Good evening fellow necromaniacs: A Hulu Review

"Good evening fellow necromaniacs. I'm glad so many of you could come. I should explain that the word has nothing to do with the neck. I'm awfully sorry I haven't the time to explain it now. You'll just have to look it up in the dictionary."

So, hopefully by now you have heard of a new website called hulu.com. I read about in in GQ and the Rolling Stone. Why was a lovely girl like me reading GQ, you may ask? well, I was in the doctor's office and the only magazines they had either had babies on the cover or a skantily clad Rachel Bilson, and i was not in a baby mood . . .

Anyway, I'm glad I found it in two separate magazines, because with a weird name like that, I definitely did not remember after reading about it for the first time. After I noticed it for the second time, I decided to check into it since it seemed like everyone was pretty excited about it. After waiting for a username and password for 5 days, which wouldn't be terrible except that most of the rest of the internet is pretty instantaneous, I found that the website was a really good idea, but a bit disappointing.

It's a great idea to put all these shows in one place, and they have a pretty good variety of shows. I was especially impressed with the number of networks they got in on the action, but the number of episodes they have per show was quite disappointing. While they have whole seasons of old TV shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Doogie Howser M.D., they only keep a couple of episodes from current shows. Since most networks already play their last 4 or so episodes online for free, it just seems a little redundant. The whole first season of Buffy and Doogie is cool, but they had *only* the first season. So I say, "what's the point?" The did have some pretty cool collections of old television like the 'Dana Carvey Show,' 'Lost in Space,' and 'Alfred Hitchcock Presents,' which was actually the first thing I stumbled upon, and what the post is named after.



That is pretty hilarious. They don't make TV like this anymore. Which is good and bad. Since each story is confined to one episode, putting only one season or so of a show like this on hulu makes some sense. Shows like this are interesting, but TV has evolved into longer more involving stories that require you to be at the TV every week at a certain time in order to catch the whole thing (I hear that's how they make the dough). Shows like Buffy are lengthy sagas that span 7 seasons for a reason, and if Buffy was your favorite TV show or even if you just thought it was interesting and wanted to see more, you would not be satisfied with one season.

It seems that networks still don't understand the allure that sites like the infamous www.tv-links.co.uk used to have, and that some places still do. For instance, what if all your friends are watching Heros, and you never started watching that when it came out. It's sorta difficult to jump into the middle and catch up on all the back story. Or maybe (like me) you had volleyball practice in high school and missed one of the season finales of Buffy. Now you can most likely find it, but not on Hulu . . . Or what if you're just really bored, and a friend of yours told you that it's too bad you never watched the Gilmore Girls, because you would have really liked it. Even if the CW had a contract with Hulu, you'd probably only get the first season, and then you'd never find out if Lorelei and Luke ever got together in the end.

These are reasons people flock to illegal sites like tv-links used to be, and the benefits of legality are just not large enough for people to be willing to miss out on key moments like when Dr. House and Dr. Cameron went on that extraordinarily awkward, one and only date, when certain website make it so easy not to. What I *would* sacrifice for legality are the 4 or so 30-second commercial spots to support the website and programming on hulu. I think that's great, and I bet other people do too.

The design of the website and the versatility of the integrated player are also terrific, and I can only hope that A) they are working on increasing their selection and B) they are getting agreements with ABC, comedy central, and the CW. Granted: it still needs to be monetarily worth it for the networks to give away their television shows. Maybe we're not there yet?

I'll probably still use the site for newer TV that I just happened to miss last week, and maybe if I ever get bored and want to see the first season of Buffy or try to remember Doogie Howser. They also have Firefly! It's a nice site, but it won't keep people from downloading or using stuff that is illegal.

Good Luck Hulu.com! You're on the right track.