Saturday, September 23, 2017

Crisis Of Conscience

Tomorrow a brand new Star Trek series is starting. I have been a great fan of Star Trek for as long as it has been around. I'm not the maniacal Trekker my niece is but I can have a pretty coherent conversation about Klingon Blood Wine, Ferengi Rules of Acquisition, Locutus of Borg and other such important things from the Star Trek Universe.

One would think that the arrival of a new series would be a time of rejoicing. But as readers of the blog know, the transition pretty much led to my eschewing all video watching. With the exception of a few times of putting my TV on while I was ironing shirts (and that stopped long ago) or to see the final of the Rugby World Cup, I have not watched the television in my library since 2014. On top of that, the new series will only be available on CBS' streaming service, which means we would have to pay for it. One reason I stopped watching TV was the cost of all the streaming services (we cut the cable/satellite services in 2014).

I am thus faced with an ethical dilemma. First, do I commit to actually turning on the TV for the purpose of entertainment? Seems a shame to break my record of no TV watching now as it is really getting to be significant. Do I pay for a service for the purpose of watching a single show? That really grates on my basically cheap nature. Do I wait a year or two until the whole years of the series show up on Netflix so I can just do a binge watching?

OR, do I cleverly convince Wife that she wants to watch this (she likes Star Trek too), so SHE buys the service and we watch it together on HER television. This could be a stroke of legal brilliance. De jure, I would not have turned on my television or purchased the service. YET, I would have the benefit of seeing the show AND would get brownie points for actually doing something WITH Wife.

4 comments:

Renee Michelle Goertzen said...

You have the mind of a lawyer...

My Star Trek Group is also dismayed at having to pay for a single series, but I argued that we had a duty as serious Trekkies to watch it as it comes out.

de-I said...

As fate would have RM, Wife pointed out that with us traveling so much we will miss a huge portion of the show so it makes no sense to purchase the subscription. It will be binge watching in the future for us.

alexis said...

RM I love your logic! And I'm glad mom was able to resolve your dilemma. I will be finding a way to watch it here... maybe. Or wait. I am not a mega fan anymore of any fiction these days.

Bernice said...

I am glad you solved that problem before going on your next adventure.