Cordkillers 385 - I Love It In a Pokemon Kind of Way

Netflix formally releases viewership numbers every week on their own website. What do these numbers mean?! Plus, breaking down which streaming services are right for whom and the big new Spider-Man trailer. All that and more on Cordkillers!

This week on It's Spoilerin' Time: Good Time, Squid Game (105), Miami Vice (115 - Smuggler's Blues)

Next week: Hawkeye (101-102), Squid Game (106), Miami Vice (202 "Whatever Works")

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CordKillers: 385 - I Love It In a Pokemon Kind of Way
Recorded: November 22 2021
Guest: None

Intro Video
Don't Look Up


Primary Target
Global Top 10
Netflix launches global Top 10 site based on new watch-time metric
Netflix's Squid Game was even bigger than you thought -- 2.1B hours big
Netflix begins reporting viewer numbers for its biggest hits
TV Ratings: K-Dramas, ‘Seinfeld’ and ‘You’ Dominate Netflix
- Netflix released a "Global Top 10" site at top10.netflix.com last week
- You can sort it by Films and TV in English and non-English. You can also drill down into list by country.
- You can look at week by week numbers or All-time based on the first 28 days.
- The charts are based on total watch time.
- Updated charts will be posted on Tuesdays. A company called EY will audit the metrics.
- A few interesting tidbits from the charts
- People have watched a collective 2.1 billion hours of Squid Game, that's about 239,700 years.
- Meanwhile Nielsen continues to report month old estimates of streaming numbers that mostly contain Netflix titles. For the week of October 18th-24th You took the top spot and Squid Game dropped to second. , followed by Maid, Shameless, Cocomelon and Locke & Key.

How to Watch
Which Streaming Services Are Actually Worth Your Money?
- Wired's Simon Hill has an Article about which Streaming Services are worth your money. I thought it'd be fun to run through the recommendations and see if we agree or not. Yes, this is entirely unfair to Simon who lays out an exhaustive system for evaluating the services and the article provides ample justification for each decision while we are just shooting from the hip. So assume Simon is right about everything and go read his article. But here's what we think for comparison.
- For Everyone: Netflix
- For Discerning Viewers: HBO Max
- For Families; Disney Plus
- For Cord Cutters: Hulu
- For Amazon subscribers: Prime Video
- For Classic TV : Paramount Plus
- For Apple Fans: Apple TV Plus
- For a Bit of Everything: Peacock
- For Documentary fans: Curiosity Stream
- For Animation lovers: VRV
- For Reality TV: Discovery Plus
- For Sports Fans: ESPN +
- For British TV: Britbox


What to Watch
See more Spider-Man: No Way Home footage in new TV spot
All 5 villains featured in the new Spider-Man: No Way Home trailer
'Spider-Man: No Way Home' trailer gets awesome '90s cartoon remake
- A full trailer for Spider-Man: No Way Home is out showing Doctor Octopus, Green Goblin, Electro, Sandman and The Lizard. So we're definitely getting all the villains from the 21st-century Spider-man movies. Which means we're also probably getting all the spider-people as well though that's not in the trailer. There was also a TV spot with some new scenes and a closer look at Electro.
- Canada's 100Bombs Studio made a cut of the trailer using only scenes from the 1990s animated spider-man series.
- Spider-Man: No Way Home comes out December 17

Netflix’s ‘Avatar: The Last Airbender’ Adds ‘Kim’s Convenience’ Alum Paul Sun-Hyung Lee, Lim Kay Siu & Ken Leung To Cast; Begins Production
- Netflix's live action Avatar: The Last Airbender added Kim's Convenience and Mandalorian star Kim’s Convenience alum Paul Sun-Hyung Lee as Uncle Iro.

Netflix is creating a comedy set in the last Blockbuster, which actually exists Bend, Oregon. Randall Park and Vanessa Ramos will star.
Harry Styles ‘Eternals’ Character Starfox Gets His Own Poster From Marvel Studios
- So Marvel does not seem to see the need to keep the end-credits secret from The Eternal's anymore and has released a poster with Harry Styles dressed as Starfox on it. 

Ahsoka Tano Disney Plus Series Casts Natasha Liu Bordizzo as Sabine Wren
- Disney Plus's Ahsoka Tano series has cast Natasha Liu Bordizzo as Sabine Wren, a character from Star Wars: Rebels who teams up with Ahsokoa at one point in that story.

MacGruber gets December 16 Launch Date at Peacock
Roku lines up more than 50 new shows for its free channel
- The Wall Street Journal reports Roku has plans to roll out more than 50 originals on its Roku Channel over the next two years. The shows will have basic cable budgets apparently.

Lily James and Sebastian Stan play megastars Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee in a Hulu series streaming February 2.
Ridley Scott says a Blade Runner TV series is in development
- Ridley Scott told BBC 4 that work is progressing on an Alien TV series and a pilot has been written for a series based on Blade Runner.

‘The Matrix’ To Be Released For The First Time In Imax
- In advance of the Matrix: resurrections, coming December 22nd, The original movie The Matrix will be released for the first time in Max on December 7th in select US markets.

