The "I'm Not Paying" Confessional Thread

I had Netflix even before the show was announced. In Brazil, Discovery on Monday September 25th. Trek Brasilis will have a podcast and a chat on youtube after each episode.

 

And suddenly I realize there won't be any live discussion threads.

I miss the old days.

 

Why not? Just have a giant spoiler warning in the title.

 

No, you misunderstand. Back in the VOY/ENT days, we used to have minute-by-minute (or second by second) threads while the new episodes were airing live--sort of a MS3K thing. They were a lot of fun. And the whole reason I joined TBBS in the first place.

Of course, I couldn't participate after I moved to New Mexico because of the time difference, but that was during ENT's last season.

 

So everyone will just have to start the show at the exact instant that the episodes become available on CBSAA.

...unless they're doing the whole season at once. Are they? I can't remember.

Kor

 

No, it'll be on a weekly basis. I'm glad they're doing that, I've found it so much easier to discuss that type of show (like Game of Thrones, The Expanse, etc) than it is to try to talk about Netflix shows. I have to avoid any thread about the Defenders that isn't explicitly up to a particular episode if I want to discuss it, for example. I really don't think it's a good way to build up fan excitement and interaction.

 

For me, personally, I find binging a tv series season that has a continuous story line much more satisfying that having to keep waiting on the next episode. That's why I'm not at all worried if I don't subscribe to CBSAA. I haven't seen a single episode of season 2 of Wynonna Earp yet, but this weekend I get to binge the whole 2nd season all at once. I've gotten used to my quirky habit, and find I prefer it that way. I did the same with the last season of Orphan Black and pretty much intend on doing all TV viewing like that, unless they are more episodic in nature. Episodic series often don't matter if you even watch them in order anyway, or only a few at a time.

The only series I cave into because I can't stand NOT watching is GOT.

 

Unless CBS has massively miss-represented the show in their trailers and the Pilot turns out to be super good there's no way I would pay for a CBS all Access subscription.

 

The problem with that, at least with DVDs, is that they tend to go bad after several years. Nearly half of my original Babylon 5 box set is unreadable, and none of the DVDs have so much as a scratch. Everything is a trade off.

 

That's not a problem with the DVD, it's a problem with copyright protection being incompatible with your DVD player.

 

In case you weren't aware, they are both available on Hulu.

 

In the US. I dropped Netflix (Hadn't watched anything on it recently) and picked up CBS:AA with the free month deal. It'll be worth it on September 25!

 

I do not have cable. So when it was even brought up, my wife( who does not watch trek) talked me into getting it because of Trek lol.

 

There's also disc rot which has various causes. Personally, I've never had CDs or DVDs go bad, though. I'll have to figure out which are the oldest discs I own and see if they're still good.

Kor

 

I'm not going to try and convince people to get CBS All Access, I'm just going to reiterate what I've said.

Principle: Out of some sort of misplaced loyalty to the Axanar fiasco where they caused fan films to come under scrutiny, or because of CBS "screwing" them for something or possibly even Paramount having the gall to successfully revive the franchise on film, some fans say they will not watch (or pay at least) for Discovery.

None of this matters. Studios exist to make money, studios also have copyrights. Fans don't own anything despite the self-entitlement that they do.

Creative: The standard issue complaint in social media. Other shows have real Trek fans making them, and neglect to pay attention to who's actually working on the show. Lots of Trekkies are working on DSC and Nick Meyer co-wrote the pilot.

Fuller himself pointed out this will be prime and a reimagining. Full stop. There were no mysteries, no misled Trekkies. This is exactly what we got.

Finally, the "paywall" itself.

I've gone to great length to post how people can save money if they have to afford the exorbitant cost of $24($1.60 per ep) for Discovery. By my count, the ways I've posted this can save $30-120 dollars. Even if you don't need to save this money, CBS is charging a pretty low price, just $1.60 per episode(Since you don't need to pay for Sept or Dec).

There is also a deal online if you buy the Fansets pin, you can still get a $25 digital credit on All Access. This can cover at least 3 concurrent months of the series for free (it will air over 6 concurrent months).

See, that was easy.

On to the complaining.

RAMA

 

You're quite the fan If I were in the US I wouldn't mind making those savings..

 

I am shocked!

 

1. The Axanar-issue is pretty much non-existent in the real world. NO casual viewer or even regular Trek fan that hasn't been on this very forum during the last year (which, TBH, why would they, with no new Trek around?) has ever heard of this thing. If DIS struggles or succeeds, it will be entirely on it's own terms (or, rather, on All-Access'-terms).

2. If something which we are used to get for free (television) is suddenly behind a singular, unique paywall, without any further advantages (bad streaming-quality and advertisement breaks), people WILL pirate it. Massively. That comes with the circumstances, and has to be accounted for by the money-counters. Game of Thrones is the most pirated show ever. And that's on HBO, which has tons of other neat stuff, and no advertisement. But it's still profitable.


Let's hope Star Trek get's pirated. A lot. Because that means people actually watch it!
And more and more of those will want to do that in better quality - aka actually paying for it at some point, or buying merchandise. The ratings for GoT were rising and rising, with an all-times high at the moment, despite (or because?) it was able to become such a big pop-culture phenomenom - because people actually watched it.

I first catched GoT on re-runs. If this new Trek series is not going to have re-runs on cable, it's going to be pretty much doomed by not finding an audience without piracy. Period.

I'm not advocating for something illegal. Just pointing out that this overall business-model, the splintering of content behind different paywalls, is unsustainable without other means of watching something.

 

(Just FYI - I'm going to watch it on Neflix. But if it's good, I'm going to recommend it to my friends. And I will absolutely NOT care about how or by which means they are going to watch it on their own!)

 

I'm going to wait for this series to come out on dvd. It's more convient to have them on dvd to watch the entire season. I have no interest in getting Cbcs streaming because internet in my area goes down alot. in bad weather. It's slow at times and times out when you try to watch movies on youtube.