CUTTING THE CORD
For the past few years, I’d cut back my cable TV package to save a few dollars per month, only to see nickel-amd-dime fees increase and eliminate that savings within months. When a ten-year-old Samsung 55-inch TV became unwatchable with power problems over Labor Day weekend, my family researched current viable replacements and decided on TCL-brand 4K Ultra HD smart TVs with built-in Roku streaming players.
A 55-inch TCL is reasonably priced at $379 because Chinese TCL manufactures its own parts and places tolerable ads on the home screen. We had a choice of providers streaming live TV via Internet connection: Hulu, Sling, Fubo, and YouTube TV, to name a few.
We chose YouTube TV’s 60-channel lineup for $40 per month, many of the same channels we had with cable, plus several more live sports channels than we had. By joining a Google Family for free by email, up to six people can have profiles on one YouTube TV account. Each person gets a recording library and can rearrange the channels as preferred. The recording library is like a DVR but with unlimited space, storing programs for nine months–a great help to me as your TV columnist.
We also receive additional local stations via aerial antenna and stream Netflix and Amazon Prime Video via the TV’s Roku player. We’ve recommended TCL and YouTube TV to friends and family, and they’re similarly satisfied. Compared to our previous cable TV and Internet bill of $177, our monthly cost for YouTube TV and Internet totals $105.
What have I watched with my new setup? CBS’s MAGNUM P.I. reboot is holding my attention. Jay Hernandez and Perdita Weeks have a different presence and chemistry from Tom Selleck and John Hillerman respectively, but they’ve started to show enough personality to suit me, and the network execs have agreed, recently giving the show a second season.
The breakout hit for CBS this season, though, has been FBI. From Dick Wolf of LAW & ORDER and CHICAGO fame, the show follows agents of the New York City office, mainly Maggie Bell and Omar Zidan (Missy Peregrym and Zeeko Zaki), supported by more senior agents played by Jeremy Sisto and Sela Ward. FBI has received not only a second season but also a potential spinoff to be tested this spring, MOST WANTED, following a fugitive-tracking team.
On ABC, Nathan Fillion has successfully gone from playing crime-solving writer Richard Castle to the LAPD’s oldest rookie, John Nolan in THE ROOKIE. Created by CASTLE writer Alexi Hawley, the show follows the work and personal lives of three rookies and their training officers, mixing basic patrol procedure with lighter moments.
On the streaming side, I’m very impressed with Amazon Prime’s TOM CLANCY’S JACK RYAN, starring John Krasinski and Wendell Pierce. It doesn’t follow any of the book plots very closely–a wise choice considering their Cold War vintage–but like the books, it delivers ripped-from-the-headlines action from the perspective of a fortunately-moral intelligence analyst.
Of interest to fellow crime fiction fans may be TV series YOU on Netflix, starring Penn Badgley as hopeless romantic New York bookseller Joe Goldberg, who fixates on college student Guinevere Beck (Elizabeth Lail) and takes advantage of her wide social media presence to make her fall in love with him. Only problem? Joe is suprisingly, violently short-fused.
Meanwhile Netflix’s run of Disney-owned Marvel Comics shows appears to be winding down with Disney soon to launch its own streaming service, Disney+. IRON FIST, LUKE CAGE, and DAREDEVIL have been canceled, with JESSICA JONES and THE PUNISHER probably on their final seasons.
Netflix has also canceled Eric McCormack’s time-traveling crime drama TRAVELERS after three seasons. The bright side is you can still pull up the existing episodes of all these shows pm demand, unlike broadcast cancelations.
For my next column, I’m recording episodes of FOX’s legal drama PROVEN INNOCENT (February 15) and ABC’s Scott Foley-Lauren Cohan spy show, WHISKEY CAVALIER (February 24). See you then.
