Happy New Year, 2023

[StarFuryG7]

Happy New Year to all friendlies.

Figured I'd drop by and say Hi.

I'm stuck in a bit of a quandary.

My boss got me to start watching "Yellowstone" a couple of years ago. Since then, for those that follow, they added the prequel series' 1883 and then 1923 respectively. I watched the first three episodes of 1883 that were broadcast as a preview of the series on the Paramount Network during their initial release. On Black Friday weekend I ordered the Blu-ray of 1883 at Amazon because they were selling it very inexpensively as a special hot deal. I've still only seen those first three episodes, but will be getting into watching the Blu-ray of that series fairly soon. Now they're on to 1923, which has already been set for at least two seasons. They only showed the first two episodes of that one on the Paramount Network. If you wish to continue watching you have to subscribe to Paramount+.

At this point you can all see where I'm going.

Two things I'm sick of with Hollywood and the entertainment industry: woke garbage, snd their looking to gaslight and brainwash into the way they want us thinking, and their blatant need from a PR standpoint to get political and make political statements on the sidelines to the press. For instance, Paramount is one of the companies that decried the Supreme Court's overturning Roe v. Wade. And what did they go and do besides that? Made an announcement shortly after that decision that they would pay for any of their employees to go to other states where it's legal should they want to have one. Do you see my point? Paying these people to stick their fingers in our eyes? It's why I'll never subscribe to Disney+.

But even besides all that they had to go and obliterate the Trek franchise with their woke nonsense to boot.

So I guess the correct thing for me to do is just stay the course, not subscribe to their streaming platform, and wait for sales on the few shows of theirs that I do like presently to purchase them as cheaply as possible on disc when the time comes so they don't make a profit.

Anyone disagree with that as being my best approach? If so, please tell me why.

Thank you.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled woke nonsense.

And again, Happy New Year.

[TrekBeatTK]

Well, when stuff does hit disc, my local library usually gets them, so I don't even have to buy them.

It's rough because at this point, EVERY company is evil, and part of some larger conglomerate, so you really have to pick your battles. I'm on the fence about keeping Netflix because there's almost no original programming there I care about anymore beyond Cobra Kai and most of the series I used to watch have been dropped. And they keep raising the price. Similarly, I'm locked in for another year with Disney+ but they've now raised the prices (I just missed that) and added an ad-based tier, which is foolishness. I choose to not watch much woke garbage on it and mostly only use it for new Marvel stuff for now and old stuff I grew up with. I really wish they'd put more of that on there instead of spending money making new garbage. They have literally 100 years worth of content from film and television, much of which has never been on a home video market and which a whole generation has never seen.

I still buy stuff on disc when I can because I don't want to see physical media go away. I'll even buy new Trek that I hate because at this point I'm a completionist.

I don't know if you have access to a library with any of this stuff, but it could be an option. there are also online services that many libraries offer like Kanopy and Hoopla which have libraries of content as well that you can download and watch with a library card. And my library uses the digital codes that come with some discs to build a digital library on some of the devices they circulate.

I lucked out because a former friend of my sister's gave her a Roku with her accounts for some of these so if I really wanted to I just use her Paramount+ and don't pay for it.

Happy new year to you.

[CRAMBAM]

Hit and run. As a fellow conservative, it's obvious why you like Yellowstone. It's not political, but it cuts through the left wing bullshit.

But let's do the math. Unless you got some special deal, 1883 cost you about $20. I think the cheapest Paramount Plus plan is $4.99. I use the $9.99 plan, but you can knock 1883 off in a month EASILY.

You will find that not ALL the Star Trek they do is bad. Strange New Worlds was decent an their introduction to Kirk was brilliantly in character, which surprised me.

But their Star Trek CARTOONS are actually VERY good. Lower Decks is kind of a parody, but kind of not. The writing is very clever. It's written for die hard Star Trek fans that have a good sense of humor. Again, clever. Prodigy seems like it's for young kids, but the stories are actually pretty good, and it ended up with a serious and exciting plot which was actually more enjoyable than 98% of Voyager.

That's also quite limited, so buy a month, binge watch, and you will end up giving Paramount less money than you would if you buy the one DVD.

1923 incidentally, had its best episode in the third episode, and I think you would enjoy Tulsa King. If you like Stallone and if you like Sopranos, you will like Tulsa King.

I don't watch Discovery at all anymore.

Disney Plus is Marvel and Star Wars, but not much else. Yet that stuff tends to be very good.

I only have Netflix when Cobra Kai is new or if they have a show I want to watch. I'm waiting for the last episodes of Manifest to drop before I go again.

[StarFuryG7]

Jan 6, 2023 14:29:42 GMT -5 CRAMBAM said:

But let's do the math. Unless you got some special deal, 1883 cost you about $20.

