I keep a loop of BBC’s Top Gear in my office, seasons 2 through 22 (fans will understand). After that, The Grand Tour on A. Prime.
I rotate between those and MST3K, depending on how much time I have before bed.
In between, I also watch YouTube videos I’ve saved during the day when I can’t watch (work, Dr.’s office, etc.).
I agree. I watch more tubi than I do hulu, netflix, or prime and it’s the only free one. They do got some great movies, stand up specials, and series from the 80’s, 90’s, and 2000’s that are hard to find like MXC or the entire George Carlin line up(except his first special for some reason, no 7 dirty words but his revision of the 6 dirty words and how it all falls apart if you remove mother fudger due it being a derivative of the word fudge which is already on the list).
Long story short. Big fan of Tubi, but never would of gave at a chance if it didn’t have such a great selection of free and legal MST3K and Rifftrax.
The only current TV show I’m watching at the moment is Reservation Dogs, which is absolutely brilliant.
What We Do in the Shadows comes back next week, followed shortly by the new season of Doom Patrol, so we just got through rewatching the first two seasons of both of those in preparation.
Otherwise, we fill out most of the rest of our nightly viewing with classic episodes of MST3K, select Rifftrax that look interesting (we generally avoid the modern Birdemic/Rollergator type stuff) and lots of old British TV series from the 50’s through 90’s.
Since my wife and I both love a good old historical swashbuckling adventure, and were already fans of the Guy Williams version of Zorro, the Marius Goring version of The Scarlet Pimpernel, and the Richard Greene version of Robin Hood, I made it my mission during the pandemic to track down and watch every single deep catalog version of Zorro/Robin Hood/The Scarlet Pimpernel/Three Musketeers/Count of Monte Cristo/Black Arrow/King Arthur/Man in the Iron Mask/Dick Turpin/Dr. Syn etc. type character from the 40’s through the 70’s.
I’ve made some pretty interesting discoveries along the way, ranging from the good, like the Jeremy Brett/Brian Blessed version of The Three Musketeers…
The weird… like The Legend of Robin Hood, which starts Paul Darrow (AKA Avon from Blake’s Seven) as the sheriff of Nottingham, and David Dixon (AKA Ford Prefect from Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy) as Prince John.
and the WTF, like the 1972 version of Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Black Arrow, who unlike the Disney version, is by far the worst and most ineffective “swashbuckler” in popular culture. This particular version stuck very close to the original serialized novel… which means that Black Arrow does sweet FA for 90% of the story and just randomly rides in on horseback occasionally to shoot a black arrow with a small poem attached to it in the general vicinity of a bad guy, which warns them that Black Arrow intends to shoot him… later. Whenever he gets around to it. Quite frankly, Black Arrow is a busy guy and has plenty of other stuff to do. Far too busy to prevent several murders, a kidnapping, help with the siege on the moat house, or do anything else even remotely helpful to move the story forward. It’s like if Robin Hood showed up occasionally in the middle of a battle to tell Friar Tuck and Little John “you got this” and then disappear off into the woods, without firing a single shot. His identity is never revealed, and frankly, nobody really gives a s***. Even his theme tune can’t be bothered to work up any excitement about Black Arrow.
Somewhat surprisingly, they made three seasons of this show. The later two seasons had next to nothing to do with the original novel, (including making the secret identity of Black Arrow a character who was on screen with the original Black Arrow in the first season) and were slightly better for it, but were still pretty stupid and half-assed in their own right. It took us almost 6 months to make it through all 20 episodes, but we finally got through watching the last couple last night. (The clip above is from the 3rd Season, and is basically the most heroic you ever see Black Arrow, which is still pretty ineffective and boring.)
Food Party
Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law
Right now I’m watching Downton Abbey cuz I’m a classic white girl obsessed with British period dramas. AND I’m rewatching Frasier cuz my tastes never truly exited the 90s/early 00s 
Tubi is absolutely kosher. They have an agreement with Shout! Factory and even have an official Shout! Factory channel.
I recently treated myself the the DVD complete Mission: Impossible (TV) set.
I also just discovered that Pluto TV now has a dedicated Gunsmoke channel, so I’m enjoying a bunch of vintage TV.
Also watched B&MJ’s most recent Mary Higgins Clark movie, and it’s a hoot.
