At Disney's biannual D23 Expo executives revealed that episodes on the upcoming Disney+ streaming service will follow a weekly release schedule, unlike Netflix's binge-able season drops. "A show like the Marvel Cinematic Universe spinoff Loki, which is slated to run approximately six hours (likely meaning six episodes total) will come out over the course of six weeks," reports The Verge. "That's similar to the way Hulu (which is also owned by Disney), Amazon, and HBO Now operate." From the report: But while HBO Now doesn't have streaming exclusives and is tied into HBO's weekly release schedule, Disney and Hulu aren't tied to traditional network schedules. They've voluntarily chosen to release most episodes on a week-to-week basis. (Hulu often releases three episodes at once to kick off a season, then drops to one per week afterward.) Apple is reportedly planning to take the same route when its streaming service, Apple TV Plus, launches this fall.

The weekly release model is a smart move for Disney -- and potentially any new streaming service that's initially focused on building a subscriber base, rather than servicing a demanding, preexisting one. Tying new content to beloved franchises, then doling it out a bit at a time is a way for Disney, in particular, to keep subscribers hooked. When Disney+ launches, people who want to watch all of Jon Favreau's Star Wars series, The Mandalorian, will need to keep their subscriptions active for at least a couple of months. While cord-cutters routinely look for ways to dip in and out of new services, bingeing the content they care about, Disney is looking to keep its initial subscribers stable while adding more throughout the year. The strategy is crucial for Disney to reach its estimated goal of around 10 million customers by the end of 2020.

Get ready for yet another ad-supported video service: Media center app maker Plex is gearing up to add free movies and TV shows to its app, starting with content from Warner Bros. From a report: Plex announced a deal with Warner Bros. Domestic Television Distribution Thursday, which will allow it to add a still-unspecified amount of the studio's movie catalog to its app when it launches ad-supported video streaming later this year. But Plex isn't just looking to compete with ad-supported video services like Tubi and Pluto. Instead, the company is aiming to turn its app into a kind of one-stop-shop for digital media, capable of serving up anything you might want. To that end, Plex has plans to begin reselling video subscription services via its app, and add transactional VOD, in the first half of 2020.

"You shouldn't have to go to a lot of different apps to get the content you care about," said Plex CEO Keith Valory in a recent conversation with Variety. "This is going to be the one place for the media that matters most to you," added the company's vice president of marketing Scott Hancock. Plex executives know that they will never be able to offer access to everything you might want to watch -- Netflix originals in particular will likely not be available any time soon. However, they are confident that they'll be able to serve up much of the rest, including movies, TV shows, podcasts, news and webisodes. "75-85% of the content you care about, you'll get in one beautiful app," Valory said.

A federal grand jury yesterday indicted eight people who allegedly ran two pirate streaming services that "offered more television programs and movies than legitimate streaming services such as Netflix, Hulu, Vudu, and Amazon Prime Video," the Department of Justice said. From a report: Jetflicks, which operated from 2007 to 2017, obtained its video from torrent sites and Usenet sites "using automated programs and databases such as SickRage, Sick Beard, SABnzbd, and TheTVDB," the indictment said. Jetflicks made "those episodes available on servers in the United States and Canada to Jetflicks subscribers for streaming and/or downloading," the indictment said. Torrent sites that Jetflicks operators relied on allegedly included the Pirate Bay, RARBG, and Torrentz.

With this method, defendants often "provid[ed] episodes to subscribers the day after the shows originally aired on television," a DOJ announcement yesterday said. Jetflicks charged subscription fees as low as $9.99 per month, letting subscribers "watch an unlimited number of commercial-free television programs," the indictment said. The service claimed to have more than 37,000 subscribers.

One of the eight defendants, 36-year-old Darryl Julius Polo, left Jetflicks to create another site called iStreamItAll, which was still online today. iStreamItAll likely won't stay online long, though, as the indictment said the site's domain names are subject to forfeiture. The Jetflicks domain names were also subject to forfeiture orders, and the website is offline. Jetflicks "claimed to have more than 183,200 different television episodes," while iStreamItAll "at one point claimed to have 115,849 different television episodes and 10,511 individual movies," the DOJ said. iStreamItAll "publicly asserted that it had more content than Netflix, Hulu, Vudu and Amazon Prime," the DOJ said. (Netflix offered 4,010 movies and 1,569 TV shows as of 2018, according to Netflix search engine Fixable.)

