It’s also the difference between free (as the show was available on the OTA Fox network) and the six bucks a month charge for Hulu. And for what? One show? Just about every streaming service (Netflix, Amazon Prime, YouTube Premium, Apple, Disney+, CBS All Access, Facebook Watch, etc) has one or more shows I might want to watch. That’s all in addition to the shows on basic and premium cable, with supposedly over 500 shows available each year. No one has enough time to watch it all or can afford all of those subscriptions. So we’re forced to make choices; what to pay for and what not to. What to watch and what not.
Pretty much all streaming services include a free 30 day trial, including hulu. For non-hulu subscribers, wait until a few weeks before the season 3 finale next year and sign up then, cancelling on day 29 after binging the whole season, no harm no foul.
That’s what I’m doing in a couple weeks in order to binge all 3 seasons of The Handmaid’s Tale. (The season 3 finale airs in late August.)
If you have never done any streaming, get a $30 roku. It’s a one-time payment --no monthly fee at all – is easy to use and offers basic hd streaming. (720 and 1080 supported.) There are free channels you can stream but they mostly suck.
This month I signed up for the free 30 days of netflix, intending to cancel on the 29th day, but unfortunately netflix is just too good so now I just consider it part of my cable bill. sigh Hopefully I can stick to the plan better with hulu.
My long-term plan is (was?) to sign up for one month each year to binge all the shows from the previous year, netflix in July and hulu in August, since there isn’t much tv on in the summer anyway. If I weren’t already a prime customer I would also sign up for Amazon prime each June. Unlike cable channel on-demand features, streaming services offer their entire catalogue of original shows at all times, so a month per year really can let you catch up on all the shows you want to watch.
OK, that works, but it’s a lot of trouble to go through; signing up for a streaming service and then having to make sure to cancel before the free trial expires.
Also, of course that means you can’t talk about the show here or read the recaps and reviews as it airs.
Yep, agreed. Compared to just scheduling you DVR to record it on Fox, buying and setting up a roku and then signing up for a free trial and then remembering to cancel it is a massive pain in the ass. Not comparing it to your DVR, though, it’s reasonably easy.
Off-topic, I’ve had prime for a few years just for the shipping. Last winter I finally decided to figure out how to stream on my tv, settling on a roku express ($30) since I don’t have a 4k tv and $30 is cheap enough that I wouldn’t much care if it didn’t work. For the first six months I streamed almost nothing, and wasn’t impressed the couple times I tried it. Then I decided on my “streaming summer” scheme, and decided to pretend I only had prime for June. That worked like gangbusters; I’ve been loving my first “streaming summer” so far and look forward to hulu in August.
Of all the many shows I’ve binged over the past couple months, my favorite by a mile has been Catastrophe on amazon.
Yeah, I hate that cancel before xxx thing. One knitting company offered 4 mag subs at $2 for one year. AFTER you sub, you find out that yes, it is free for one year, but after that, you are auto- re-subbed at FULL price charged to your CC unless you cancel. I canceled as soon as i could, but you cant cancel that first week.
It’s a scam of sorts.
Just keep in mind that the choice probably wasn’t between The Orville Season 3 on Hulu or The Orville Season 3 on Fox, the choice probably was between The Orville season 3 on Hulu or The Orville being canceled. So glass half full.
Oh, what tangled web we knit when we pull this kind of shit.
But was it?
Orville has a dedicated fan base, not huge but dedicated.
ISTM that it is very possible that the decision was first to go with another season, and then the analysis that putting on Hulu would draw people to sign up who might not otherwise as the bigger benefit than its limited commercial interruptions were generating, just as CBS has placed its new Trek products on streaming only.
We get Star Trek: Discovery on the Space Channel in Canada. Not that I find it anywhere near as interesting as the Orville.
You should be able do it at the same time you sign up for the service. You don’t have to wait until day 29 out of 30. All you’re doing is opting out of the auto-renew.
I think DSeid is probably right: they are trying to do the same thing as CBS did with Star Trek because the fan base is so dedicated they can make more money that way.
I haven’t had cable or satellite since 2007, so do I get to complain? 
I watched this show live over the air using an indoor antenna.
