The WB returns!
I often think about being a teenager in the 90′s and am grateful for getting to experience the pop culture of that decade at that time in my life. When I think about the television programming at that time, I remember three networks most distinctly:
1. A bold, original and culturally reflective voice in MTV (Back when there were music videos playing almost all the time, and the Real World had principles... oops I mean a real mix of interesting intelligent sober people who weren’t all in college! Remember that?)
2. The new face of cable vs networks with the amazingly fresh (and sometimes just addictive) Fox shows leading the way (The X-Files, The Simpsons, Party of Five, Beverly Hills 90210, In Living Color)
And last, but certainly not least:
3. The WB. Seriously, say the words “The New Tuesday on the WB” and I get a little misty eyed. Home of Buffy and Gilmore Girls back in the day, the fangirl nostalgia and undying love I have for this network makes me able to forgive it, in retrospect, for putting shit like 7th Heaven on the air. Because seriously, this was a network designed for demographics, almost exclusively. Which yes, meant they wanted to make a lot of money off of teenage audiences, but it ALSO meant that they provided a home for shows that spoke to youth niches. Not only teen programming, but well-written, smart television shows unlike the severely watered-down drivel that passes for teen programming on the Disney Channel these days. Love it or hate it, melodramatic soap opera, Dawson’s Creek had a big vocabulary and featured some real issues. Gilmore Girls was secretly a masterpiece of character-study, with amazing, relatable characters and extremely sharp dialogue masquerading as family drama. Even 7th Heaven, which I severely struggle to say anything nice about, was well executed to meet the needs of a very specific target demographic. Even if I don’t relate to that demographic, it did well with what it was attempting to do. And I don’t need to tell you how I feel about Buffy. (I don’t have space to go there in this blog post).
This is not a mere trip down memory lane. We are discussing this today, because today the new all-streaming online television website goes live!
(Yay!) It has games. It has a blog. It has options for personalizing your experience, like creating your own channel (a la youtube), playlists and remixes of clips. And most importantly, it has the shows! Buffy, Gilmore Girls, Angel, Veronica Mars -and bonus- Firefly (!!?!?!?) are available for streaming full episodes.
Right now it is in beta and the amount of shows from each series are limited. The blog says that each show will have updates every Monday and I don’t know if that means that the episodes will continue to be available or cycle through the seasons. Regardless, I will be watching.
I am a big fan of how the internet is being utilized to offer free access and exposure in more and more mediums. There is such quality out there in film and television streaming, alternative news, public radio, downloadable podcasts, albums, and books. I love that the internet increasingly provides alternatives to the many things consumers get overcharged for, like excessive cable packages or overdue rental fees for movies at Blockbuster.
Now I know that Warner Brothers is a massive media conglomerate. I’m not naive enough to think they are doing this as part of some open-source cultural revolution. I also know some of these shows were already available on Hulu.com. What is notable about this (other than my 90′s nostalgia love fest), is that it is another tv network going online and I believe this is very important in the future of media.
What they (and all the other networks offering free streaming of past and current shows) are doing, in effect is empowering the consumer with more options. It is allowing us to be more choosy with our money, our time and our entertainment.
I am the only person I know with basic cable. I don’t need 300 extra channels. Soon, I may not even need the 70 or so that I have, because everything I will want to watch will be on my computer and able to hookup and stream from computer to tv. That is money saved, tv watching on my schedule and not supporting the monopoly that is the ONE cable company in my region to offer me service (and charge whatever damn prices they please). And that is without having to buy more “stuff”: no tivo, no dvd set, just the shows I enjoy watching available for free. Fantastic!
