider making an effort to see in a theater with a big audience. And in that case, thanks to Disney's content deal with Netflix, I expect it should show up on the usual streaming services no more than two years later, before the inevitable sequel comes down the pipeline.

Or there are always rentals, which I've been depending on more these days. Netflix and Redbox discs have been a pretty good substitute for Blockbuster. Itunes and I have been getting along, though I still have some quibbles about their selection. Most mainstream films are available by disc in four to six months these days, though as always the indies and foreign films take much, much longer because of different release patterns. However, more and more I've seen the proliferation of VOD, the "second pay window" that lets you watch a relatively new film from home for roughly the same price as a theater ticket (the first pay window is the theatrical run). I expect that this is how I'm going to end up watching a lot of the movies that I usually go to see in theaters - PIXAR and Disney films, superhero movies, and science-fiction spectacles.

Initially, I didn't really understand the appeal of VOD, but it does provide a nice middle ground between going to the theater and waiting for rentals. It didn't make sense to me not to wait an extra few weeks for a movie to hit the rental shelves that I didn't care enough about to see in theaters. However, I've found that I do place a value on seeing certain films in a timely manner. Oscar season's no fun if you haven't seen a good chunk of the major contenders and have the knowledge to form your own opinions and argue them. There aren't many movies that become real cultural touchstones anymore like "Inception" or "Avatar," but when they do appear, they tend to get cycled through the media and people's conversations at a much faster rate these days. If theater trips are out for the foreseeable future, then VOD is the next best thing. Waiting three months for a VOD release isn't too bad of a delay, but six months? Everyone else has moved on, and extra vigilance is required to avoid spoilers people will assume are common knowledge already.

Am I even going to be able to stay at all current with the media landscape though? Is it worth it to try? Probably not. I'm not even sure I can continue this blog in its current form once the major life change happens. Updates are probably going to be drastically reduced and irregular for a few months, but I am determined to keep this blog going, if only to keep my writing skills up. I don't think there should be much of an impact on the content though - I don't review many new movies and shows to begin with, and older content is often much more rewarding to write about than the blockbuster of the week. I'm usually not current with the television posts anyway. The more general media gossip isn't hard to keep up with, and speculation requires fairly little context if you've got a solid idea of how the industry works.

So watch this space for more changes, and be assured that though your friendly neighborhood Miss Media Junkie has some real life to deal with, she is still going to be hanging around in some capacity.
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Congratulations Missmediajunkie, you are now the co-owner of a brand new iPad, alongside your much more tech-savvy significant other. You had no particular desire to own an iPad or really any Apple product aside from the iPod shuffle that you listen to podcasts on. But you had no idea what to get him and he had no idea what to get you, so when he suggested getting an iPad jointly, it seemed like a perfectly good idea, so you said yes.

And you have no idea what you’re going to use this thing for. Oh sure, it’s handy to have around. Just today, you took it with you while visiting relatives so you could set up a Skype call with some other relatives on the other side of the country. And it sure is nice to be able to take your media with you wherever you go, without having to lug along your heavy, six-year-old laptop that barely squeezes into its laptop bag. However, you can’t imagine browsing the web regularly with the iPad because the keyboard input is so difficult to use, really no better than the smart phone that your SO already lugs around. And you definitely can’t imagine typing out blog posts or doing any significant amount of work with the thing. It’s just not practical. The mobile-friendly versions of popular websites that have been driving you crazy over the last few years certainly make more sense for an iPad or iPhone user, but they’re still infuriatingly compromised.

However, the iPad is a great time waster. All the most popular games like Angry Birds and Candy Crush Saga are tailored for it. You’ve played through 33 levels of candy Crush Saga already, and it’s only been two days. Your SO has latched on to Plants vs. Zombies 2. You’ve started getting a pretty good look at the way these games are monetized. Some companies ask you to watch ads to build up the credits to continue playing some games. Others ask for subscriptions to turn off or reduce advertisements. The dollar amounts are small, and it’s so much more tempting to pay up to get more or better gameplay than it is when you’re on a regular computer. You’re already willing to pay a dollar or two for useful map and phone apps, so it’s not much a leap to pay a dollar or two for games. Or a dollar or two for other media.

