Netflix is a joke at the moment. The streaming platform is a barren wasteland of animated programmes and poorly dubbed foreign-language shows. Due diligence, by which I mean searching for something to watch for at least 20 minutes, reveals little more than programmes I've already watched or refuse to watch, and the new releases seem frozen in time. Tighten your belts a notch or two, friends, for we find ourselves in an entertainment famine. The well at Netflix, it seems, has run dry.
What brings us to this desperate point? Why do we suddenly find ourselves watching TED Talks on YouTube? How did it happen that we're trawling DStv catch-up for a morsel of decent programming? What gives that we're doing outlandish things like signing up for Disney+ or seeing whether Amazon Prime is available in our territory?
The writers' and actors' strike in Hollywood is probably behind the sudden downturn in watchable content. Not to take anything away from local writers and actors, but the United States has proved to be the premier producer of quality shows and movies for many decades and a shutdown at the factory has a devastating effect on everyone in the supply chain. The strike is at an end, but writers being writers, it could take months for everyone to catch up on their work. The reason for the strike in Tinseltown is, of course, streaming. This new technology is an abstract concept. Like electricity, no-one knows how it works, but we enjoy the convenience it brings. No more channel hopping. No more ads. Just a torrent of entertainment flooding into our homes, interrupted only when the power goes off and you've not bothered to buy a device that keeps the modem going.
The era of streaming has everyone in a state of anger, ecstasy or desperation, depending where you look. DStv is in the throes of rolling out a new streaming service, which is a bit confusing since it is being rolled out among traditional TV ads. Are we still watching land-based content or are we streaming? Unlike Netflix, when a service provider that brought us Egoli suddenly morphs into a streaming service, the results are disorientating, leaving us in a grey area, a twilight zone, wondering how DStv Stream affects our DStv bouquet and vice versa. How did we get into the stream? Are we in already? Why are the words “stream” and “TV” in the new DStv logo?
Before streaming came the era of “TV and order”. A time of TV guides and news bulletins at eight o’clock in the evening leading to the weekly episode of Dallas an hour later. The time to leave for school was directly after the cartoons that aired at ten to eight and not a moment later. M-Net Open Time announced the beginning of the evening with an episode of Egoli, as it did the day before and again the day after, at six o’clock sharp. Egoli was followed by a sitcom with a laugh track, which didn't seem weird because it was the 1990s. The sitcom was followed by a lull as M-Net Open Time closed and you had a stretch of dead air until the news, which everyone watched through to the commodity prices, including that of Brent crude oil, and the weather that may or may not have showed a rugby ball between the uprights of the H that indicated a high pressure over the Free State, depending on whether the Currie Cup final, often featuring the Free State, was being played on Saturday.
You could really build a life around a TV schedule back then. It was predictable and trustworthy and compulsory and not of the highest quality, which made it all the more effective as a general anaesthetic for life, since expectations were low and options few. Instead of skipping ads, you had to sit through them. Resistance was futile. The era of “TV and order” was a time of acceptance — and patience. With the threshold to withstand bad programming much higher, the amount of content went up. The idea of the staff at the TV stations choosing programmes catered to your taste and mood was unfathomable. They didn't have the time — or means — to work out that because you watched MacGyver, you might like The A-Team. The thinking was that because you'd bought a TV, you'd switched it on. And therefore, the only option you had was to grab the remote, put your feet up and watch whatever.
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