Cutting the Cable Cord, Part 5

Only Murders in the Building with
Selena Gomez, Steve Martin
and Martin Short
Credit: Hulu

The last blog post about Cutting the Cable Cord (Part 4) was written in Jan. 2016. That was the first time our household experimented with cutting cable. We eventually re-attached Spectrum, the lure was just too strong. But now we have severed the connection again for two reasons: 1) our monthly bill for phone, internet and three cable boxes with DVR was over $300 monthly; and 2) streaming services have gotten much more sophisticated and inclusive of most of the networks TWC Spectrum provided. Another reason has popped up in the past week: 3) Spectrum is in a dispute with ABC and their various Disney channels, just as they were in a battle with CBS a few years ago--chronicled here in a blog post from 2013. So Spectrum has apparently cut off ABC. That spat will probably be resolved soon, but the first two considerations still loom large.

New episodes of Futurama
are on Hulu.

We considered various streaming services including YouTubeTV, Hulu Plus Live TV, and Sling. The prices were comparable for the first two at about $70 a month. Sling is much cheaper, but you get fewer channels. My brother has YouTubeTV and he's very happy with it. He gave us a demonstration when we visited him recently. We finally decided to go with Hulu Plus Live TV because they threw in Disney-Plus (They also include ESPN Plus, but I'm never going to watch that.) We now has access to Hulu's programming including The Handmaid's Tale (all caught up), Only Murders in the Building (I'm up to episode 2 of season three), new episodes of Futurama (the first episode of the new 11th season was pretty funny), as well as all of the Star Wars series (Mandalorian, etc.), Marvel movies, and new episodes of Doctor Who (starting in November) on Disney Plus. It's fun seeing NYC theater actors like Jackie Hoffman, Jayne Houdyshell, Jeremy Shamos, and Amy Stryker on OMITB. Futurama has picked up right where it left off. The episode satirized the show's history with gags about TV shows getting cancelled three times (as Futurama did by Fox, Cartoon Network's Adult Swim and Comedy Central) and endless streaming. The central plot had Fry set a life goal of watching every TV show ever made. His life supports will fail him unless Bender and Leela keep making new segments of the 31st century soap opera All My Circuits. This lead to much comedy at the expense of writers, directors and actors.

The downside of Hulu-Plus is I longer have MeTV or PBS, neither of which are channels Hulu offers. I can catch up with PBS on the PBS Passport App as long as we keep up our membership. Toon in with Me and Carol Burnett reruns are the only things I'll really miss on MeTV and randomly finding favorite actors in unusual roles on old sitcoms, but it's worth saving about $100 a month.