Places to Escape To (and From) - Friday Video Distractions with Mike Norton

  More of us than before are being repeatedly told to Stay Home, so rather than lean hard on a single show or movie I'll fish around a bit before leaning in on a final recommendation for a current miniseries.  Netflix just added all six seasons of Community, which is still one of my favorites -- "lost"/"gas leak" season and all. (Here's a commercial for the first season's DVD set.)

  I saw this morning that Disney+ has already added - just as of today - the animated movie Onward, which premiered in U.S. theaters just back on March 6th. Covid-19 shuttered the movie theaters, so after a very short time as an exclusively pay-per-view item they decided to add it to their streaming platform. The movie is a quest film set in a land of mythological creatures, where magic was once commonplace but slowly faded away as technology became ascendant.

  While I have no idea whether or not it's butchered to make room for more commercials, nor even curated properly, I saw that cable tv sci-fi channel Comet will begin showing episodes of the mostly 1990s Fox sci-fi series Sliders starting next Monday, running weekdays 4-6 PM Eastern. A show that never really lived up to its high concept - traveling from one alternate reality to another - and which fell prey to some of the worst pressures from commercial tv execs who clearly didn't get it, and who obviously wanted much better ratings than they were getting. Still, I'll likely always have a soft spot for this series -- or at least the first two to three seasons. Having just checked, it's not on Hulu nor Netflix, and is only available on Amazon Prime if one wants to buy episodes/seasons.
  Here's a muffled VCR recording of the promo commercial for it from back in the day. The quality here is probably indicative of whatever versions of this may be lurking around YouTube itself.

  If you have Fios as your cable provider, take a look at your listings again this month, especially if you don't normally have many of the premium channels. For the entire of April, recognizing that nearly all of its customers are being told to stay home, they've given everyone access to Showtime and Epix, along with Gaiam TV, which has instructional exercise videos, yoga, pilates and meditation.
 Epix is one of the channels I don't normally have, so aside from checking out what else they have on there, I'm planning to take a look at Epix's version of War of the Worlds.

  From the 17th to the 23rd (seven days) Starz will get this same access. From the 17th to the 20th you'll also have access to both HBO and Cinemax. That block of HBO includes the final week of my last recommendation for the week (see below).
  Experience has been that during these access stretches you'll also be able to look at their On Demand offerings. And, of course, if you have a DVR and the space, you'll be able to record shows/movies from each and then watch them when you wish.
  My final recommendation for the week is on HBO.
 Imagine an even worse timeline.
That's quite a chore these days, but it's possible,
 Imagine if in an alternate history's 1940, a group of extreme Republicans convinced aviation pioneer and American adventuring hero Charles Lindbergh to be their nominee, running against FDR as an anti-war, "America First" candidate pledged to keep the U.S. out of another "European war." A barely-closeted anti-Semite, a fan of Adolf Hitler and what had been accomplished in Germany - though all of that was pushed to the back during the campaign. What if he won?

  Based on Philip Roth's 2004 novel of the same name, the six-part The Plot Against America primarily traces a Jewish-American family as their world twists in on them, as a media star turned political figure gives license to the worst impulses in U.S. society. That last stretch of road seems oddly familiar, doesn't it?
           That's enough for me for this week. Stay safe and as sane as you can. Flee to other worlds as necessary.               -Mike

Shows and movies hit on in previous posts:

 Sept. 20th: Mindhunter (Netflix)

     Sept. 27th: What's The Matter With Helen, The French Connection, and Frenzy. (Early '70s R-rated movies I saw with my mom)

     Oct. 3rd:    Preacher (AMC), Stumptown (ABC), Sunnyside (NBC), The Good Place (NBC), and Jack Ryan (Amazon Prime).

     Oct. 11th:  Joker (still in theaters), and In The Tall Grass (Netflix)

     Oct. 18th:  El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie (Netflix)

     Oct. 25th: Dolemite Is My Name (Netflix)

     Nov. 1st:   Watchmen (HBO series), The Kominsky Method (Netflix)

     Nov. 8th:   Seconds (1966 movie, currently available as part of Amazon Prime)
     Nov. 15th: Dr. Sleep (current theatrical release, but probably not for long), Horace and Pete (2016 web-produced series, currently on Hulu)
     Nov. 22nd: NOS4A2 (AMC, now on Hulu) and Man In The High Castle (Amazon Prime)

     Nov. 29th: The Irishman (Netflix), The Mandalorian and The World According To Jeff Goldblum (both on Disney+), light touches on Watchmen (HBO) and Ray Donovan (Showtime)
  Dec, 6th: The Booth At the End (Amazon Prime), and Us (HBO).

Dec 13th:  Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (Amazon Prime), The Feed (Amazon Prime), 6 Underground (Netflix movie).

  Dec 20th:A Christmas Carol (FX), The Expanse (Amazon Prime), Killing Eve (BBC America)
  Dec 27th: Lost In Space season 2, and first impressions of The Witcher, both on Netflix.
  Jan. 3rd: Black Mirror (Netflix) and Phillip K. Dick's Electric Dreams (Amazon Prime). 
  Jan 10th: Undone (Amazon Prime), Witcher (Netflix) and Dracula (Netflix/BBC One). 
  Jan 17th: Kidding (Showtime) 
  Jan 24th: No shows, just some movie mentions as I recall some places that no longer exist.
  Jan 31st: October Faction (Netflix) and the finale of The Good Place (NBC).
  Feb 7th: Messiah (Netflix)
  Feb 14th: Locke & Key (Netflix)
  Feb 21st: Skidoo (1968 film, available free on YouTube)
  Feb 28th: The Lighthouse (2019 movie)
  Mar 6th: Kidding (Showtime; second season),  Avenue 5 (HBO), Better Call Saul (AMC.)
  Mar 20th: Monk (streaming on Amazon Prime)
  Mar. 27th: Dispatches From Elsewhere (AMC)

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