Disney, WarnerMedia Carve Up Fox Film Slate Streaming Rights Through End of 2022
- HBO Max will continue to get 20th Century Studios movies through the end of 2022. HBO Max gets Pay One exclusivity on about half the slate and the rest will be co-exclusive with Disney Plus and Hulu. This is one of those pre-existing deals that makes things confusing until they all expire.

New trailers: The Expanse, Ozark, Encounter, and more
- HBO Max will continue to get 20th Century Studios movies through the end of 2022. HBO Max gets Pay One exclusivity on about half the slate and the rest will be co-exclusive with Disney Plus and Hulu. This is one of those pre-existing deals that makes things confusing until they all expire.

Norman Lear and Jimmy Kimmel to Revive ‘Live in Front of a Studio Audience’ With ‘Diff’rent Strokes’ and ‘The Facts of Life’
- Norman Lear and Jimmy Kimmel will present another "Live in Front of A Studio Audience" with the Facts of Life and Different Strokes airing December 7th at 8 PM eastern. John Lithgow as Mr.Drummond, Kevin Hart playing Arnold, Damon Wayans as Willis and Ann Dowd as Mrs. Garrett. The cast of “The Facts of Life” will be revealed at a later date.

Eyes On
Brian: Succession, Cowboy Bebop
Tom: Succession
On the Lookout: Bluey


Front Lines
Amazon releases Prime Video app for Mac
- Amazon now offers a native MacOS app for Amazon Prime Video, available through the Mac App Store. Prime Video subscribers can stream shows and movies or download for offline viewing, with the new app supporting picture-in-picture as well as AirPlay.

Hulu Live TV Plans Will Add Disney Plus, ESPN Plus and Hike Monthly Prices by $5
- Hulu is adding Disney Plus and ESPN+ to its Hulu with Live TV package and raising the price by $5 a month. Essentially it's a price rise for the cable replacement service but throwing in the bundle. Existing Hulu with Live TV subscribers who have the Disney+/ESPN+ bundle will get a credit for the remaining subscription.

Paramount pulls STAR TREK: DISCOVERY from international Netflix days ahead of Season 4 premiere, will not air now until 2022
Comcast Weighs Pulling Some Content From Hulu in Effort to Boost Peacock
- Three days before the premiere of Star Trek: Discovery, Paramount Plus pulled the rights to show it on Netflix internationally. Prior seasons have shown on Netflix outside of the US and Canada. Paramount Plus is launching international versions of the service in the spring. But that means you'll have to wait for those services to watch Star Trek: Discovery legally in those markets.
- We're going to see more of this sort of thing as old deals unwind. Comcast has until earl y next year to decide whether it will move NBC content off Hulu and make it exclusive to Peacock. If it decides to leave it on Hulu it will have to keep it there until 2024 when the full deal expires.

Hulu launches its own online shop, with ugly holiday sweaters and other merch
- Hulu launched a merchant shop at shop.Hulu.com featuring limited-edition products from Hulu Originals and other titles in its library. So coffee mugs, hoodies and ugly sweaters for The Orville, Grey's Anatomy, and Handmaid's Tale are now available among others.

Roku’s latest update is causing issues with the YouTube TV app
- Roku's latest OS update apparently is causing some legacy YouTube TV apps to freeze. Google says it is aware of the issue and working on a fix. Google and Roku are in a contract dispute over YouTube TV which is not currently available in the Roku store. So the likely explanation is that the existing YouTube TV app may not have been tested with the OS updates.

Roku now has an 8K channel for TCL TVs
- And Roku has launched an 8K channel for TCL TVs running the Roku OS. The channel is called The Explorers run by a foundation that tries to preserve biodiversity. It typically costs $3 a month.


Dispatches from the Front
Dear Cordkillers,

I really love the "Summarize a bunch of stuff with a quick binary choice" bit you've come up with, much like Netflix dumdum hilarity. Hearing Tom play the straight man and Brian engage with this brought a smile to my face as I drove to work this morning. Keep up the great work of making what could be a slog through a giant list of titles to a thing that keeps my interest and brings a smile to my face.

Also, I've been trying to think of how to respond to "Why are people binging old TV series?" from a few weeks ago. To me, I like going back to shows that were on TV when our children were born in the 90's. Tom, being "pro baby" probably understands that caring for children can take up some time at night during prime time viewing. Yes, I could have recorded it on VHS tape, but we were so tired all the time that we never had the time to go back and watch episodes we missed.

Over the past year or two my wife and I have gone back to series that were in their prime during the mid to late 90's and while some of the plot points don't hold up, it's nice to see what we missed. Also our personalities have changed and what we might not have wanted to watch at the time due to its "appropriateness" may have changed in our opinion

and we're wiling to take a risk and watch something we may have considered "risque" at the time. Looking at the list, I see "ER" on there and specifically remember not continuing to watch for a while after a pregnant mom died :-(

Your, finally getting the hosts names right (right?), boss

- John


Links
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Bryce CastilloComment