SpaceX launched its sub-scale Starship 'hopper' spacecraft on a brief unpiloted up-and-down test flight at the company's Boca Chica, Texas, test facility Tuesday, a dramatic demonstration of rocket technology intended to pave the way to a new, more powerful heavy lift booster and, eventually, crew-carrying interplanetary spacecraft. Spaceflight Now reports: Running a day late because of a last-second technical glitch, the squat Starhopper's powerful methane-fueled Raptor engine thundered to life at 6:02 p.m. EDT, pushing the stubby test vehicle straight up into a clear blue sky atop a jet of flame and a churning cloud of exhaust. The spacecraft, shaped a bit like R2-D2 from the "Star Wars" movies, appeared to reach its FAA-approved 492-foot (150 meter) altitude limit, moved sideways and slowly descended to touchdown on a nearby landing pad. The approximately one-minute flight was the rocket's second "untethered" test following a July jump to an altitude of about 65 feet.

The hardware SpaceX is testing is intended for a fully reusable two-stage vehicle featuring a powerful first stage, dubbed the Super Heavy Rocket, and the winged Starship. The hopper is a sub-scale version of the Starship's propulsion system, the first to utilize a SpaceX-designed Raptor engine burning cryogenic methane with liquid oxygen. SpaceX says the new booster-Starship system eventually will replace the company's Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets as well as the Cargo and Crew Dragon capsules used to deliver supplies and, eventually, astronauts to the International Space Station. In other SpaceX news, the company's Dragon supply ship successfully departed the ISS and returned to Earth Tuesday to conclude its third round-trip flight to the orbiting research outpost, bringing home a spacesuit, mice and numerous experiments.

Netflix has shipped a total of 5 billion DVDs to its customers since first sending out those iconic red envelopes 21 years ago. The milestone was announced by DVD.com, the Netflix subsidiary that is now responsible for the company's physical disc subscriptions. From a report: Netflix began running a DVD-by-mail subscription service in April of 1998, and shipped its first billion DVDs by early 2007. The company launched its video streaming service soon after, offering it initially as an added bonus to DVD subscribers. Four years later, Netflix proceeded split its DVD and internet subscription services into 2 separate subscription plans and businesses. Since then, the user base of the company's DVD subscription service has steadily declined, from 14 million subscribers in 2011 to just 2.4 million subscribers at the end of the most recent fiscal quarter. The company ended that same quarter with more than 151 million paying streaming subscribers worldwide.

What's one movie that is lesser-known or underappreciated that you really enjoyed -- or found insightful? Last time we asked this question, it was 2003!

Filmmakers, Hollywood Studios, consumer electronics companies and the UHD Alliance have collaborated to make this next-level home theater viewing experience possible. By disabling all post-processing (e.g. motion smoothing, etc.) and preserving the correct aspect ratios, colors and frame rates, Filmmaker Mode enables your TV to display the movie or television show's content precisely as it was intended by the filmmaker. Launch partners include LG, Panasonic, and VIzio. From a press release: "When Paul Thomas Anderson, Ryan Coogler, Patty Jenkins, Martin Scorsese, and Christopher Nolan reached out to the UHDA about extending the cinematic experience into the living room, we were eager and ideally situated to engage in the conversation," said UHD Alliance Chairman, Michael Zink of Warner Bros. "The Ultra HD TVs from supporting CE members are capable of delivering a range of viewing options and the addition of Filmmaker Mode for cinematic content, which is based on input from a broad range of preeminent filmmakers, provides a way for consumers to better experience the filmmaker's vision."

Current TVs use advanced video processing capabilities to offer consumers a broad range of options in viewing various types of content, ranging from sports to video games. Filmmaker Mode will allow viewers to enjoy a more cinematic experience on their UHD TVs when watching movies by disabling all post-processing (e.g. motion smoothing, etc.) so the movie or television show is displayed as it was intended by the filmmaker, preserving the correct aspect ratios, colors and frame rates. "The thing that sets Filmmaker Mode apart is it will be a pure, clean expression of what the movie was meant to look like when it was made," said Rian Johnson, director of Star Wars: The Last Jedi and the soon to be released, Knives Out.

DevNull127 writes: The 77th World Science Fiction Convention announced the winners of the 2019 Hugo Awards at a ceremony Sunday night.