The thing is, of course, you’re a cheapskate. Always have been. Always will be. You’re always extremely careful and selective about paying for anything entertainment-related online, so it surprised you that you were looking over the lists of cheap games, contemplating which ones might be a good buy. You realized that you were looking for something to do with this new iPad, a big shiny new piece of technology that seemed to be so full of interesting possibilities. However, the more you looked at it, the more you realized that the iPad is really designed as an entertainment consumption device. It’s difficult to create your own content or do much work beyond writing simple notes and text messages. You’re sure it would be helpful for education - Duolingo is one of the best regarded apps you’ve found - but the main event is clearly games and media. iPad is currently the only device you own that came pre-installed with the players for Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Instant, the three streaming services that you subscribe to regularly.

To an extent you’re okay with that. You knew before you bought the iPad that it was most likely only going to be a toy, certainly not anything you planned to do anything specifically practical with. However, you can’t get past the nagging feeling that we probably could and should. You already consume plenty of media without the iPad’s help. Right now you’re still getting to know the device itself. You love that the battery life allows you to spend hours on Candy Crush Saga without having to worry about a recharge. The navigation still trips you up, but you’re getting the hang of the super-simple commands. You have yet to watch a movie or television episode on the iPad, but your SO has already gone through a few anime episodes on Amazon Instant without any trouble. The screen size is big enough that you think watching a full film on it would be fine - once you get a stand for it. You probably should have gotten one of those Smart Covers at the Apple Store.

Oh well. You did manage to do something really neat with that Skype call, and you’re sure you’ll find other ways to justify the purchase of the iPad in the future. It really is a nifty machine, and once you get better with it, you’ll probably find more things it can do for you.

Assuming you ever get it away from your SO.
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Dear Hollywood,

This year for Christmas, I want:

For a few major franchise films to tank so that we can stem the ridiculous tide of sequels and remakes that have been inundating multiplexes. I'm resigned to 2014 and 2015 being swamped in high-numbered sequels that nobody really wants, like "Transformers 4" and "Resident Evil 6," but so many of these series have outstayed their welcome and need to be put out to pasture. Why do we need another "Die Hard" movie? And another "Jurassic Park"? And are they really rebooting "Robocop"?

For more diverse superhero movies. With the superhero trend showing no signs of slowing down, we need to get black and Latino and female superheroes on the big screen eventually. It's inevitable at this point. I'd love to see those rumors of a Wonder Woman movie finally come true, or I'd even be happy with a Black Widow spinoff at this point. And did you see the fanart of Idris Elba as the Green Lantern that's being passed around the internet? John Stewart was the Lantern I always liked best anyway.

For next year's crop of original science-fiction movies to do well. We've got several prominent titles coming in 2014, including Christopher Nolan's "Interstellar," Wally Pfister's "Transcendence," and the Wachowskis' "Jupiter Rising." I'm hoping that the success of "Gravity" was a harbinger of sorts, ushering in a new trend of more daring, more interesting science-fiction movies. Now that the price of the special effects has come down, we've been getting some very interesting new entries to the genre. And the future successes of these movies would mean a higher chance of Hollywood taking chances on future ones.

For more adventurous CGI animated films. 2013 has been a pretty dull year for animation so far, with too many too familiar characters, stories, and visuals. There are more franchises than ever before, and "Planes" in particular was a low point. I'm baffled that Dreamworks came out with two original properties this year, "The Croods" and "Turbo," while most of the other major studios were pushing sequels or prequels or spinoffs. With Miyazaki threatening to retire for good this time, and PIXAR having setbacks, this is a good opportunity for other animation producers to step up their game.

For the "Scandal" effect to keep on rolling. Some point to the "Obama effect," which has lead to prestige pieces featuring African-American stories like "12 Years a Slave," "The Help," and "The Butler," but I attribute the recent spike in minority lead actresses on television directly to Shonda Rimes and Kerry Washington. Thanks to their success, we have Nicole Beharie on "Sleepy Hollow," and the upcoming reboot of "Murder She Wrote" with Octavia Spencer. It's a good sign that the Golden Age of Television won't have the same problematic racial and gender representation issues as mainstream films.

For the continued rise of the web series revolution. I don't just mean on Netflix, but the original shows coming on Amazon, Hulu, Funny or Die, and other streaming content providers. This is the crux of the new media upheaval, and the new distribution models means that there is a fresh opportunity to do shows as no one has done them before. The variable running times, the new emergence of shorter form series, and more have resulted so far. There aren't many concrete rules yet, so creators should enjoy the freedom of the new frontier while they can.

For an uncut North American release of Bong Joon-ho's "Snowpiercer." There are rumblings that test screenings of the Harvey Weinstein cut haven't gone well, and the bad press can't be doing the Weinsteins Company any favors. The original cut of Jean-Pierre Jeunet's "Mood Indigo," which is also being edited for international release by a different company, is probably much less likely to reach the U.S. for some time because of some of the reviews I've seen, but "Snowpiercer" should have a much better shot.

