Plans For Tonight...Not Watching Real Salt Lake

 Normally, I'd be watching or streaming the Real Salt Lake Soccer game. It started just a few minutes ago. They're playing Austin FC right now as I type. 

I'm missing it.

By choice.

Since change is the only constant, change has come to Major League Soccer, or MLS for short, and MLS has gone through a programming change. It's now no longer free.

MLS is one of the few major sports leagues I still watch. Sure, soccer's not the most exciting of sports, and MLS is not one of the world's premier leagues, but they're local and I like to support them. And by "support" I mean, watch. This year, it's going to cost me...cost everyone. Apple has purchased the broadcast rights to every MLS match, including our local team.

If I were a numbers guy, I'd do the math. For only $80, I can watch every match including playoff games. That's hundred of games, meaning it would cost me literally pennies per game. I most likely would never watch all the games, but I suppose that's not the point. And that's a good price for all that sports entertainment. 

I passed on buying the entire season. We're a couple of weeks in so each week I turn down the offer, the more each game will cost, which will discourage me from pulling the trigger even more. Plus, the money can be used for something else, something we need (like food...), and all that time I'd spend watching the games could be utilized in a more productive fashion. 

I hope the change for MLS is a good one. I hope they make a lot of money and millions sign up. Who knows? I might miss it so much this season that I'll break down and pay for next year's games.

Until then, I guess I'll watch some XFL.

Apple TV's "Severance"...A Different Show

 We live in an interesting time, especially when it comes to entertainment. I believe in the future college courses will be taught on the history of entertainment between 2010 and 2020. The internet has allowed not only feature films to be pumped into our living rooms, but entire television series and limited series as well. Either paid (or pirated...) a person can access almost every scrap of content that's been made.

The other day we came across Apple TV's Severance. It is an unusual show. I'm not going to describe the show too much here--with a simple search you can learn all about it, other than to say the term "severance" has to do with a disconnect--literal--between a person's work life and home life. It's very stylistic and, in a word, slow...slow developing, slow moving, slow and methodical storytelling.

Actually, the uniqueness of the way it's written/filmed is a large part of its charm. It's different that way. But, after a few of the episodes, the pacing and storylines began to wear thin. I remember turning to my wife during the third or fourth episode and said, "I hope this show had a big payoff."

It needed it, too.

Of course, we didn't know how the first season would end. We hoped some of the questions would be answered, some of those loose ends be tied up. Needless to say, the end of Season One ended with a bigger payoff than what we expected.

At first, the show reminded me of another unusual show...Lost. I loved and at the same time hated that show. It created so many questions and only seemed to answer a few. I finally got tired of it. Now, because shows have morphed, evolved, Severance as a limited series works well. Yes, there were a lot of questions, but we didn't have to go through so many episodes to get to the payday. The show is modern, which means, lots of swearing and some violence, if you're wanting to check it out. I wonder how next season will go...