Agents of Shield: The Magical Place
by J.D. Cook
Unfortunately due to dinner engagements and a trip to Manhattan I was unable to see the new episode of Agents of Shield during its regular air time at 8:00 P.M. Eastern Time. Now usually this is not a very big problem as the show has been free to watch on both ABC.com and Hulu up to this point in time. So you can see why I was fairly annoyed to find out that either ABC or Marvel changed their policy for the show in the middle of the season. Now it can only be viewed by confirming your cable subscription on ABC.com or by paying 7.99 for Hulu Plus. Since I am currently in a hotel I couldn’t confirm my Cable Subscription even if I did have one that ABC.com was partnered with. Hulu Plus is a completely inferior service to Netflix and I would not pay for it in a house, I do not like it with a mouse, I do not like it here or there, I do not like it ANYWHERE!
We live in the modern era! The whole point of having streaming ability for television shows is so that viewers can catch up on an episode they missed. This keeps them tuning in week after week even if they miss an episode occasionally. If you offer that service people begin to expect it and when it suddenly vanishes people are frustrated. Furthermore if people cannot catch up with an episode of the show they may just stop watching it. This is exactly what happened to me with American Horror Story Asylum, oddly enough another show I blogged about for a short time. I watched it every week religiously but I finally missed an episode and I could not catch up with it due to the shows policy of only making an episode free to watch after a new one aired. Thus I was continually behind the episodes and could never watch them when they aired and eventually just stopped caring about the show. I do not want this to happen with Agents of Shield but at the same time I do have a life to be living and I’m not going to schedule it around a television show. We live in an era where you can miss these things and be caught up for the following week. Why cost yourself viewers by not making that an option and sticking to a pre-technology boom era policy? This seems like a move done to force people to watch the show on the ABC network and the ABC network alone but I do not understand why the company is sticking to a clearly out dated model of gaining viewers when the internet is clearly poised to dethrone television networks as the primary means by which everyone watches shows? To quote a book I’ve been reading, Who Moved My Cheese, ABC needs to move with the cheese instead of looking for it in the same old places.
I used to end these blogs by saying: Catch up with the Show on ABC. Com or Hulu!
Unfortunately that is not true anymore so I will simply say good bye.
Other Episodes of Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
Agents of Shield: Pilot
Agents of Shield: 0-8-4
Agents of Shield: The Asset
Agents of Shield: Eye Spy
Agents of Shield: The Girl in the Flower Dress
Agents of Shield: F.Z.Z.T.
Agents of Shield: The Hub
Agents of Shield: The Well
Agents of Shield: Repairs
Agents 0f Shield: The Bridge
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It’s definitely an ABC corporate thing, not a specific show. It’s for every show. I have DirecTV with a DVR, so I can record it. However, if for some reason, I wanted to watch it online, I still can’t even do that, because DirecTV is currently not one of the options. It’s absolutely ridiculous, and I’d be curious to see what the decrease is in online viewership for ABC.com on these first two days. It wouldn’t surprise me if it was absolutely dramatic, and I hope it is.
Yeah I do not understand the logic behind it. Free Streaming is great even if you limit people from viewing the new episode until say the day before the new episode aired it wouldn’t be a big deal and would give people incentive for watching it on the day it aired. Punishing people for missing it by not allowing them to see the new episode for free until the day after the next new episode airs is insane though as it essentially stops someone from being able to catchup on the show unless they start pirating it!