The Queue

Last Tuesday night I sat down with every intention of watching The Mandalorian and Grogu.

I love Star Wars. I've loved it since I was a kid. But I didn't see this one in the theater, and it landed on Disney+ at the start of the month. I had the remote in my hand. Din Djarin and the little guy were sitting right there on the home screen.

Forty minutes later, I was on YouTube watching Rick Beato explain why a song from the '70s still works.

Then came a compilation of the greatest sports plays of all time. Then Ali Abdaal on how to plan a week. Then an hour of the Illini Inquirer, which means I watched two guys talk into microphones about recruiting. I could have listened to that in the car. I know.

I never got to Mando. I’m sure whatever character Sigourney Weaver is playing deserved better.

Here's what bugs me. My streaming queue is loaded right now. Netflix is bringing back Black Doves for a second season, and I wonder when I’ll get to it. East of Eden shows up October 1 with Florence Pugh as Cathy Ames, which is the kind of casting that makes you want to read the original Steinbeck. Apple TV just launched Brothers, where Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson play versions of themselves who find out they could be actual brothers. Somebody pitched that in a room, and everyone said yes. That’s gotta be hilarious.

It keeps coming. HBO's Harry Potter series arrives in December. On the movie side, Supergirl is on HBO Max, Backrooms lands there this week, and Toy Story 5 hit Disney+ on Wednesday.

And that's just the new stuff. The backlog is worse.

I can’t even begin to list all the shows I’ve heard of that I’ve never seen. Here’s an excellent example: Slow Horses. Not one episode. It just started its sixth season, which means five seasons of a Gary Oldman spy show are sitting there that I know I'd love.

I’m behind on Silo. I'm behind on Severance, Dark Matter, and The Diplomat. I'm behind on Shōgun, which I was genuinely excited about, but I just can’t quite finish. I’m pretty sure I’ve missed two whole seasons of Stranger Things.

Then there's Widow's Bay. It just won 14 Emmys, a record for a comedy in a single year. I've barely heard of it. Somewhere, a whole lot of people had a great time watching that show, and I was watching Scott Galloway talk about his recent vacation.

The most recent exception is Lanterns. I've kept up with that one every Sunday on HBO Max. The mystery is pretty good. The acting is superb. It's the only one.

That's a great fall of television. I'm paying for most of it. And I'm watching a YouTube video of Betty White bloopers and comedians ripping into hecklers.

Then I read what Toy Story 5 is about.

Woody, Buzz, and the gang are back, and this time they're up against a tablet. The toys have to compete with a screen for Bonnie's attention.

I laughed out loud. Pixar made a movie about me. I'm Bonnie. The good stuff is sitting in the toy box, and I'm on the tablet. Or, you know, watching YouTube on my TV.

So why does YouTube keep winning? I think it's because it asks for so little. A great TV show wants eight hours and a promise. It wants me to remember who double-crossed whom in episode three. A YouTube video wants 12 minutes. Then it wants another 12, and it's so polite about it that I never notice the evening slipping out of the room.

There's something else, and it's a little harder to admit. These creators feel like people I know. Beato talking through a chord change feels like a conversation at a record store. I've spent so many evenings with Jerad Hill and Joey Schweitzer that they feel like guys I'd recognize at the coffee shop. Ezra Klein feels like a conversation I wandered into and decided to stay and learn a bit more. The characters in Silo are strangers until I put in the time. The YouTube guys are already friends.

Friends are great. But I don't want every night to be the same conversation with the same handful of people.

So here's me thinking out loud about what to change.

The podcasts go back where they belong, in my ears. The Ezra Klein Show and Pivot were made to be heard. Watching Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway sit in front of microphones adds almost nothing. Same for Light the I and the Illini Inquirer. The new rule is I listen to those on my dog walks and in the car. That alone gives back hours of screen time.

Next, I need to decide before I sit down. The trouble starts when I pick up the remote with no plan. The home screen is a buffet, and YouTube is the dessert table by the door. If I've already decided it's Star Wars night, I'm halfway there.

I’m not ready for YouTube to come off the TV yet. My wife and I watch old Family Feud collections and America’s Got Talent auditions on it during dinner. I might need to rethink what I’m subscribing to though. Do I need the video versions of podcasts? Probably not. Especially since my goal is to keep those as podcasts.

None of this makes YouTube the villain. Beato makes me hear songs I thought I knew in a new light. Hill is showing me how to make a personall productivity system. Those guys earn my attention honestly. The problem is proportion. I've been eating dessert for dinner and wondering why I'm still hungry.

Lanterns tells me I can still do it. Something about that show got me to show up every Sunday. I finish the episode, and then I want the next one. A feed can't give me that feeling, because a feed never ends. That's the whole design.

I haven't seen Toy Story 5 yet. I'd bet on Woody, though. It's Pixar.

Tonight, it's Mando and Grogu. Remote in hand. Plan in place.

Be seeing you.