Here's some of the highlights. At least two of these stories can be read (for free) online:

BEST NOVELETTE: "If at First You Don't Succeed, Try, Try Again," by Zen Cho. The entire text is availabe online in the B&N Sci-Fi and Fantasy Blog, where it was published in November of 2018.

BEST SHORT STORY: "A Witch's Guide to Escape: A Practical Compendium of Portal Fantasies," by Alix E. Harrow. The complete text is available online, published in Apex Magazine in February 2018.

BEST NOVEL: The Calculating Stars, which presents an alternate history in which a meteor "decimates the U.S. government and paves the way for a climate cataclysm that will eventually render the earth inhospitable to humanity. This looming threat calls for a radically accelerated timeline in the earth's efforts to colonize space..."

BEST NOVELLA: Artificial Condition: The Murderbot Diaries #2. ("it has only vague memories of the massacre that spawned that title, and it wants to know more...")

BEST DRAMATIC PRESENTATION, LONG FORM: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.
The Daily Dot reports that there was also one very unusual winner: Archive of Our Own (AO3), the fan-run, nonprofit website that's home to more than 5 million transformative works like fanfiction, fanart, and podfics, won one of science fiction's most prestigious awards at Worldcon Sunday night.

The website (which is part of the Organization of Transformative Works) won the Hugo for best related works, a widespread category that sometimes encompasses making-of books, pieces of criticism, and biographies. Fellow nominees included a book on Ursula K. Le Guin's writing, a Hugo Award retrospective, a website that campaigned to sponsor Worldcon memberships for Mexican creators, and Lindsay Ellis' video series on The Hobbit...

The very existence of AO3's nomination was a way of legitimizing fanfiction as a form of expression. But its win validates it even further, particularly in the science-fiction and fantasy community...

Netflix is testing an all-new recommendation system called "Collections" that relies on humans instead of neural networks. TechCrunch reports: While Netflix today already offers thematic suggestions of things to watch, based on your Netflix viewing history, Collections aren't only based on themes. According to Netflix, the titles are curated by experts on the company's creative teams, and are organized into these collections based on similar factors -- like genre, tone, story line and character traits.

This human-led curation is different from how Netflix typically makes its recommendations. The streaming service is famous for its advanced categorization system, where there are hundreds of niche categories that go beyond broad groupings like "Action," "Drama," "Sci-Fi," "Romance" and the like. These narrower subcategories allow the streamer to make more specific and targeted recommendations. Netflix also tracks titles that are popular and trending across its service, so you can check in on what everyone else is watching, as well. The feature is currently in testing on iOS devices and can be found at the top right of the app's homepage, if you've been opted in to the test.

An anonymous Slashdot reader shares an opinion piece from The New York Times, written by Matthew Ball, former head of strategic planning for Amazon Studios. Here's an excerpt: The next 12 months will see several video services come to market, including Disney+, AT&T/WarnerMedia's HBO Max, Comcast/NBCUniversal's unnamed service, Apple TV+ and Quibi from the Hollywood executive Jeffrey Katzenberg. This increased competition will offer audiences even more high-quality series, the sorts of films that can no longer be found in theaters, interactive storytelling they've never seen before, and further improvements in navigation and advertising. Yet in this new multiplatform world, viewers will find they have to pay for a fistful of streaming subscriptions to watch all of their favorite programs -- and in the process, they'll again end up paying for lots of shows and movies they'll never care to watch. AT&T's WarnerMedia, for example, is bundling its TV channels, like TBS, HBO and TruTV, and film studios, including Warner Bros., DC Films and New Line, into its HBO Max service. Disney+ will have Marvel, Pixar and Lucasfilm, but also National Geographic, "The Simpsons" and Disney's offerings for children. And to navigate these many subscriptions, most households will want companies like Amazon or Apple to further bundle these services together into a single app -- just as they do with Dish or Xfinity. All of this bundling will eventually mean the return of a high monthly bill. Behind this bill is the cost of making high-quality programming. Although much has been said about how Netflix and Amazon have disrupted the video business, no media company has figured out how to make premium movies or TV shows significantly more cheaply. In fact, competition has driven production budgets even higher. Ultimately, these costs are paid by viewers (especially if they choose to watch without ads).

