Thou art as wise as thou art beautiful...

While the debacle that is NBC’s programming department trying to pick up the pieces of the Conan/Leno train wreck for months will have some entertainment value, it’s pretty clear that there isn’t much worth watching on that new flat panel. There are, of course, a few notable exceptions: Chuck, 30 Rock, Mad Men… I’m told that Dexter and House are worth watching but I haven’t invested the time to find out. So on the occasional evening when free time and curiosity collide – what to do?

When the last cheap DVD player died I picked up a Blu-ray player that also connected to Netflix. I hadn’t had a subscription with the mail-in DVD giant for years – while the model is great (and really, isn’t anything that stomps Blockbuster into the ground?) I just didn’t plan ahead well enough to have the right movie in hand at the right time. Somehow the $14.99/month unlimited movie subscription turned into a $5/movie ongoing expense. Fast forward 8 years and Netflix is rapidly evolving the mail-in model to a content streaming model, i.e., now there is a growing library of content that can be accessed on an “instant” basis – through a variety of devices made by Blu-ray manufacturers like Samsung and Sony as well as stand-alone Netflix devices. Suffice it to say that I have bought into this hybrid rental/streaming model enough to have given a Roku device and a Netflix subscription as a Christmas gift to my inlaws. (In the interest of full disclosure, I’m only a Netflix subscriber and have no affiliate interest)

The majority of the content is back catalog, but there is a growing number of newer titles, particularly TV series. What this means is that one can sample a few episodes of Dexter, Friday Night Lights, etc., without having to cough-up the freight for a 22 episode season on DVD. It also means that some nuggets from the past can be easily unearthed – Ken Burns’ series on Jazz, Saturday Night Live from the beginning to Tina Fey’s deconstruction of Sarah Palin, the Addams Family, Bogart & Bacall, the original Star Trek, Bergman, Kurosawa; from the ridiculous to the classic the list goes on.

For the past several evenings I’ve indulged my geekness for Shakespeare by watching the four part series “In Search of Shakespeare”, a PBS series that originally aired in 2004. I had never seen it – frankly, I hadn’t heard of it. This series, presented by the delightful Michael Wood, explores the religious turmoil of Elizabethan England, the evolution of the theater and how the country boy born in the same year that Michelangelo died would grow to become the greatest writer in the English language. The ability to browse the online instant catalog, find something like this, sample it and then watch it at the time of my choosing is really compelling. No trip to the store or even the mailbox, no incremental pay-per-view or on-demand fees.

These are exciting times for consumers – the choices of content and media platforms have never been greater. The service described starts at about $125 for a basic Netflix device and $9/month. Now the challenge is to find the time to enjoy the treasure trove of entertainment. Will Ferrell or Rashomon?