Not that anyone asked but that’s one of the show folders I used to be a SwimHelper for @ the now debunked [adultswim] message boards and still one of my all time favorite adult oriented cartoons.
If I may greet you in the language of your native peoples: “Pumpkin spice season is almost upon us!”
Funny, I was just talking about Donna Martell of Project Moonbase fame, and here she shows up in this Randolph Scott western, Ten Wanted Men. It’s not to the level of the greats from the decade (The Searchers, Shane, the Anthony Mann releases, etc), but it’s a good watch. I enjoyed it.
On YouTube
Ten Wanted Men Western 1955 Randolph Scott Jocelyn Brando Richard Boone - YouTube
Tubi is useful if you have to have background for sleep. I usually have an MST3K episode on when I go to sleep, but I used to keep them on all night, and since Tubi would just keep playing episodes back to back it was great for the really really long nights. Unlike, say, YouTube, the ads are not really much louder than the show. I’m not sure if you can skip them, but there aren’t really that many ad breaks, and they are short. There isn’t much variety in ads, but I find that the repetition makes the ads easier to ignore.
One really esoteric problem: if you go on long enough the show selection algorithm will suddenly lurch your binge stream into a completely different genre, often only tangentially linked to an episode or a Rifftrax or Cinematic Titanic that it played recently. I’ve been stuck with 1950s Mexican popular films, Spanish Language dubs of 1960s mid-grade Hollywood, and a disturbing number of off-brand superhero series from the WB or the CW or the BFD. Once it does this badly enough I have to do it by hand until the algorithm catches on. I’ve enquired, and after being ignored by the help folks for a quite a while I was told that there is nothing that can be done.
But heck, it’s free(ish). If you are going to sit down and actively watch (like probably 99.99% of all users), that is totally not an issue, and you can’t quite beat Tubi. I have used Pluto too, but there are more ads, the ads are longer, and of course it is scheduled. However, if you are watching because you are feeling lonely and you want to feel like there is someone out there just like you, not much beats scheduled programming. It’s like an involuntary watch party.
Or you can download a strong ad blocker and go to club-mst3k and use YouTube (the Shout Factory Channel is indeed lovely!) and other video services to binge MST3K in peace, or you can watch some of the many Rifftrax free on Amazon Prime. About the only things you can’t ever get without paying directly are the Netflix MST3K seasons and the very latest or the most disavowed Rifftrax.
To be clear, I advocate plunking down money whenever you have it. I own a lot of RiffTrax that I could watch for free. I figure I have gotten hundreds of hours of entertainment from them, if I have an entertainment budget, they deserve some of it.
With Ed Asners passing, I wanted to watch something he was in. I’m about half way through it and it’s a dry movie, very talky. Richard Basehart is in it, so that would make Gypsy happy
Right now I’m watching my Boston Red Sox play the worst baseball I’ve ever seen against the Rays. It’s embarrassing how badly they’re playing.
Like @JakeGittes, I just watched Before I Say Goodbye, the new Bridget & Mary Jo release. Was genuinely shocked to see the film was made in the 2000s, it has the video work and soundtracking of a movie from at least a decade earlier.
I love how the actress at the beginning is so incapable of emoting that she has to narrate her condition - “I’m scared”, “I’m in pain now”. 
Before I see Shang-Chi this weekend, I want to watch and appreciate some of Tony Leung’s filmography to the extent that I as an American can do so. I took Infernal Affairs out of the library last week (that’s what got remade as The Departed) and I’m in the middle of The Grandmaster on Netflix. It’s a Wong Kar Wai film and Leung plays Ip Man. Same guy Donnie Yen plays in those other movies but it’s not those other movies.
I liked Grandmaster. It’s interesting to see the Chinese treat their own legendaria seriously and not just chop-socky entertainment (though a lot of those are brilliant in their own ways).
I liked Ip Man 4, too, though it’s very much re-casting the story as if it were a '70s chop-socky. I think I saw one of the earlier Ip Man movies but not sure.
Those are great, and both have awesome soundtracks! I watched those too back when adult swim started up, and prior to that never knew much about or had access to anime.
That was like 20 years ago, wow. So that would make Sealab 2021 happening in the present day. Gotta find me some BeBop Cola!
“And I say to myself, I need exact chaaaannge”
