big pupper

Yeah they rebrand it as the "Starz" catalogue when it's a bit too mature for the D+ brand. From my understanding, that branding is actually very popular in Asia and they introduced it to North America through the Canadian D+ offerings.

I agree that D+ is actually the best bang for your buck streaming service, because their catalogue is relatively static since they own all the rights. That catalogue doesn't really need to be Netflix massive because it's mostly quality content, while Netflix is still pumping out garbage. Finally the cherry on top is having all the Fox content through the Starz branding.

The TV offerings have given an endless amount of merchandising opportunities. The trilogy is not important, because the TV shows have been good. All I really need to say is two words: Baby Yoda.

I say this as I am wearing a Mandalorian t-shirt, looking over at my Lego build of the N1 fighter, thinking about all of the new Star Wars content coming out of the Dave Filoni camp. I think of all the casual fans who clamor for the cute Grogu merch. People like my sister who have no real interest in Star Wars are very into Grogu much the same way folks are into baby Groot.

My guy you're talking about the studio that sold BB-8 branded oranges. You'd be surprised what people buy.

The Simpsons and Family Guy alone are worth 70 billion. You factor in merchandising and catalog, there are a lot of people who would just sign up to a streaming service just for those shows. The Simpsons is a merchandising juggernaut. There's billions of dollars in the stupid branded shit - this is also why they bought Star Wars and have basically shrugged off the fact that they botched the trilogy with the immense amount of money they are able to print off of the merchandising.

In Canada they do have the Fox/Hulu library as part of Disney+ because Hulu never launched here - we're a tangled web of media rights between the telcom conglomerates that own the rights to most of the stuff and keep the market noncompetitive. Most of the rights of Fox stuff was probably owned by Rogers or Bell and therefore not worth launching the service up here. That's how HBO is. HBO's content is all licensed by Bell so it's on their shitty streaming service. Most of us would pay for HBO or MAX or whatever the fuck if it was a standalone service, but we can't.

I've come to the conclusion that SNW is the entry point series.

Do you like legal dramas? Perfect, here's a great LGBTQ allegory episode!

Do you like goofy animation like Rick and Morty? Here's the crossover with Lower Decks!

Do you like gritty serious war stories? We're still dealing with the trauma of the Klingon War!

Do you like showtunes? Somehow we pulled that off too! (also Chapel's song is a straight banger)

SNW is the show I'd introduce my friends to in order to get them into Star Trek as a larger thing. I think it's an easier entry point than any other series.

I like a lot of the procedural legal ones.

Judgement - ENT

The Drumhead - TNG

Rules of Engagement - DS9

Author, Author - VOY

That being said I have a few others that are generally great.

Q2 - VOY - I just love the fact that Keegan DeLancie is actually John DeLancie's son and he does a great job being a little shit Q.

The Inner Light - TNG - self explanatory

(this is cheating but) The Aenar 3-parter - ENT - Goddamn season 4 was so good, and I really wish we could see the Romulan war. I'd even settle for them doing an animated series with the cast's voices to avoid age issues.