Complex Numbers

Here We Are Now. Entertain Us.

One bit of popular entertainment that I enjoy is film and TV adaptations of comic books.

This is a good thing, as there's a lot of that going on these days, from both of the classic publishers (now part of entertainment giants Warner and Disney) as well as a lot of independents. Sure, some are better than others, but that's true of every genre.

But, if you remember from a few days ago, I hate commercials. By which I mean, I really despise them with the all-consuming fire of a thousand pulsating Wolf-Rayet stars, and I will go out of my way to avoid them. This isn't a problem for many of the shows that I like, such as the Defenders tie-ins from Marvel, which are on Netflix and thus included in the cost of my subscription, ad-free.

I get around it for other shows, like the DC adaptations including Arrow, The Flash, and Legends of Tomorrow, because I bought the seasons from Amazon. See, as much as I hate ads, I don't pirate things. I haven't been published yet (and probably never will), but if I were, I'd be pissed if someone infringed on my creative output, so I don't do it. But I have no problem paying reasonable amounts for content that I enjoy. Therefore, I won't, for example, pay HBO just so I can watch Game of Thrones, but I do pay CBS so I can watch Star Trek and Salvation. Other people have other priorities, of course.

Make me pay for ads and I will cut you. (As I mentioned before, CBS does show some commercials even on the higher subscription tier, but they're short and not for consumer products and there's only one of them per episode so I'm putting up with it for now.)

Anyway, point is, the aforementioned DC adaptations (produced by The CW) have started up their new seasons again, and I was looking forward to doing what I usually do, which is buying them from Amazon. The episodes would arrive there the day after they aired, which was fine. But for some reason, they don't seem to be doing that this season. Pisses me off.

I tried, though. I tried watching The Flash on the CW's website. That at least had the advantage of being free, though with ads.

I couldn't get past the first group of interminable and intelligence-insulting commercials, and judging by the pips on the player, it looked like there were something like 8 clusters of ads I'd have to sit through to get content. All I can say about that is fuck that.

So I guess it's back to Netflix to watch old episodes of Supernatural (coincidentally also a CW production), which I had never seen before. It's not bad, but it's not my usual thing, and I was really looking forward to some cheesy superhero stuff.

But this proprietary streaming shit is getting out of hand. Even Disney and Apple are getting into the game, and soon probably everyone else as well, so by the time it's done we're back to the cable TV "channel" nonsense. I already know I'm not going to get a subscription to everything, so there will certainly be popular entertainment that I'll miss out on. Oh well. Nothing different there from a life spent without cable TV.

At least Doctor Who is still available through Amazon. For now.