Who Was Asking For Netflix To Have a Linear Channel Feature

When I saw the headline “Netflix is finally testing the feature everyone has been demanding,” I assumed there was finally going to be a way that turned off the dialogue box that stopped your show and asked you if you were still watching Big Mouth. Yes, I’m still watching Big Mouth, you don’t have to shame me for it, I’m clearly already depressed or else I wouldn’t be watching 15 episodes of Big Mouth, would I?

Shockingly, this was not the feature Netflix is unrolling and instead, BGR seems to think that people want a linear, programmed network on Netflix so they can miss the first ten minutes of a movie and not be able to pause it to use the bathroom. Seriously, this is how they’re talking about the feature Netflix is calling Direct.

Not only is this a great way to avoid the stress of having to decide what to watch, but as Netflix puts it, “you can let yourself be carried away without having to choose a particular title and let yourself be surprised by the diversity of the Netflix catalog.”

If you’re stressed out about picking a TV show to play in the background while you go about your business, I feel like you have bigger problems in your life. How can you manage a trip to the grocery store? Just put on 30 Rock like the rest of the world.

Linear programming is the thing we all subscribed to Netflix to get away from. I understand decision paralysis is a thing but do you understand what we had to go through before Netflix existed? I have seen every episode of King of Queens more than once because we would just put the TV on TBS after school while we hung out and smoked pot. Man was not meant to live like that. Do you know how many times I’ve thought to myself “gee, I should watch an episode of King of Queens” since I got Netflix? The answer is zero because even though I will occasionally scrape the bottom of the barrel and watch Big Mouth, I have some standards.

The oddest thing, though, is that Direct will only be available on Netflix’s PC browser clients and not on TV apps. The computer has porn, Netflix! If you’re going to make a TV network, at least let people watch it on their TV. No one on God’s green Earth wants to sit down at their computer and watch an all-day marathon of Friends From College that starts and stops when you want it to.