 This is the SF Productions Podcast Network. What to watch, what to DVR, what to stream, the eternal question. From the Pop Culture Bunker, I'm Mindy. And I'm Mark. You can check out our audio podcast, How I Got My Way to Read Comics on iTunes, or on our website, sfpodcastnetwork.com. As summer winds down, broadcast TV networks prepare for the Kabuki ceremony known as the Fall TV Schedule. They only have so many time slots available, and at the same time, they play chicken with the other networks to compete for potential ratings. As viewers, we then take a look at the resulting schedule and decide what we will follow by, one, watching live, only when necessary. Two, T-bowing, or three, streaming. Speaking of streaming, one has to wonder how much longer the networks will continue to do the whole rigamarole of a fall schedule. But for now, this is what we have. Let's take a look at each night in turn and make our initial calls. I do want to thank TV Line for their schedule grids. On Sunday, we have new shows. Kids say the Darnest Things on ABC, Bless the Hearts on CBS, and Batwoman on The CW. The existing shows we generally watch on Sunday night are The Simpsons on Fox, Supergirl on The CW, Mark watches The Family Guy on Fox, but I don't. And The Rookie on ABC, which I watch, and Mark doesn't. So, will T-bow, Simpsons, Supergirl, Batwoman, Family Guy, and Bless the Hearts, just as a tryout, we will stream The Rookie via Hulu. I do a lot of streaming. On Monday, the new shows are Bob Love's Abishola on CBS, All Rise on CBS, Prodigal Son on CBS, Do We See a Pattern Here, and Bluff City Law on NBC. The existing shows we watch are Dancing with the Stars on ABC, Black Lightning on The CW, although we have a whole season on the T-bow we haven't gotten to yet. And I watch Bull on CBS. So, will T-bow, Dancing with the Stars, Black Lightning, Bob Love's Abishola... And again, that's a tryout. That's a tryout, but it's from Chuck Lorre. Which, you know, you have Big Bang Theory, but you also have Two and a Half Men. So, it's a toss-up. Yeah, and then we'll stream Bull via CBS All Access. On Tuesday nights, the new shows are Mixed-ish on ABC and Emergence on ABC. What we normally watch on that night is, I watch NCIS on CBS, and we both watch The Flash and Arrow on The CW. So, will T-bow, Flash and Black Lightning, and we'll stream NCIS via CBS All Access. On Wednesday, new shows are Not Just Me on Fox, which I haven't even heard of. Nancy Drew on CW and Stumptown on ABC. And Stumptown is going to get a big thumbs up from me. Yeah, existing shows we watch Modern Family on ABC. Will T-bow, Modern Family and Stumptown. On Thursdays, the new shows are The Unicorn on CBS, Perfect Harmony on NBC, Carol's Second Act on CBS, and Sunny Side on NBC, and Finally Evil on CBS. What we do watch are Grey's Anatomy, Supernatural, Young Sheldon on CBS, The Good Place on NBC, and Law and Order SVU, Sometimes on NBC. So, will T-bow, Supernatural, Young Sheldon, Good Place, Perfect Harmony, Sunny Side, SVU, and then we'll stream Grey's Anatomy via Hulu. One of the rare shows that you cannot get commercial free on Hulu, just as an aside. Even if you pay. Yeah. On Friday. Oh, the new shows, WWE, SmackDown Live on Fox, which we won't watch. Existing shows we watch. Bueller, Bueller. This sounds like a night we'll watch the stuff we've recorded previously. Right. And then on Saturday, like the networks we gave up on Saturdays many years ago. So, we listed the streaming options we use for broadcast stuff, which brings up the second half of our discussion. There's all kinds of upcoming services. So, it's time to thin the herd of what we pay for today. We currently have Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, CBS All Access, and DC Universe, plus maybe Britbox and Acorn, depending upon the time of the year. Yeah. So, based on the broadcast picks above, Hulu and CBS All Access really aren't going anywhere because we actually use them. Yes. They don't use them on Prime shipping too much to consider dropping their video service. Which leaves Netflix and DCU. Netflix is going through a prolonged transformation from a service that consolidates big studio movie and TV content to a self-contained source of new content. Of course, this is being forced by the big guys who are busily setting up their own streaming shingles. Are we interested enough in Netflix's own content to stay there? Probably not. We'll probably dip back in from time to time, binging until we run out again, and then drop them again. So, let us know when a new season of MS-T3K is greenlit, huh? Meanwhile, DC Universe started well, but has made a number of missteps. Canceling Swamp Thing 2 episodes into its run, killing all momentum is just one example. It's just been announced that the second season of Doom Patrol will be seen on DCU and the upcoming HBO Max service. I believe DCU's expiration date is about to hit. We got a deal on a year's service before they went live, and that's going to run out soon, and I think we're going to let it go at that point. So, with Netflix and DCU gone, that frees up some funds for new services. As I said earlier, I sometimes subscribe to Acorn or Britbox, and it's probably going to be in the same container as Netflix, which we'll dip into from time to time when I want to binge something. The announcement that Disney Plus will be bundled with Hulu and ESPN Plus for $12.99, turned that decision into a no-brainer. I have no use for the sports service, but it's still a better deal than getting the other two separately, at least from what we can see so far. The only question is whether we can still pay extra in order to get Hulu-san's commercials. Which I really have difficulty watching Hulu with commercials because they put them in at the oddest places. That's one of the biggest problems with streaming services. And they tend to use the same three or four commercials over and over and over. It's like, you're big guys now. There's no reason why you can't do like the actual broadcast networks do and get a set, a large set of commercials. There's no reason. And quite frankly, the first time I see a commercial, maybe I'll consider the product. The 15th time I see a commercial, I'm so sick of it, I never want to use that product. I'm actively against your product. I'm actively against your product. And the other thing I hate is these commercials that are clearly encoded incorrectly so that they jerk and they're like weirdly pixelated and like, if you're going to do it, do it. Right. Do it right for goodness sakes. Oh, we're just complainers. We are. Oh, back to the TV services. Yes. As far as Apple TV Plus is concerned, we still don't have a start date or a price unless the latter is far less than we expect, like $5 a month. It's a non-starter. We're not doing it. No. And then there's HBO Max, worst name ever because is it HBO? Not really. In fact, there's two other services. Well, HBO Go. And HBO Now. And HBO and now HBO Max. This is just confusing. Yes. You don't know. So they made a number of announcements. They got friends. They're going to do Classic Doctor Who. But we still don't have a cost. They're thinking $16, $17 a month or an actual date is going to come out. I suspect they were ready to announce all of this after they reformulated their plans for cost structure when Disney Plus came in so low. But now they have to do it all over again now that Disney Plus bundle was announced. Finally, there's the still unnamed Comcast Universal NBC-Shinefeld Wing Company service with no protected cost. As far as data is concerned, I think they'll be coming in so late that customers will already have made arrangements elsewhere leaving them the crumbs. And we probably wouldn't get it unless it was free. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we're hearing it might actually be free with ads in some form. But again, announce something. Let's go, guys. Yeah. So there'll be lots of TV to watch. Nobody will be running out of TV to watch. It's the Platinum Age. Peak TV of TV. So, um, you can watch TV or you can listen to our audio podcast, how I got my wife's read comics on iTunes or on our website, sfpodcastnetwork.com. From the pop culture bunker, I'm Mindy. And I'm Mark. Thanks for watching.