Skolcial Distancing: What’s everybody watching?

With everything that has been happening with the developing coronavirus situation, a lot of people are spending a lot of time at home. . .whether they want to or not. While I certainly don’t want to downplay the importance of keeping up to date on everything that is going on as news breaks with this, I also understand that nobody is going to keep themselves buried in the news cycle 24/7.

With people having some spare time on their hands, I wanted to take an opportunity to ask the community. . .and that’s what we are here, a community. . .what they’re doing to pass the time while they’re in their homes. This particular post is going to focus on television and movies, but I’ll probably get to separate ones for books and video games and other stuff.

So, what’s everyone watching during this time, whether it’s binge watching your favorite shows or just channels you’re getting into?

Personally, my go-to channel for “background noise” at this point has become the Science Channel, which is Channel 284 on your DirecTV (if you don’t have DirecTV, check your listings to see if you have it). It has plenty of on-demand shows that you can stream, but at this point I’m content to just let it flow and listen to what they put on next. Incidentally, the new season of Mysteries of the Abandoned starts on Thursday at 8:00 PM Central. It might be the most interesting show the Science Channel has. It’s my personal favorite, at the very least.

If you’re looking for a show or shows to watch, I do have some recommendations, but I want everyone to throw their recommendations in the comments. That’s what this is about, after all. But, here are mine.

Wentworth: Wentworth is the best show on television anywhere. That’s not hyperbole, it’s really great. It’s kind of like Orange is the New Black, but darker and way more Australian. It’s sort of a remake of an Australian TV show from the 70s, but more modernized (obviously). Season 8 starts in June, but the first seven seasons are all on Netflix.

NewsRadio: Quite possibly the most underrated sitcom of all time, NewsRadio ran back in the mid-to-late 90s on NBC. It had an incredible cast, featuring the late Phil Hartman, and the writing was always top-notch. If you have the Crackle streaming service, every episode is on there.

Mystery Science Theater 3000: It shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone to see this as a recommendation from me, as I’ve extolled the virtues of MST3K numerous times in this space. If you’re familiar with Pluto TV, they have a channel that’s all MST3K, all the time. Literally, one episode ends and the next one starts. There are some commercials, but it’s completely free and the commercials are pretty limited. You can get Pluto TV in your browser, your smart TV, and whatever devices you have available. (They also have Rifftrax, which is basically MST3K’s younger, hipper cousin. I’m not as familiar with it.)

So, what’s everyone out there watching? Are you looking for a particular type of show to get into during this time? Drop your recommendations into the comments and feel free to ask if anyone has any recommendations for you!