Are you watching The Expanse on SciFi?

I don't have cable and the SyFy Network who used to be pretty prevalent on Hulu, has been flipping the streaming service a hateful middle finger for the past several years.

It's available on iTunes too.

I'm not blind buying for a series I never seen before, let alone do anything that's iTunes related. I can imagine the series is for sale (per episode) on Amazon Instant as well. I'll wait until it comes free on Amazon Prime or Netflix. I can only afford so much before sacrificing things like food and shelter.

Understood. Definitely stay within your means.

The first episode is available on YouTube (as I provided above), so at least that will be free for you.

But I also get the feeling that your taste in SciFi and mine differ by more than a little, so you may not enjoy it as much as I am anyway.

Based on your recommendation, Ralph, I watched the first episode. The show was okay, but the interface I had to watch it on at syfy.com was deplorable. If you watch it in part and try to go back, you have to watch about 140 seconds of commercial each time you try to advance the position to the point where you stopped before, so you might have to pass through 6 or 7 minutes of commercials, and then, when you would theoretically have it positioned where you left off, it malfunctions so you have to start from scratch. Most streaming services know how much commercial time you've just watched and will stop trying to run them for a while once it passes some time limit, but not syfy. It's not worth it try to deal with them and I do not have or wish to have iTunes.

I've noticed it listed in my TV's guide/schedule grid, but haven't bothered to watch it.

I'll see if I can catch some reruns.

Yes, I hate commercials too. That's why I purchase all really good shows on ITunes. But I can afford it, it's different for others.

I didn't intend this thread to be about the virtues and pitfalls of various online streaming methods, but your post reminded me of how much I hate commercials and how much value I think I've gotten out of avoiding them.

Like most of us I grew up watching broadcast tv and experienced commercials as a fundamental aspect of TV Viewing. It wasn't until I started watching Paid Services (HBO first) that I began to realize how deeply the commercials were degrading the experience of the shows I was watching. For average shows which don't really require your attention or aren't that interesting commercials have little detrimental affect. But I quickly found that if a show was really good and well written and capable of holding your attention, that the interruption of commercials completely destroyed the intensity of the show.

Now that I have tried things both ways I will never go back to watching any quality programming with commercials in it. For me this means that I routinely purchase episodes or shows from various sources (iTunes and Amazon primarily) if I consider the show worthwhile. And after is all said and done (paid and calculated) I find that I've actually spent far less than I used to spend when I filled my cable bill with HBO and STARZ and all the other options which they have carefully crafted to give you only pieces of what you actually want.

NetFlix has also proven to be a bonanza. For $10/month and unlimited streaming of whatever shows they happen to run all I have to do is be content to wait for the older shows that I missed the first time or to wait for seasons to pass through their "first round purchasing" phase.

Mostly I just wanted to say how odious I now find commercials, not just for their inherent exploitation of the facts for their own ends (the very nature of ads), but also for the damage they do to Video Storytelling which so much of the population hasn't even become aware of yet.

(end of rant, you may now return to your regularly scheduled program)

I like the Cotton Dockers commercial where the guys are all standing around, supposedly being very casual and witty.

I like the Allstate "Mayhem" commercials. Watched them all on YouTube

Here's a sample... (yes, now that I've ranted about the horrors of commercials, I'm about to pollute my own thread with a commercial... )


The Raccoon...

Actually, I have never seen it. That was simply the stupidest answer I could think of, and also a "Seinfeld" reference.

"The Expanse" really is pretty good. The episodes vary between very interesting and sort of interesting, but the future technology and culture shown are extremely believable, especially compared to most of the sci-fi on TV. I'm on episode 8. Thanks again, Ralph, for bringing this to my attention.

Glad you like it. I'm really looking forward to the second season.

The real hook for this series doesn't get set until the very end of the last episode (#10). It was only after the final credits started to roll that I found myself thinking, "Holy crap, I have to wait an entire year for the next season? I don't know if I can make it!"

Did you ever finish the season? What did you think?

I did, and I think it's a pretty good show. I liked the scene in the hotel lobby where it suddenly turns out that none of the bystanders are really bystanders.

I liked one of the earlier episodes in which the commander of the baddest Mars Military ship is so casually confident about the upcoming battle with some unidentified ships... then by the end of the episode she's getting ready to self-destruct her ship to prevent it being taken over, and wondering where things went wrong.