For all the shows that disappointed me this year to do better, and for the good ones to keep up the good work. And for some of those high-numbered sequels to surprise me next year. I know nobody sets out to make a bad movie, except Friedberg and Seltzer, purveyors of the worst movie spoofs in the history of movie spoofs, who need to ask themselves if this is really what they want to be doing with their lives.

For a good fifth season of "Community." I'm not holding out for six seasons and a movie anymore. Right now I just want Dan Harmon to be able to close out my favorite sitcom the way he wants.

For a more user-friendly Itunes. Seriously, I feel like I'm only still using the service because I can't cash out my remaining gift card balances.

And good luck to Peter Capaldi, perhaps the sexiest man to play "Doctor Who" to date.

And a pony.

Happy Holidays!
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Big things are afoot in the world of television criticism. Rotten Tomatoes, the now ubiquitous movie review aggregator site, just announced that they would be creating a Tomatometer for television reviews. Seasons rather than individual episodes will be rated, and only scripted series will be covered. Reality shows need not apply for now. Over at the AV Club, they've announced a new TV Reviews section, specifically to provide reviews that match this criteria, instead of their usual episode-by-episode analyses.

The logistics are going to be more complicated than with film reviews. In the Variety story announcing the expansion into television, the site's editor-in-chief acknowledged that ratings would be more fluid and subject to change, especially in the case of series that are currently airing. Because standard network television seasons run for eight months and roughly two dozen episodes, a show has plenty of time to go from being great to ghastly, or vice versa. The TV Tomatometer's launch coincides with the start of the new fall season, and the reviews for new shows will be based on the handful given to critics early. Many of those initial grades could be completely different by midseason in December.

On the other hand, many of us don't consume television the traditional way anymore. Thanks to streaming services, many viewers discover shows online after several seasons are already completed. I started watching "Mad Men" and "Breaking Bad" through Netflix. Television series, not films, have become the major engine behind the success of streaming services like Netflix, Amazon Instant, and Hulu, with all three now producing their own original series to keep feeding their content pipelines. In a week, we're about to witness the first Emmys where web-exclusive shows like "House of Cards" are in contention for major awards.

A TV Tomatometer makes sense now where it hadn't in the past, because now we have ready access to so many seasons of so many shows, and have the ability to pick and choose between them. Many of us already do - watching "The X-files" up to season six only, for instance, or skipping over year four of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," where she was dating a non-vampire. I expect that it'll also be helpful with the new fall premieres, helping to give a boost to the critical favorites, or even the mostly trashed shows - FOX's "Dads" has been marketing itself on the basis of its most unfavorable reviews lately.

Of course the biggest winners here will be the television critics themselves. A TV Tomatometer gives them a new kind of clout, putting them on equal footing with their movie reviewing counterparts. And this is yet another sign that television and movies are now just about on the same level of relevance in the popular culture. There aren't many television critics who are household names, though there are certainly some worthy of discussion, and this might provide the impetus for people to start paying more attention to their oft-overlooked species, if only to start complaining about them.

And more importantly, serious television criticism itself is getting more attention. Because of all the challenges with variable review formats (Are they reviewing by episode? Season? The whole enchilada?) and the time commitment necessary to fully review a show, it's always been more difficult to provide reader-friendly analysis of a television series. However, some of the most interesting media conversations in recent years have been about television, about Tony Soprano and Hannah Horvath and Stringer Bell, who loom larger than any movie counterparts in recent years you could name.

I, for one, welcome our new tomato overlords, though I'm well aware this experiment could turn out to be a bust. Tomatometer scores have always been reductive and problematic, but they've had their impact. The Tomatometer is more accessible than any of the individual columns or publications that the best TV critics write for. Rotten Tomatoes alternative, Metacritic, has been offering television reviews for years, but never got much traction with them. Maybe it's because Metacritic is a smaller and less trafficked site. Maybe it's because TV criticism hasn't quite caught on yet.

The only real negative that I'm worried about here is that because Rotten Tomatoes has chosen to focus on season reviews, it might incentivize some critics to spend less time on individual episode reviews, which are by far my favorites. I read the Alan Sepinwall, Matt Zoller Seitz, and Todd VanDerWerff recaps after I've finished off my own write-up of the new "Breaking Bad" episodes every week. Then again, the AV Club is choosing to keep their episodic coverage and expand into season-long reviews, and there's no reason to think that won't be the case with most outlets.