$16.99, not counting tax (thanks to Chuck Schumer, the jerk). Ironically, I bought it along with the latest standard Blu-ray release of TMP Director's Cut, which was selling for just $9.99 at the time as another special deal, even though I had already bought the 4k UHD UK release of the same movie previously around the time of its release last year. That may have been a mistake on my part because even though it's Region Free, it's not NTSC, and may run 1 frame faster per second than the North American release.

I like "Yellowstone" and the prequels, but I don't think I have the stomach to subscribe to Paramount+. The first episode of "Strange New Worlds," which they put up on YouTube briefly for free, really turned me off in a big way, and I don't think I can see a third actor stepping into the role of Kirk. That's more than I care to deal with.

Shatner IS Kirk, and I'll likely be put off by the woke PC nonsense that I see in it besides.

[CRAMBAM]

So when you factor in tax, you're looking at about $18.50 give or take a few pennies. That's about 2 months of Paramount Plus where you could binge watch what you need and even save some space. 1883 was a good show, but for me at least, not a repeat watch show. The one appearance of Kirk in SNW was actually pretty good. I don't want to say what happened because of spoilers, but *I* liked it, and that should say something. I wasn't a huge fan of Pine's version.

[Mel]

Happy new year to every one of you.** I refer to all the above posts in this one.

I came into the middle of Yellowstone, and really enjoyed it. I watched a couple of seasons. At that point, I forgot about it. Forgetting stuff occurs fairly often at my age. I thought about picking it up again, but figured I'd missed too much. I have wondered, now that there are three shows about it, if westerns are making a comeback. When I was growing up, it was mostly westerns on TV, and I enjoyed them.

Speaking of older TV shows, I enjoy watching reruns of Perry Mason almost daily. Talk about non-woke stuff, the series mentions, three or four times, the need to spank wives or girlfriends. No one is horrified by the idea or thinks it's wrong, not even the women who are spanked. That show ran from 1957 to 1966, when Trek began!

The last season, the people on the PM show didn't realize it was going to be canceled. They thought they'd have another year and more, in color. They were surprised to be canceled, since the show was as popular as ever, and it made a ton from car manufacturers for showing cars in the series. That said, in the final season, there is one color episode, and I'm grateful for it. It's fun to see what they really looked like, the office, all the beautiful cars, and Paul's jackets; I forget what what that style is called.

I buy Netflix on occasion, for Cobra Kai, and an occasional movie that I can't find anywhere else.

Many of you mentioned woke stuff. I hear about woke stuff most-often when I watch Fox News. I watch that and MSNBC, and sometimes CNN; I like the MSNBC staff better. Those two channels rarely mention woke stuff, unless it's newsworthy. And usually it isn't.

I record La Brea, Quantum Leap, and Svengoolie. If there's woke stuff in those, I haven't noticed. I also record Father Brown (set in the past, no woke stuff), Banacek now that it's back (definitely not woke!), some favorite L&O episodes (the original), and some cooking shows (Worst Cooks and others).

I keep Disney+ for my niece and brother. They enjoy a lot of their movies, and I enjoy watching the movies with them. I also wish Disney would air it's older content. How wonderful would that be??

TrekBeat, you said you get movies downloaded from the library. How does that work? Are they're DLed on your cell phone and you attach it (or cast? Not even sure of the meaning of that) to your TV? Just curious if we might be able to do that. It would save money!

Again, happy new year to each and every one of you.

**Gary, you said happy new year to "friendlies," so I assume you're excluding me.

Years ago, when Paul was dying and/or dead, I didn't see the point of reading what you thought about Paul -- *yet again.* At that point, I'd read it off and on for years. I was in pain and I didn't want to argue about my friend, Paul, with my friend, you.

I knew many of the reasons why you didn't like him. I didn't need to read about it -- *yet again,* when I was hurting, so I didn't. I didn't read that *ONE* post of yours. ONE. I guess the idea of forgiving me for that one discretion still hasn't occurred to you.

[Mel]

Jan 12, 2023 8:47:01 GMT -5 CRAMBAM said:

... The one appearance of Kirk in SNW was actually pretty good. I don't want to say what happened because of spoilers, but *I* liked it, and that should say something ...

It does say something!  SNW barely rings a distant bell that's almost inaudible.  Maybe I read about it here when it started. If so, then I promptly forgot about it, as is my wont. The episode you mentioned sounds worth watching. Do you watch the entire series, or was it because Shatner was on? I'm trying to decide whether to get Paramount+ again.   Thanks!

[CRAMBAM]

Shatner wasn't on. This was a third actor to play Kirk. SNW was a decent show about Captain Pike. The one character I feel that they got very wrong was Nurse Chapel, but the character itself was actually quite good. They just should have given her a different name.