THE VARIED DRAWBACKS OF THE STREAMING "SERVICES"

            Some years ago, my late husband and I decided to stream "West Wing" on Netflix. Neither of us had ever caught it when it had previously been a network TV series. We were about halfway through the series, enjoying it immensely, when suddenly, Netflix added this warning: "This series will only continue to be available until December 21." In other words, we had a mere two weeks to finish streaming the remaining half of the series. Our kneejerk reaction was that we couldn't possibly finish. Our typical viewing preference was to watch an episode or two of it each day, and then move on to an episode or two of some other series, and then another, etc. Variety each day was ideal. But the only way that we could possibly finish "West Wing" was to suspend our viewing of everything else for the duration (and thus become vague regarding the details of all of the others by the time that we could return to them), plus endure a monotonous, instead of joyous, time with "West Wing." So we sighed heavily, and binged. We finished it in time, barely, but that was no way to properly appreciate an excellent series, by turning it into a chore, instead of a joy.

            A few years later, we decided that we were ready to re-watch our beloved favorite "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine." I automatically reached for my DVD set of the complete series, but Chris said, "No, don't bother to dig that out; Hulu has it." Well, it certainly was no bother to open a DVD case, but I yielded to his choice, assuming that it would make no difference one way or the other. Until, in one episode, I said to him, "Where's the lovely scene where Ziyal shows her magnificent original artwork to Dukat and Kira, and they realize for the very first time how incredibly talented she is?" Chris frowned, and said, "Yeah, I remember that! Shouldn't we have come to it by now??" I replied, "Oh yes. It's way too late for it now." The conclusion was inescapable: Hulu had had the nerve to actually cut a scene! I assured Chris, "The next time that we wish to watch this series, we are absolutely going to use the DVDs!" He quite agreed. But it never happened. Chris died before we got back to that favorite series again. Sometime later, I watched Deep Space Nine again, but alone. Obviously, I used the DVDs. There was that scene, of course, right where it belonged. But I cried over the fact that Chris had missed his last chance to ever see it again, all because of Hulu's incompetence.

            Letting others choose when I can or cannot watch a particular show has always rubbed me the wrong way. I grew up dependent upon the whims of network television, when there was no such thing as home recording, and it irked me no end when I had to miss an episode of a favorite series merely because I couldn't be home on a given evening. Or I'd miss part of the episode because the phone would ring. (In those days, phone calls were always legitimate and needed to be answered; there was no such thing as telemarketers back then, nor was there voicemail nor answering machines nor caller ID).

            So, in 1974, when I acquired my first VTR (reel-to-reel video tape recorder: years ahead of videocassette recorders), I vowed never again to leave my viewing options to the whims of idiots. In a relatively short time, I had recorded every episode of each of my favorite TV series (employing local-station afternoon reruns). I was free to watch them whenever I wanted! And I guarded this newfound freedom faithfully! Then came the VCRs: a definite step down from VTRs in picture quality, but an improvement in convenience (one had had to thread the tape by hand and frequently manually clean the recording heads of VTRs with a soft cloth and alcohol). Believe me, I preferred quality over convenience; it just wasn't that durned difficult to cope with the manual aspects of VTRs. But, not surprisingly, people in general were lazy, and so the world went with convenience over quality. I sighed and purchased the professional VCR (VHS) copies of my favorite series this time, feeling that it was safer than relying on a technology that, again due to the whim of idiots, would no longer be supported. But once we got DVDs, we had the best of both worlds: superior picture quality and convenience. So, of course, I joyfully (more or less) collected my favorite series yet again. By that time, I had each favorite series in three different formats, owing to technology that was now growing far too fast for anyone to keep up with it, without a lot of ridiculous duplication of material and repetition of effort. (But that was nothing unique: I also already had all of my favorite music on reel-to-reel audio tape, records, eight-track tapes, and now CDs). In summary, I did what I had to do, in order to always have the best possible safety net for my favorites.

            By now, you can see why I have no patience for the imperfections and unreliability of streaming. Thanks to my own unrelenting and repetitive efforts, I don't have to be patient. And I am not.