Am I the only one who can't stand Paramount+'s skip button?

[rocketdave]

Many years from now, we will each be surrounded by our grandchildren and great-grandchildren, who will stare at us in disbelief, begging us: "Tell us again the Tale of the Evil Skip Button!" The thing of nightmares!

I totally voted "no."

Ha ha, jokes on you; I'm unlikely to have either children or grandchildren and will probably die alone.

 

[fireproof78]

Ha ha, jokes on you; I'm unlikely to have either children or grandchildren and will probably die alone.

Blood is thicker than water. Family of choice is stronger. You can bond over your cursing of the infernal Skip button.

 

[Richard S. Ta]

This was never a bad discussion, but at some point it turned into a great discussion.

 

[Turtletrekker]

I've never met Skip Buttons myself but he doesn't sound like a nice person.

He'll be teaming up with Badgey and Peanut Hamper to form a triumvirate of ultimate evil on third season of Lower Decks.

 

[thribs]

We need one for those bloody 2 minute recaps they insist on having in every episode.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

And for Michael Burnham’s overly dramatic monologues.

 

[Sakonna]

The skip button bothers the hell out of me too. I want to watch the opening credits because to me it's part of the ritual of the story that helps me transition into the world of the story being told. Similar thing with the closing credits -- to me they're part of the ritual that helps me mentally transition out of the world of the story.

THIS. Particularly with Star Trek, this is where I most want the opening credits every time to get me into the vibe.

Though, flashing back to when I was a kid... ironically then I really could have used a skip button. TNG reruns were at like 1 and 2 AM in my market and I would sneak out of bed and watch them really quiet, sitting right in front of the TV. But if anything would wake up my parents, it was the opening credits fanfare. And IIRC, that TV did not have a mute button. I always had to be super alert and ready to frantically dial down the volume THE SECOND that teaser ended, lest it rouse my parents and get me sent back to bed! Nothing worse than a great teaser and then getting cut off from the rest of the ep...

 

[Space Lemur X]

Good news! This was driving me crazy as well, but I accidentally discovered a couple of weeks ago that pushing the “back” button on my remote (as if I’m backing out of the show to the P+ menu) makes the “skip intro” button disappear. Same with any “skip recap” buttons. I have a Sony T.V., so hopefully this works on any smart t.v.

Alternately, we were previously subscribing to P+ through Apple TV on our Xbox, and I found that when watching Star Trek that way, the “skip” button naturally disappears after a few seconds.

rocketdave, I’m sure you are far from the only person bothered by this. I too love getting immersed in the title sequence, and found it a total nuisance. Hope this helps!

 

[rocketdave]

Good news! This was driving me crazy as well, but I accidentally discovered a couple of weeks ago that pushing the “back” button on my remote (as if I’m backing out of the show to the P+ menu) makes the “skip intro” button disappear. Same with any “skip recap” buttons. I have a Sony T.V., so hopefully this works on any smart t.v.

Alternately, we were previously subscribing to P+ through Apple TV on our Xbox, and I found that when watching Star Trek that way, the “skip” button naturally disappears after a few seconds.

rocketdave, I’m sure you are far from the only person bothered by this. I too love getting immersed in the title sequence, and found it a total nuisance. Hope this helps!

Thanks, though since I own neither a smart TV nor an Xbox, I'm afraid those solutions don't appear to be viable in my case. When I hit any of the "back" buttons on my Roku remote, it just rewinds or exits the video. Still, I appreciate the reply since it makes me feel a little less crazy just knowing that I'm not alone in feeling irked by the "skip" feature. Besides, maybe your advice will be of use to someone else.

 

[at Quark's]

Credits don't mean much to me after having watched them one time, so I would use that skip button to good effect, myself.

But I think there ought to be an option 'don't show skip buttons' somewhere in a menu for those that don't want them and that are distracted by them.

 

[Space Lemur X]

Aack, I’m sorry, how unbelievably stupid. It’s definitely not you; I was almost at the point of dropping the service and just waiting for the blu rays each season. I’m pretty sure nobody at P+ has actually tried to use their own service yet. Not sure what other explanation there could be.

 

[rocketdave]

Credits don't mean much to me after having watched them one time, so I would use that skip button to good effect, myself.

But I think there ought to be an option 'don't show skip buttons' somewhere in a menu for those that don't want them and that are distracted by them.

Even though I doubted it would do any good and was fairly convinced I'd be dismissed as a crank, I actually sent a complaint to Paramount+ a few months back suggesting that very thing or that they at least significantly shorten the duration of time the skip buttons appear on screen.

There are times when I understand the appeal of being able to skip the opening credits, but in most cases, I consider it part of the experience of watching the show. I've heard the TNG hundreds of times, for example, but I just can't see myself wanting to skip past it.

Aack, I’m sorry, how unbelievably stupid. It’s definitely not you; I was almost at the point of dropping the service and just waiting for the blu rays each season. I’m pretty sure nobody at P+ has actually tried to use their own service yet. Not sure what other explanation there could be.

I've felt the exact same way. When I sent P+ my complaint over this, I even threatened to unsubscribe, though of course it ended up being a bit of a hollow threat as I've failed to follow through. If nothing else, it's definitely added incentive to buy the blu-rays.

They haven't so far, thankfully, but I'm going to be extra upset if they add the "skip" button to The Good Fight. That show's intro has to be one of my all time favorites.

 

[Space Lemur X]

Here’s how I see it: Regardless of what one thinks of Netflix, I feel that their interface is pretty much the gold standard for user-friendliness. So when another app is clunkier or lacks basic features, it’s understandsbly annoying, and appropriate to complain to that company. Whether they listen or dismiss you as a “crank” is of course beyond your control, and not worth troubling yourself over.

These services evolve constantly, and annoyances like this will no doubt be ironed out over time.

 

[Christopher]

Regardless of what one thinks of Netflix, I feel that their interface is pretty much the gold standard for user-friendliness.

Less so than it used to be. Last year, for no comprehensible reason, they took away the feature where you could display My List as an actual text list and order it to your own preference, instead allowing only the option of a thumbnail array that's ordered by some kind of popularity algorithm, so it keeps rearranging and it's irritatingly hard to find something in the list. Why would they do that???????? Other streamers also stick you with those stupid thumbnail pictures instead of a nice straightforward text list of titles, but at least they keep them in the order in which you originally added them.

 

[Space Lemur X]

…so it keeps rearranging and it's irritatingly hard to find something in the list.

You know, that’s a good point. Were I more cynical (give me a few hours, I’m still waking up), I’d almost believe that these constant tweaks mainly exist to drive engagement and keep us tinkering with said app rather than doing something else. I should probably be grateful your novels don’t randomize the chapters every time I open the Kindle app at this point (please don’t get any funny ideas).

 

[Uhura's Song]

It absolutely bothers me.

It should go away after 5-10 seconds or there should be a way to disable it.

 

[Sakonna]

The weirdest thing is, as much as this damn button annoys me on the new shows, it never pops up for me on the old ones.

I am a real opening credits purist, but, after 3+ decades, I also am ready to skip the TNG opening on occasion. But that's where they DON'T give me the option!

Meanwhile, Paramount+ is also frequently ruining the endings of the classic episodes by suddenly minimizing the screen and bringing up the huge "NEXT EPISODE" button, while the current episode still has 30 seconds left to go! It really slams you out of those final moments in an abrupt, unpleasant way. If I didn't know it was just incompetence, I'd think it was a plan to move DVD boxed sets.

It is truly fascinating to me the extent to which so many streaming services struggle with the most basic aspects of their user interface.