Mostly, though, I'm excited that the Tomatometer will provide a good conversation starter for future discussions of TV, just as it has for the movies.
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There is so much to talk about with Netflix dramedy "Orange is the New Black." I could discuss how it features such a diverse cast of female characters - lots of black and Latino actresses, old and young, straight and lesbian and bisexual, and even a transgender male-to-female inmate. It puts the spotlight on the women who you rarely see on television in any meaningful roles. I could talk about how in examining the ins and outs of the prison experience, it tells the stories of those on the lower end of the socioeconomic scale, those most affected by drug use, mental health issues, alcoholism, neglect, and abuse. Or I could talk about the depiction of prison life itself, unglamorous and unpleasant, where the system is rife with dysfunction, and the guards and administrators often seem as trapped as the prisoners.

But where I want to start is with Piper Chapman (Taylor Schilling), the default Caucasian, educated, middle-class woman who is our entry point into this universe. Chapman is sentenced to eighteen months in a federal penitentiary, Litchfield, for transporting drug money for a former girlfriend, Alex (Laura Prepon), a decade prior. In the first episode Piper and her supportive fiance, Larry (Jason Biggs) arrive at the prison, trying to face their long separation bravely, and Piper having prepared by reading all the right books. However, it quickly becomes apparent that Piper is not prepared at all, for the infuriating bureaucracy, for the dehumanizing loss of basic privacy and trust, for the apathetic and abusive authorities, for the loss of the amenities she's taken for granted, and for a prison culture that is defined by a set of hard rules that Piper keeps running afoul of.

Very quickly it's apparent that Piper is the one who is in the minority, the odd one out, who has to confront the fact that she's had all the advantages and is far, far luckier than the majority of the women in Litchfied. And though the series keeps her at the center of the show, and follows her difficulties with prison life, the scope grows to examine the lives of other characters. There's Red (Kate Mulgrew), the Russian who runs the kitchen with an iron fist, but also looks out for her some of the younger inmates she has adopted as her "daughters." There's the hostile Latina mother and daughter pair of Aleida (Elizabeth Rodriguez) and Daya (Dascha Polanco). There's Crazy Eyes (Uzo Aduba), who is a little unhinged and wants Piper to become her prison wife. There's religious fanatic Pennsatucky (Taryn Manning). Their's Lorna (Yael Stone) and Nicky (Natasha Lyonne), girls who Chapman eats her meals with. There are best friends Poussey (Samira Wiley) and Taystee (Danielle Brooks), two highly opinionated and exuberant black women. There's Sophia (Laverne Cox), who funded her sex-change with stolen credits cards. It's easy to confuse allies and enemies, those who are truly mean and hurtful with the damaged, the misunderstood, and those just trying to survive.

Makeup is in short supply and all the inmates are in orange or tan prison garb, so the women look more like real, genuine women than they so often do on television, and their personalities are more distinct. The close quarters of the prison force them all to interact with each other, and the interactions are often hostile, full of posturing and threats to maintain the pecking order. They curse frequently, make bawdy jokes, and small offenses can trigger big reprisals. They stringently delineate lines between races, cultures, and classes where they can, but ultimately everyone is in the same boat, and everyone hates Pornstache (Pablo Schreiber), the slimebag guard with grabby hands. So there are also the friendships and the romances and the little moments of shared hilarity. We get to know these women intimately, a motley collection of people on the lowest rung, trying to recover from one mistake too many. Flashbacks are a big part of many episodes, filling in character details, and providing vital context. Sometimes we learn what crimes they committed and sometimes we don't, and it doesn't matter.

Piper unravels further in prison, confronted with her own demons as she learns to survive in Litchfield. A big chunk of the narrative is devoted to her, and to Larry trying to cope with her absence on the outside. Larry's scenes often feel tedious, because his problems often come across as so insignificant and petty next to what's going on the prison, and Piper's do too, to a lesser extent. However, they are necessary to ground us, to remind us of the accepted, mainstream conception of prison life, and how that contrasts with the actual reality of it. "Orange is the New Black" is surely not and entirely accurate picture of what goes on in a federal women's prison, though it's based on the memoir of a real former inmate, but it does such a good job of highlighting so many parts of the experience we never think about. It's closer than anyone else has ever gotten. We get the POV of the guards, the strained family and friends waiting on the outside, and so many different inmates who have so many different experiences. And they're all fantastic.