But the rise of digital video is bringing back more than just bloated bundles and bills. Many companies are returning to TV's original business model: selling you anything and everything but the television show in front of you. For decades, all TV content was "free." Networks like ABC and CBS distributed their shows free of charge because they weren't really in the business of selling audiences 30 minutes of entertainment. Instead, they were selling advertisers eight or so minutes of the audience's attention. While most digital video services do charge their viewers, their real objective is to lock audiences into their ever-expanding ecosystem. Their TV network is the ad. Amazon, Apple and Roku, for example, use their networks to drive sales of their devices, software, services and other products. For YouTube and Facebook, original movies and shows are about increasing the number of ads they serve and the prices they charge for these ads. "Even as the video industry reconstitutes with new players -- under old business models and familiar problems -- most people agree that TV has never been better," Ball writes in closing. "Consumers have more options, better shows and more diversity than ever before."

"But at the same time, weâ(TM)re entering a world in which our culture is programmed by vertically integrated trillion-dollar corporations," he adds. "This may help us escape high prices and ads in the short term, but eventually the bill will come due."

New submitter sizzlinkitty writes: Movie ticket subscription service MoviePass has exposed tens of thousands of customer card numbers and personal credit cards because a critical server was not protected with a password. Mossab Hussein, a security researcher at Dubai-based cybersecurity firm SpiderSilk, found an exposed database on one of the company's many subdomains. The database was massive, containing 161 million records at the time of writing and growing in real time. Many of the records were normal computer-generated logging messages used to ensure the running of the service -- but many also included sensitive user information, such as MoviePass customer card numbers. These MoviePass customer cards are like normal debit cards: they're issued by Mastercard and store a cash balance, which users who sign up to the subscription service can use to pay to watch a catalog of movies.

Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige has pulled out of producing future Spider-Man movies. From a report: The news was first reported by Deadline and later confirmed by Sony Pictures. According to Deadline's reporting, the break is due to disputes between Sony -- which still holds the rights to the character -- and Marvel's parent company Disney over revenue sharing from films starring the web-slinging hero. The news means that Spider-Man's appearances in Disney's Marvel Cinematic Universe films -- as well as crossovers from characters like Robert Downey Jr.'s Iron Man or Samuel L. Jackson's Nick Fury in future Spider-Man films -- could end with Spider-Man: Far From Home, released earlier this summer.

Lana Wachowski is set to write and direct a fourth film set in the world of "The Matrix," with Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Anne Moss reprising their roles as Neo and Trinity, respectively. Variety reports: Warner Bros. Pictures and Village Roadshow Pictures will produce and globally distribute the film. In addition to Wachowski, the script was also written by Aleksandar Hemon and David Mitchell. Wachowski is also producing with Grant Hill. Sources say the film is eyed to begin production at the top of 2020. Warner Bros. has been trying for the last of couple years to find a way to get back into "The Matrix" universe, but a hold-up over producing rights slowed the project down. Over the past couple of months, the studio saw an opportunity to ramp up development, with Reeves boasting a strong summer that included box office hits "John Wick 3"; and "Toy Story 4" and a script from Wachowski that drummed up excitement. Plot details are currently unknown, as is how the role of Morpheus will be handled, originally played by Laurence Fishburne. Some sources say the role may be recast for a younger take. Further reading: Was 'The Matrix' Part of Cinema's Last Gear Year?

Last November, YouTube announced that it would be removing the paywall for its original programming starting in 2019. Now, we have more details on exactly how and when this will work. Android Central reports: Per a statement sent out by the YouTube team: "New YouTube Originals series, movies, and live events released after September 24, 2019 will be made available to non-members to watch for free, with ads. For series, members will get immediate access to every episode of a new season, while non-members will have to wait for each new episode to be released."

It appears that YouTube Originals content released prior to that September 24 date will remain exclusive to Premium subscribers, but going forward, it'll be fair game for everyone. While that does slightly water-down the perks of being a YouTube Premium subscriber, it's also noted that paying customers will gain access to additional footage that won't be available for free users: "In most cases, where available, Director's cuts and bonus footage for YouTube Originals movies and live events will be exclusive to members like you, as well."

