【Laruan】

Broadcast television paywalls: The Laruanfinal frontier. This is my three-day mission, to seek out new entertainment and payment options and to boldly do what I have never done before.

You laugh, but this is the Khann!!!-level angst I’ve been going through, trying to justify paying $6 a month just so I can watch Star Trek: Discoveryon the new streaming service CBS All Access.

As a life-long Star Trek fan, I’ve been anxiously awaiting the oft-delayed broadcast premier of the first new Star Trek series in a dozen years. I cleared my Sunday night schedule, waiting through an NFL overtime and Oprah Winfrey’s 60 Minutesdebut just so I could feel the wonder again. If you’ve never watched Star Trek in any form, you might not understand.

Through nearly half-a-dozen series and more than a dozen films, Star Trek has consistently tapped into the child-like wonder of space and its infinite possibilities. Star Trek is a franchise about hope, humanity, and the future.

How could I not watch this prequel?

Star Trek: Discovery’spremiere episode did press most of the series' buttons, with a few new twists and maybe just a little bit too much self-seriousness. I’ve read many reviews that promise more intensity, scene chewing, and, occasionally, a somewhat lighter tone.

A new enterprise

This premiere, though, had to do something few, if any broadcast series (other than The Good Wifespin-off, The Good Fight) have done before: entice viewers to continue watching on a behind-the-paywall streaming service by airing just one free episode on broadcast TV.

I remember watching the first episode of NBC’s This is Uslast year. To be honest, I didn’t want to watch the show. I hated the maudlin, cloying promos that insisted we would feel something. No show could be that good or make me feel that way. Then I watched Episode 1, had that OMG moment of realization in the last five minutes, and I was hooked. My wife and I tuned in ever week thereafter.

Of course, it was easy to do so with This is Us. It's not behind a paywall -- at least not yet.

With Star Trek: Discovery, I’m hooked, which makes deciding whether to pay $5.99 a month (or $9.99 for commercial-free content – they must be joking) just so I can see this one weekly show, of which there might only be 15 episodes this year and nothing until 2019, more difficult.

I never envisioned myself cutting the cable cord or joining the a la carte TV world. I’m not one of those people who signed up for HBO when the new season of The Sopranoscame along and cancelled in between. That was too much work. I have HBO and Showtime and watch a handful of shows on them like Ray Donovan,Game of Thrones, and The Deuce. I’ve also used the subscriptions to binge past episodes (via cable video-on-demand or the companion apps on Apple TV) so I could catch up on series that I came to late (I’m still 5 seasons behind on Shameless).

I don’t pay for broadcast channels directly for TV and wasn’t planning on starting. I don’t have time to catch The CW’s The Flashduring the regular season, so I wait until the season is over to binge on Netflix. We don’t pay for Hulu, so I can’t catch up on, for instance, NBC series. This is all fine with me.

Warp Factor Pay to View

Now, however, I’m seeing the once simple experience of watching broadcast TV is now being fracturing in the same way as cable and the various streaming services (Netflix, Amazon) over the last few years. Even the broadcast network content that eventually makes its way to Netflix is being peeled off for branded services. Disney will eventually, I’m certain, pull all ABC shows off Netflix for its own pay service and who knows how long NBC will stick with Hulu.

To watch what I want to watch, when I want to watch it, I must join more and more services, which brings me back to CBS All Access.

I want to see more of Star Trek: Discovery, and I can see that the writing and production values are a level above what you might get on broadcast TV. It’s supposed to look and feel more like episodic movies and I think the producers get close.

Still, am I ready to pay almost $72 a year to watch one incredibly well-produced show? Aside from CBS Sunday Morning, I don’t watch anything else on the network. We used to watch Madam Secretaryand then fell behind and didn’t want to pay for… oh, right.

Beyond my own personal quest, the CBS All Access Star Trek: Discoveryexperiment could be a tipping point in what has been a slow pivot to an à la carte, cable bundle-free TV-watching world. If CBS successfully attracts a big enough audience to not only offset production costs, but also make a profit, it will ensure a second season of Star Trek: Discoveryand provide a blueprint for future CBS event shows and get the attention of all the other networks. Soon, other broadcasters will premiere fresh shows on “free” broadcast and then shift them behind their pays walls. Eventually, the only stuff we’ll be able to watch for free will be news, home-shopping shows, and infomericals.

I get that this is the future of TV, but is it my near-term future? I’ve spent the past few days pondering this and now, as this mission ends, I know it’s time to stop and exploring and make a choice.

Postscript from the Star Trek fan inner child:Are you kidding me?! Of course, I’m going to pay to find out what happens to Michel Burnham, Captain Georgiou, and the Klingon warriors. This is Grade A+ Star Trek intrigue, drama and overall Trekiness. Please don’t tell the doofus above that I already paid for my CBS All Access subscription.