What I really appreciate is how jarring, how blunt, and how direct the writing is. This is an issue-based show that embraces the fact, and has plenty to say about its subject matter. Underneath the laughs and the melodrama and occasional poor music choices, there is pointed commentary about the state of prisons and the treatment of prisoners that has an unusual amount of impact. It helps that this is a stellar production, top to bottom, stuffed with great characters, strong performances, and twisty storylines that help to humanize each offender. The show was created by Jenji Kohan, most recently of "Weeds," who has a little experience with finding the lighter side of criminal activity.

I keep coming back to the word "different" to describe "Orange in the New Black," because I have never seen anything else like it, nothing with a POV that comes anywhere close. The networks and most cable channels would never have shown this. It might have found a home on HBO and Showtime, maybe, but its premiere on Netflix signals that the streaming service has truly arrived as a producer of quality programming. "Orange in the New Black" is a breakthrough, instantly up there with the all time greats. And I can't wait to see more.
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My laptop decided it was no longer interested in functioning like a rational computing machine a few days ago, requiring me to upgrade my operating system to something more current. In the process I had to move everything off my hard drive, which has around 100 GB of storage capacity, to a spare removable drive that was around 32 GB. I was 20 GB over, and didn't have the time to try any alternate online options. This meant I had to clean house.

As you might expect, video files were responsible for the bulk of the clutter. I have some personal videos, but the real problems is that I have a habit of saving videos from the internet I like, especially when it's not certain that I'll be able to access them again. I've got a pretty big collection of fan-made Anime Music Videos (AMVs) from my otaku days, for instance. There's no formal distribution for these things and creators can disappear off the face of the earth without warning, taking their content with them. Because of the legal gray area these works exist in, a fan-made video posted on Youtube might get suddenly pulled down or rendered unwatchable on without any warning. I've made Youtube playlists to bookmark interesting fan videos, and came back after a few months to find half of the entries removed. There are a couple of dedicated archives devoted to AMVs and fanvids and mash-ups, but these can disappear quickly too. The only way to be sure you'll be able to access to fan-made content whenever you want is to hold on to a copy, just in case.

Of course, I didn't just save fan-made content. I kept a brief four-minute clip from a 2005 episode of "The Daily Show," where one of my old employers made an appearance (incorrectly identified, to our office's amusement). It's currently available through the Comedy Central website, but who knows for how long? The clip is part of a rambling opening monologue, not the kind of content that can be bundled onto home media and sold, as "The Daily Show" has done with some of their other pieces. Viacom could decide at some point that it's not worth their while to keep the eight-year-old clip online, and I'd lose the proof of a near-brush with fame. Lots of other memorable content is ephemeral and often hard to access after the initial broadcasts - commercials, award ceremony clips, idents, news reports, talk show segments, specials, local programming, and more. And there are always those obscurities that never make it to home media, or quickly go out of print. "Mickey Mouse in Vietnam," the famous 1960s underground anti-Vietnam protest cartoon resurfaced online a few months ago after decades of rumors and whispers about who might still have one of the rare prints. Better make a backup copy, before it disappears again.

Then you come to the realization, as I did, that this is hoarding behavior. Most of my fears about losing access to all this content are unfounded. The Internet has done a great job of preserving all sorts of unlikely media bits and pieces, just waiting to be stumbled over and rediscovered again. More and more old movies and shows find their way to some kind of official release every day. With the new prevalence of streaming services, the costs have come down across the board. Many of the long-forgotten shows I watched as a kid are on Netflix and Hulu right now. The fan-created content has also been making plays for increased legitimacy, and it's exceedingly rare that something worthwhile will disappear without a trace forever. In fact, I keep coming across kids sharing older AMVs that have been in circulation for over a decade by now.

So I commenced the long-overdue purge of my hard drive. I dumped the clips I knew I was never going to rewatch. I dumped everything that was high-profile enough that I was confident I'd be able to find them online again, with a little digging. Official music videos, movie trailers, election season parodies, and most of the commercials went into the Trash Bin. Goodbye, epic Blackcurrant Tango advert. So long, "Mickey Mouse in Vietnam." I still kept that "Daily Show" clip, though, and a good chunk of the AMVs - many of them unlabeled or mislabeled to such an extent that reassembling the collection would have been a massive undertaking. In the end I cleared out enough to transfer the rest to the external drive with a lot of room to spare.

Inevitably I'll fill up the hard drive again, and I'll have to clean it all out again at some point in the future. But considering how much fun I had this round, going back and revisiting all that content, I'm not too worried about it.
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