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I am a fan of the show Friends. I can remember watching the pilot and thinking to myself that there were quite a few characters to invest in for such a new and short show, but also that it was a highly entertaining half hour and that I would certainly watch it again. It didn’t take long before I, like millions of others, was hooked. In syndication, the show also became a favorite for my daughter.
Imagine how excited we were, two years or so back, to learn that there was going to be a Friends reunion show on HBO. I am a long-time subscriber to HBO (think back to The Sopranos) and promptly planned to have my daughter over so that we could watch the reunion together. I remember her asking me if I had HBO Max and answering that I ‘of course have HBO Max’ because I have HBO and with HBO there are included several other channels which have HBO in the first part of the channel guide. When she came over and we found Friends on the list of HBO programs, I selected it and we settled in…Unfortunately, the reunion show we had waited more than a decade to watch, lasted about 90 seconds because it was NOT the show but rather only a teaser trailer. It turned out that I did NOT have HBO Max as this was their new streaming channel and it cost extra. Given the amount of money I have spent over the years to subscribe to HBO, I had ZERO intention of paying for anything else!
Fast forward to last year and I will start again…I am also a fan of the HBO show Sex and the City. I can insert the same leading text as in the prior paragraph which similarly leads me to share that I felt the same frustration (and anger) when I discovered that their spin-off show, And Just Like That, was only playing on HBO Max! I mean I understand all about streaming TV services but when you already subscribe to the original service, shouldn’t you get access to everything they have? Why are there HBO tiers now and who is deciding what shows go in what tiers because Game of Thrones is an amazing show and that played on the regular HBO tier? The original Sex and the City aired on the original HBO tier so why wouldn’t the spin-off show air within the same tier? I mean Friends originally aired on network TV. Why was the reunion even on HBO Max in the first place? $ Okay-so maybe I know the answer to that question $. But seriously, it would be like subscribing to Sports Illustrated and having to pay extra and fill out another subscription plan to receive the swimsuit edition.
Fast forward to yesterday… Whilst here in Germany and casually switching channels on the TV, I came across the Sex and the City spinoff. There it was in all its basic cable package and accessible glory. However, my beloved characters prancing around NYC were speaking only in German. And just like that… I changed the channel.
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Kathy Naumann, possessor of NATURALLY curly hair and the understanding that you can’t control everything!
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