Streaming Video Power Rankings Week #83

1) Hulu: This one just seems to be trying more lately. It started a Huluween category, it continued the new Sarah Silverman show, and it continued to buy reruns, with Futurama the latest big add. I've been watching Gotham here, and I am looking forward to Too Funny to Fail, a new documentary about The Dana Carvey Show.

2) Pluto TV: Yes, in a huge upset, Pluto comes outta nowhere like an RKO and shoots up to the number two spot, not because of its live programming (which is slowly improving--and it's free!) but because it received a reported $8 million + in new funding this week. Let's hope they use it to get some more licensed content. Pluto is slowly becoming a player.

3) Shudder: I have never subscribed to this horror-on-demand SVOD, but I always try to give credit to outlets that acquire the old stuff, and Shudder is delivering in October, streaming a handful of the most iconic Universal pictures--Dracula, The Mummy, The Wolf Man, The Invisible Man, Frankenstein, and The Bride of Frankenstein.

4) Netflix: I am wary of Netflix's plan to debut 80 movies next year and to mak 50% of its catalog be Originals. Most of the movies will probably stink, and they will get to 50% by continuing to let existing library deals expire.

However, the new movie The Day I Met El Chapo has pissed off Sean Penn, so Netflix must be doing something right. There's also a new Smurfs movie, a new Stephen King flick (1922), and a movie called Wheelman (I really want to like a movie called "Wheelman"), but mainly pissing off Sean Penn is how Netflix earns its stripes this week.

5) Pub-D-Hub: The Batman serial is, as I remembered, a riot, and ain interesting little addition this past week as an episode of quasi-religious anthology show Crossroads with Brian Donlevy as a pastor turned judge.

6) The CW: I have to admit, now that the superheroes are back, I am spending a lot of my streaming time watching CW, but so far, I'm not inspired by the way they're going. Supergirl, you need to get over Mon-El. He wasn't that interesting.

7) YouTube: My kids just want to watch mindless YouTube videos when they are watching "TV." I kind of miss the days when they just wanted to watch mindless cartoon shows.

As for me, I was in the mood to watch the original 1940s Superman cartoons, and they are easy to find, being public domain, but YouTube is the place to find 10 different versions of them at once!

8) Amazon Prime: Red Oak is back, and I;m adding to my list of shows I want to bunch-a-shows-watch (remember, we try to avoid "binge" at this site) when I next get a month of Prime Video.

9) Warner Archive Instant: This week I enjoyed Pillow to Post, one of about 900 movies Hollywood made about WWII-era housing shortages. Ida Lupino was a lot of fun in a role that let her be funny and just generally less...intense.

10) TuneIn: One notable thing about Deep Oldies Radio is the high number of novelty songs it spins. Those are certainly forgotten oldies these days. I don't really need to hear The Detergents' "Leader of the Laundromat" again anytime this soon, but it was amusing the other day.