To Love TV From Afar...

Of all the complaints I may or may not have about the United States, one thing is for sure: we make great television.  From writing, acting, execution, location, down to the general look we have definitely set the standard of TV.  Don't misunderstand (or is that 'misunderestimate?') me.  I like television from other countries, BBC America for one, has shown some of the best of British TV (Life on Mars, Dr. Who, Coupling, etc).  I certainly don't like American TV at the expense of other TV...I am an equal opportunity television watcher.  

But, what's difficult, is trying to watch that great, well-made American television when you are in a foreign land, without actually owning a TV. Yes, my friends,  a (new) television blogger without a TV.  I swear it is not because I'm one of those people (you know the kind) who say, "I don't watch TV" or "I have no need for a television."  No, it is because I am a poor graduate student living in London, who can't afford that TV.

So, I've been forced to be creative in how I watch television--and it generally involves watching it on my 13" Mac computer.  I was able to watch all of Lost, for example, thanks to iTunes.  I downloaded each episode as soon as it was available (which was never as fast as I liked). Unfortunately, that has been the exception to my general experience here.  I would be more than happy to watch episodes streaming from network websites like NBC, ABC, etc, but those are, sadly unavailable to customers outside of the US. Oh, what about Hulu you say?  Again, I'm still waiting for Hulu to allow people outside of the United States use it. But, it looks cool.  [I can't even watch clips posted on other websites from Hulu!] I would have also gladly paid to get my Battlestar Galactica fix on iTunes this season. But, thanks to Universal/NBC yanking all their shows from iTunes, I couldn't do that.  I even tried Amazon Unbox, but what do you know?  You not only have to have a PC (which I could have worked around as annoying as it is), but you guessed it: you have to be in the United States.

My point being: I have explored all the known legal ways to watch these shows, outside of watching them on a regular television. And, since at this point I can not only not afford a television here in Britain, but I can't afford the cable it would require to watch American-network TV imported, I have had to resort to the more "gray area" of streaming video. Honestly, I don't know all the copyright rules, if they are valid in different countries, or if what I am doing is actually shady; frankly I'd rather not know--I figure if it works it's fine, and if it's not fine, it will stop working.  

This route is frustrating. Often times links are dead, or don't load, or only work on this browser or that browser.  I just think it is kind of weird that someone who wants to watch TV , has tried to do it in an up and up legal fashion, and is even willing to (sometimes) pay has to even worry if he or she might be in a legal gray area.  There seems like there must be a happy medium between honoring the right to sell a product, having things be a bit more available. At least one would think there could be. [And the studios claimed they make no money from the internet when the were fighting with the Writers Guild.] 

On the plus side I now have access to the BBC iPlayer, so I get to watch lots of new television that has been previously not only unavailable but unknown to me. So, um, don't be surprised if I blog about a lot of British TV.   

Despite all the troubles I have managed to watch a fair number of the shows I love; not all of them, but I am trying to catch up.  I do wish there was a way for me to do it right, so to speak, but I'll just have to make due.  So,  don't worry come fall I'll be watching and commenting on all the great TV.  (Just don't ask me how i watched it.)