The Unfettered Critic – February 2019

A year ago, we shared our feelings about streaming services: Didn’t have ‘em. Didn’t need ‘em. Get off our lawn, streamers!

Then we discovered that Discovery—the first new Star Trek series in a decade—could be accessed only on CBS All Access—via (horrors!) streaming. Thus, we yielded to the streamer that carries the whole Trek TV shebang. The investment was minimal; it didn’t matter whether it offered anything else we’d care about.

A year has passed. Discovery is everything we’d hoped for—exceptional writing, heart-pounding action, great production values, and high caliber acting. Positive subscriber response prompted the fledging network to begin developing additional Trek shows, including a new animated Star Trek, and (be still our hearts) a series for Sir Patrick Stewart (formerly Captain Jean-Luc Picard of, well, you know).

Of course, a network can’t live on Star Trek alone. CBS’s strategy was to serve up that extensive franchise—over 800 hours of programming—as a lovely amuse bouche, to be followed by a full meal of tasty possibilities. So far, All Access has launched a half dozen straight-to-stream original series: anthology thrillers like Tell Me A Story and One Dollar; a dark historical drama (Strange Angel); a cop comedy (No Access); and (our favorite) The Good Fight, which is a sequel of sorts to the award-winning legal drama The Good Wife. Featuring the always fascinating Christine Baranski, The Good Fight is caustic, irreverent, and utterly brilliant—and no, you don’t need to have seen The Good Wife to enjoy it. To top it off, a new iteration of The Twilight Zone, hosted and produced by Jordan Peele (writer/director of 2017’s creepy hit motion picture Get Out), will be airing soon.

Having dipped a toe into the vast streaming ocean and survived, a sense of security rendered us vulnerable to a Netflix offer: “Try it for one month FREE!” You’d think that two veteran viewers of countless old cop dramas would recognize the pitch as a variation on “Hey kid, try this—no charge.” But we’d already purchased the little gizmo that allows us to watch streaming channels, so little arm-twisting was required. After catching a few movies that we’d missed (like The Big Lebowski), we became curious about “only on Netflix” movies. We checked out the Jane Fonda/Robert Redford collaboration Our Souls At Night (great performances, but a story that runs out of steam), and the Coen Brothers recent The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (brilliant filmmaking but really depressing). Then we sampled a slew of “much talked about” original series: Jessica Jones, Orange Is The New Black, Glow, Grace and Frankie, and The Kominsky Method. All are worth viewing, but none call to us for a binge-watch weekend. Mostly, they’re predictable, and they generally feature a disheartening tone that apparently has become endemic in modern fare. Remember when a TV series made you want to return because you liked the characters? Well, we didn’t see anyone we’d want to befriend, no matter how interesting their lifestyles or backstories may be.

That said, we’ve kept Netflix beyond the “trial period.” We figure sooner or later we’ll fall in love with something. Meanwhile, we’ve re-discovered two older shows—islands in the stream, if you will—that are bound to keep us content when there’s nothing worthwhile on our (still) beloved network TV:

All seven seasons of The West Wing, one of our all-time favorite shows, are streaming.

All the episodes of The Great British Baking Show, including three new seasons that will not air anywhere else, are streaming.

And that’s too “scrummy” (Google it) to pass up.