Disney and Charter Communications are teaming up to fight account sharing in an attempt to prevent multiple people from using a single account to access streaming video services. Ars Technica reports: The battle against account sharing was announced as Disney and the nation's second-biggest cable company struck a new distribution agreement involving Disney's Hulu, ESPN+, and the forthcoming Disney+. Customers could still buy those online services directly from Disney, but the new deal would also let them make those purchases through Charter's Spectrum TV service. If you buy a Disney service through Charter, be aware that the companies will work together to prevent you from sharing a login with friends. Disney and Charter said in their announcement yesterday that they have "agreed to work together on piracy mitigation. The two companies will work together to implement business rules and techniques to address such issues as unauthorized access and password sharing."

The crackdown could target people who use Charter TV account logins to sign into Disney services online. Charter CEO Tom Rutledge has complained about account sharing several times over the past few years while criticizing TV networks for not fully locking down their content. "There's lots of extra streams, there's lots of extra passwords, there's lots of people who could get free service," Rutledge said at an industry conference in 2017. He argues that password sharing has helped people avoid buying cable TV. ESPN has also complained about account sharing, calling it piracy. Another possibility is that Charter could monitor usage of its broadband network to help Disney fight account sharing. For example, Disney could track the IP addresses of users signing in to its services, and Charter could match those IP addresses to those of its broadband customers.

An anonymous reader shares a report: James Wright had never worried about staying under his data cap. Then he bought a 4K TV set and started binge-watching Netflix in ultra-high definition. The picture quality was impressive, but it gobbled up so much bandwidth that his internet service provider, Comcast, warned that he had exceeded his monthly data limit and would need to pay more. "The first month I blew through the cap like it was nothing," said Wright, 50, who lives with his wife in Memphis, Tenn. With a 4K TV, he said, "It's not as hard to go through as you'd think." All that bingeing and ultra-HD video can carry a high price tag. As online viewing grows, more subscribers are having to pay up for faster speeds. Even then, they can run into data limits and overage fees. Some opt for an unlimited plan that can double the average $52-a-month internet bill.

Wright is what the cable industry calls a power user -- someone who chews through 1 terabyte of data or more each month. Though still rare, the number of power users has doubled in the past year as more families stream TV shows, movies and video games online. They should continue to grow as new video services from Disney, AT&T, Apple and NBCUniversal arrive in coming months. In the first quarter of this year, about 4% of internet subscribers consumed at least 1 terabyte of data -- the limit imposed by companies such as Comcast, AT&T and Cox. That's up from 2% a year ago, according to OpenVault, which tracks internet data usage among cable subscribers in the United States and Europe. "The percentage of subscribers exceeding this level will continue to grow rapidly," OpenVault founder Mark Trudeau said.

An anonymous reader shares a report: The stodgiest of business documents is in the midst of its most extreme makeover yet -- whether employers want it or not [Editor's note: the link may be paywalled]. Gone are the utilitarian, black-and-white documents covered in bullet points. As Gen Z enters the workforce, companies are seeing digital CVs filled with artistic flourishes, including illustrations of college mascots, logos of past employers and icons to denote hobbies such as home renovation and watching movies. Job seekers have been striving for years to make their resumes stand out from the pile. While earlier generations played with eye-catching print fonts and horizontal lines, today's tech-savvy young people have a new arsenal of tricks. Many throw in headshots. Some add bitmojis, the personalized avatars used in text messages and on social media.

Carolyn Giardina from The Hollywood Reporter writes about the growing influence Netflix has from hardware and software development to industry display standards. For example, as recently as six months ago, Netflix forbid Hollywood cinematographers from using a highly-popular camera because the standard model employed a 3.2K resolution sensor instead of a 4K sensor required for the streamer's original programming.

Netflix also pressured TV manufacturers like Sony and Panasonic to feature a "Netflix calibrated mode" and "Netflix Recommended TV" logo in their consumer TVs. From the report: To make sure its content is being produced how it wants, the streamer in September launched a Netflix Post Technology Alliance with MTI, Adobe, Sony and others. It shares its roadmap with these companies, and if these firms develop tools -- from cameras to editing systems -- that meet its requirements, they are permitted to use the "Netflix Post Technology Alliance" logo. The logo has been visible in the past year at industry trade shows -- a literal sign of growing influence. Netflix also is involved in industry standardization and development efforts. For instance, it recently joined the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Academy Software Foundation, a forum for open source software developers.

