What does “TV” even mean now. In my younger days, everyone had access to the same stuff at the same time and later, delayed time. Boxes of VHS recordings represented a time travel of sorts.

Saving stuff from now to watch later. Buying DVDs to watch later. Later.

I eventually threw out boxes of VHS tapes, recycling the boxes at least. Stuff I never got round to watching.

Now we’re in the age of streaming. Things appear on one channel for a while, then another. You subscribe to some. A chase for content that perhaps suggests it’s still better to own the tapes. A little eccy up front but perhaps a mix of cheaper and available later on. On disc, always available.

Yet I like a little streaming. Stranger Things was interesting, appealing to my Gen X origins. Loved first season and that was sufficient. Enjoyed second and didn’t finish third. Of course, season 4 has recently premiered and suddenly Kate Bush is popular again…always a good thing. Now I feel caught in the need to finish season 3 so I can watch season 4 and enjoy how the Kate Bush track was used.

I can at least continue to watch Stranger Things on the streaming platform it started on. I started watching Star Trek Discovery on netflix a year or two back and it looked sort of interesting. I recall shorts for season 3 that looked good and took the show in an interesting direction. However it is no longer on netflix and I am not willing to subscribe to yet another streaming service to get access, though others have their own workarounds.

Then there was Dark. German. Some similar tropes to Stranger Things. More depth, less referencing. Germans seem to do this sort of thing well. A strong story with interesting ideas at play. So many interesting ideas. Time travel and loops. Higgs and other such. Not to shock but to tell a different sort of story.

I like Dark. I loved Dark. If I want to watch it again, it’s still available via the original platform (netflix). However I think I should buy it as it is a fabulous show that I should keep in my permanent collection. A collection of physical discs. Permanent at least until the discs die. Media migration is a whole other challenging space…perhaps I need to stick with streaming afterall :-)