On Disney+
About a month ago my wife surprised me with a Disney+ subscription. Thoughts, I has them.
The Good
The UI is nice, responsive, and gets out of your way. Pleasant both on mobile and on a big screen TV. Categories make sense, and searching is easy. Well as much as "typing" on an Apple Remote is easy.
The nostalgia factor was strong. Watching movies from my childhood with the kiddo has been so much fun. In the last week we watched Tron, The Black Hole, Escape To Witch Mountain, and Bedknobs & Broomsticks.
The Mandalorian has single handedly restored my faith in the Star Wars universe. It's utterly fantastic and I think Disney should just hand over the keys to the kingdom to Jon Favreau. Liking the slow weekly release of episodes instead of the all at once Stranger Things approach.
The World According To Jeff Goldblum also very very good. It's Jeff Goldblum, doing an Anthony Bourdain style show. What's not to love?
The Not Quite As Good
In 2020 all streaming interfaces should have table stakes "remember what I've seen and my position". Disney+ doesn't always get this right. I was 20 episodes into the first season of Clone Wars when it reset and recommended I start watching. "You might like this show". You think?
Licensing is a bit wacky. Avengers Endgame is fine to watch, but Avengers Infiniti War is "coming soon". Maleficent also "coming in October 2020". These titles all happily appear in the UI mind you and are clickable which is frustrating when you can't actually watch them. The majority of Andi Mack season 1 is missing because reasons.
The lack of new TV show content is a bit worrying. After watching The Mandalorian and all the old Disney/Marvel movies there is an element of "now what?". I know they've got big plans for various Marvel TV shows and the Obi-Wan Kenobi show with Ewan McGregor. But that's not where we are today.
Summary
Good outweighs the bad. The kiddo has lots to watch. That plus The Mandalorian & promise of future shows set in the Star Wars universe probably makes this a keeper. We have a year subscription already paid for so it's not like we're gonna bail now. I'll let you know if we renew it in December.
Yeah, I'm frustrated by the poor bookmarking as well. I can't find what I started when I was halfway through.
But what really gets me is that Nathan has shows he loves. Disney shows. New ones like Big City Greens that only just started season two. Season one is on + but two is not. Six episodes deep in season 2 and we have to record them on our DVR from the regular Disney channel. We can't watch them on a service we pay for. BS
Maybe down to the licensing again? It's super frustrating to get caught up in it as you've no idea why the things are missing. I hope it shakes itself out.
I would like them to update parts of the interface and navigation, which can sometimes be a bit on the frustrating side. Also, it will be nice when all of this licensing BS for Disney-owned titles gets sorted out.
The Mandalorian is stellar. Now to wait till September 2020 for season 2. In the meantime, I will have to explore some of these shows.
Yeah The Mandalorian was just so good in every way I cannot wait for the new season.