While Netflix is involved in collaborations, the company also maintains robust engineering efforts in-house -- beyond the teams working on its secret distribution algorithms. It is pioneering new interactive content, such as Bandersnatch, which was made incorporating Branch Manager, a software system developed in-house. Other homegrown advances include Netflix's scheduling software and its work to bring more automation to audio dubbing through artificial intelligence. There's likely much more in the works that Netflix does not share with the public. But one thing is certain: The company is having a penetrating impact not only on which content is made and how it is distributed and consumed, but also on the very tech that creates it.

Slashdot reader pgmrdlm quotes Bloomberg: Pornography producers and sellers account for the lion's share of copyright-infringement lawsuits in the U.S. -- and judges may have seen enough. The courts are cracking down on porn vendors that file thousands of lawsuits against people for downloading and trading racy films on home computers, using tactics a judge called a "high tech shakedown." [Alternate link here.] In one case, two men were jailed in a scheme that netted $6 million in settlements.

The pornography companies have "a business model that seeks to profit from litigation and threats of litigation rather than profiting from creative works," said Mitch Stoltz, a senior attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco group that has waged a campaign against companies it thinks abuse the copyright system.

Two companies that make and sell porn are responsible for almost half of the 3,404 copyright lawsuits filed in the U.S. in the first seven months of this year, according to an analysis by Bloomberg Law's Tommy Shen... The companies say they are protecting their movies from piracy and infringement under U.S. copyright law, as major movie studios have done for decades, and suggest that the content of their films is the reason for the wrath of the judges. But some of the tactics used in their infringement suits to identify targets and force settlements have critics -- and some jurists -- up in arms and may require congressional actions to fix.

The suits don't initially name names. They identify the Internet Protocol addresses using peer-to-peer networks like BitTorrent to download or distribute the movies and then file suits against âoeJohn Doesâ and ask the courts to order internet service providers, like Verizon Communications Inc. or Comcast Corp., to identify the account subscribers. Those people are then contacted by the porn company lawyers.
One lawyer notes that the lawsuits target users in wealthier areas, reports Bloomberg, which adds that in December one district judge even refused to grant the request for identities, ruling that the porn company "treats this court not as a citadel of justice, but as an ATM."

And last month a federal judge cited that ruling when refusing to enter a judgment in another case.

In 2014 Esquire argued that great movies like The Matrix "predicted a revolution in film that never happened," adding "We are in many ways worse off now than we were 15 years ago as a culture. We seem to have run out of original ideas."

This week two film critics debated whether 1999 was in fact cinema's last great year. Slashdot reader dryriver writes: Notable films of 1999 are Fight Club, Magnolia, The Matrix, Eyes Wide Shut, Three Kings, The Sixth Sense, EXistenZ, Being John Malkovich, Man On The Moon, American Beauty, The Talented Mr. Ripley, Office Space, Boys Don't Cry, Election, Rushmore, Buena Vista Social Club, The Virgin Suicides, Sleepy Hollow, The Insider, Girl Interrupted, The Iron Giant and Toy Story 2.

According to Nicholas Barber, 1999 also was the beginning of the end for quality cinema:

"The release of Star Wars: Episode I: The Phantom Menace proved that long-dormant series could be lucratively revived. Toy Story 2, the first ever Pixar sequel, proved that cartoon follow-ups needn't be straight-to-video cheapies, but major, money-spinning phenomena. The Matrix proved that digitally-enhanced superhero action could attract audiences of all ages. And The Blair Witch Project proved that found-footage horror in particular, and microbudget horror in general, could be a gold mine. As wonderful as those films may have been -- The Phantom Menace excepted, obviously -- they taught Hollywood some toxic lessons. Instead of continuing to bet on young mavericks, studio executives twigged that there was a fortune to be made from superhero blockbusters, Disney sequels, merchandise-friendly franchises and cheapo horror movies. And that's what we get in 2019, week after week."
He also writes that the boom in DVDs in 1999 had "encouraged studios to fund offbeat projects," ultimately concluding 1999 was "the year when everything began to go wrong." He argues that today it's a different technology driving innovation. "In the 21st Century, streaming platforms have made the small screen the home of fresh ideas, as well as for conversation-starting communal cultural experiences."

But film critic Hannah Woodhead counters with a line from the 1999 film Magnolia: "We may be through with the past, but the past ain't through with us."

"Nostalgia is often the enemy of progress when it comes to pop culture. We have a tendency to look back fondly on what came before, ironing out the flaws in our memory until the past is something that seems truly great, and even aspirational."