Gratitude Monday: well & truly the 21st Century

A few years ago, a friend gave me his old Roku streaming device. I won’t deny that it took me some hours to figure out how to set it up. And use it. He also gave me a six-month subscription to The Criterion Channel, so I was able to watch some old classics that Comcast had decided that I didn’t need (by taking TCM out of my lineup—without reducing my monthly fee).

Well, I got out of the habit of using it. But last week I caught an ad for BritBox while I was zapping the 50% of my feed that Facebook now devotes to commercials. So I went there (not using the FB link—I don’t reward bad behavior) and signed up for a year at $80.

As you might imagine, it took me more hours to figure out how to find Roku on my TV. (My Comcast remote is nearly eight years old; it doesn’t resemble any of the devices you see on various forums these days.) But I got it working and started watching episodes of Death in Paradise.

The Roku user experience is pretty dire—it appears to date from 10-15 years ago. I can’t pick up at the next episode whenever I restart. I have to scroll to my Watchlist, then scroll to Death in Paradise, then scroll to Episodes, then scroll to seasons, then scroll to the season I want, then scroll to the episode I want. (Thank God I got my watchlist sorted online; if I’d had to do it through the streaming interface someone would be picking up a body from my residence.)

I’ve also got Poirot, Daziel and Pascoe, Miss Marple (with Joan Hickson), Midsomer Murders and Lewis on the list. I like mysteries and police procedurals. I could go to the PBS app for some of these, but only early seasons. Moreover, I’m looking forward to seeing the whole presentation—you will be interested to know that PBS blurs certain body parts lest the tender eyes of its viewers burn from seeing a female nipple or a male butt crack. (They even blurred the nipples on an abstract portrait in one episode.)

So this is my gratitude today—on-demand streaming of programming I find entertaining. Basically, I’m grateful for finally entering 2015.

 

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