For a few years now, I have been doing a version of what Ellis Dee describes. Each streaming service, including the ones for HBO and Showtime, gets a turn once or twice a year. (Soon the rotation will include Disney and Warner Bros. and maybe Apple, unless they just include it with the Apple Music I already pay for.) But I do enjoy talking about “Orville” episodes weekly, so that’s a bit of a problem. I will probably end up just shelling out for an extra couple months of Hulu next year so I can continue to engage that part of the experience.
I laughed. But I felt a little bad about it.
ETA:
As someone with a lot of experience with this, as described above, I can tell you that this is true for most services but not all. I wish I could remember which was which, but there are at least one or two that stop working the moment you cancel.
For me, it’s it’s another reason I really should just cancel or at least downgrade my cable and just subscribe to Hulu in addition to the other streaming services I already subscribe to. With each passing year I watch more and more on Netflix and Amazon and less on actual broadcast TV. The Orville was one of the few things I still watched on broadcast TV.
I did this a couple of years ago and haven’t regretted it. In addition to watching over-the-air content, I stream Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and HBO Now. I’ve been considering subscribing to Hulu, too, because of some other shows they have, so this is just added incentive. I’m still saving a lot of money compared to when I paid for cable TV.
I dunno, they had announced back in May that it had been renewed for Season 3 on FOX, so I think the ratings were good enough. It’s possible the powers that be may have been having second thoughts but I’d bet there’s another reason behind the switch.
Fox is getting away from scripted dramas in general, it doesn’t fit with their new philosophy.
Once upon a time, there was this service where you could find shows from every network in existence. This service would give you a box which aggregated all of these networks, would let you search for shows you wanted, would let you record those shows for later viewing, and would let you stream many/most of them on-demand.
that service was called “cable.”
but now, thanks to smug “cord cutters,” the networks realized they could try to get a bigger piece of the pie by pulling their shows back and starting their own streaming services. We should have seen this Balkanization coming a mile away, but apparently not. I just did a quick check, and to cover the major studios and add Sling so I can watch Red Wings games (basically what I can do with cable right now) per month it would cost me $20 less than the TV/movie portion of my cable bill.
Whoop-de-friggin-do.
So before you sit there cackling about people “whining” over “$6/month” from Hulu, just remember these networks aren’t making it (initially) cheaper out of the goodness of their hearts. They’ll start ratcheting up monthly fees to whenever they see fit. I don’t know if it qualifies as “rent seeking” but all I know is they’ll get their money out of you one way or another.
Whateves. I pay a fraction of what I used to pay for cable. And the service is TEN times better than what I ever got with cable. Also, the user interface is way better than anything cable.
If all this means network execs are getting rich because of it; so be it.
ETA: Have fun paying for all those channels you never watch.
Strongly disagree. I find the FF and rewind features on my cable dvr (and cable on-demand) to be infinitely preferable to either the amazon or netflix methods, which still feel clunky and awkward to me.
I also strongly prefer the “info” feature on cable to netflix: While watching cable, if I hit the info button, I get the title, season/episode (if a tv show) or year (if movie), plus a fairly lengthy description of the episode/movie, and the show doesn’t stop playing while this info is displayed.
For netflix, hitting “info” (really the back button) stops the show from playing and brings me to a different info screen where I can see a very short description. Not as good. Especially because there’s no other way to see what episode you’re on while binging, so I find myself pausing into the info screen after every time I choose to “start next episode” just so I know where I am. It’s irritating.
In fairness, amazon prime’s info is the best of all, so it isn’t strictly a streaming vs cable thing. Amazon prime brings up the title info without pausing, but then further it has the “x-ray” feature where it lists the actors on the screen in that particular scene. You can then select an actor if you want to see their IMDb info. It’s ridiculously awesome. You can further see a more complete list of the cast and get their info if you want.
As far as I’m aware, there is no way to see cast info beyond the top 2 or 3 stars in either netflix or cable, so on that score amazon is miles ahead of the others.
One reason they’re going to air fewer scripted shows (not just dramas) is that Fox 21 Television Studios is now a division of Disney. The economics of television today make it hard to make money on a show unless it’s produced in-house.
like paying for all of those shows you don’t watch on your streaming services?