Hulu

Hulu is a new website where fans of TV shows can get a variety of products for instant viewing online. Hulu is a legal site and features shows from major networks. Hulu has some good TV content, including full episodes of today's hit shows, but in general, it's usefulness doesn't live up to the hype. Hulu is not the new blockbuster catch-all site for finding your favorite old and new shows legally and quickly. Instead, Hulu is not really any more useful than other tv sites. You will probably still be watching your favorite shows on their network websites or downloading them by various either pay or other legal-or-illegal means.

I signed up for the beta, or trial run, of Hulu a few months ago. I was really looking forward to getting on board, because so many great shows were listed on the home page. There was Damages, the great new FX series; Psych and Monk, two of my favorites on USA, NBC's The Office was there. And hey, maybe I can finally get into Heroes. Wow, this would be a veritable TV online bonanza. I had great expectations. Almost all of these hopes were dashed.

Please note, I'm not complaining about Hulu to be a big over-privileged baby "Waa, I can't get every single thing I want on demand." My problem is with the fact hulu is presenting itself as "awesome" while it's really nothing new. They're suckering us into believing, through implication, that we're going to get our favorite, current, primetime series on demand, for free. And that simply isn't the case.

Here are some hulu complaints:

1. A lot of top shows are not on Hulu:
If you look at the top twenty shows on TV this season, they include shows like Dancing With The Stars, American Idol, Grey's Anatomy, CSI, Desperate Housewives, NCIS, Survivor (really?), 60 Minutes, Deal or No Deal, Lost (really?), Without A Trace, House, Samantha Who?, Oprah's new Big Give show, and some football.

Of these shows, how many are on Hulu? ....Lost, House, and Deal or No Deal. (There are some football-related shows, too)

All right, well, what about great cable shows? The Sopranos. Mad Men. Damages. The Wire. The Closer. Rescue Me. The Daily Show or Colbert? The Shield? The answer here is No. You can watch The Riches Season 1 and Nip/Tuck's current season, and Battlestar Galactica, somewhat...and the aforementioned Monk and Psych, again, to an extent.

So is this really the coolest destination for all your current favorites? Not so much.

2. A lot of the shows on Hulu are not "tops":
To be clear, I acknowledge Hulu has some good or popular current shows. I mentioned The Office. It's also got Friday Night Lights, 30 Rock, Bones, American Dad, Chuck, Prison Break, 24. A decent variety for sure....And there are other shows on Hulu from yester-year, in limited portions, which will be of interest to people according to taste. And I do acknowledge also that taste varies greatly, and some of the shows I'm looking for, another person might think are junk. Shows I think are junk, you might be looking for.

That being said, I'll still lodge the complaint that there's a lot of junk on Hulu. Most of it is reality stuff that we, as Americans, should all be wishing wasn't made to begin with, not stuff we're looking to re-view. I am not impressed by a site that rehashes embarassingly bad E! series or basic cable shows. If you took all those shows out of the "full episode" catalog, you'd make a serious dent in said catalog. Quantity does not equal a must-use site.

3. A lot of the top shows on hulu are only available as clips or limited to recent episodes:
This is self-explanatory. Hulu bills itself as TV anytime, anywhere, but, this is hardly a site offering you unlimited access to episodes of your favorite shows. Hulu put Psych on its banner for example, as I mentioned earlier. I was exctied. But as it turns out, there are maybe five full episodes and the rest of the content is clips. If you want to catch up on Heroes, if you want to watch Season 2 of The Office, or Season 3 of 24, you're limited to some clips because only the current seasons are carried and Hulu is fired-up about clips. Many of the old shows only contain the episodes of seasons currently available on DVD...which is another issue...

4. A lot of the stop shows on hulu are already available elsewhere
It's a sign of the times that the major networks already have their series online on their own sites. Sticking with NBC's Heroes and The Office, or Lost on ABC, for example, all of these shows are available on their networks' sites. So why is it a big deal to put them on Hulu? I can get them together? Well, I can go on ABC's site and get Lost plus Desperate Housewives, Ugly Betty and Grey's Anatomy. And I don't even watch those shows.

Older shows, as alluded to, seem to stick to the same episodes either available on DVD (like The Practice) or on other sites , either pay, like Amazon or Netflix, or via bootleg streaming, Do we really need another site with all the same stuff?

5.. At least some shows advertised as being on Hulu originally aren't anymore
Damages used to be on the Hulu front page. It's still located on the list of full episodes. But it's no longer on the site. And when it was, there were maybe three episodes of 13. What a let down. I haven't checked to see what other shows have also been thus advertised, but, I bet there are more. Damages seemed to disappear from Hulu right when the series came out on DVD. A connection? I wonder. Maybe it'll come back, or maybe it'll be on ice until season 2?

Anyhow , the bottom line is, DO use Hulu to get fresh episodes or clips of some current series, and to get clips of others. DO use Hulu to find some old shows you may have been searching for. Could be you find at least a few episodes.

But DO NOT think Hulu will grant you some new, all-access pass to many of today's best-liked or best-reviewed shows. DO NOT think Hulu will give you multiple seasons of shows or stuff you can't find anywhere else. Hulu is NOT the answer to having to pay for shows, download shows illegally or rent them on dvd or online. That day has yet to come . You can get something for nothing with Hulu, but you don't get as much more than is already available.