Grace and Frankie Seasons 1-2 Netflix
Forget senior living when watching Grace and Frankie. Sure they live on the beach, but this is just about as far from Golden Girls as you can get. A story of switcheroo, Grace and Frankie become live-in platonic girlfriends after their husbands of 40+ years become live-in lovers. Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda are opposites in this heart-warming sitcom style series. Lily (Frankie) is a tie-dye clothed artist with a flair for getting into jams, and Jane (Grace) is a starched shirt martini swilling perfectionist. Their relationship fosters change and understanding as they toil through finding romance, being valued and dealing with vices. The series also explores the challenges of coming out in your 70s as the husbands Sol (Sam Waterson) and Robert (Martin Sheen) discover. Hiding the romance 20 years sounds easy when now faced with challenges of homes, and children and friends. Season 1 episode one will have you wonder why it is recommended, but hang in there, character development takes time.
The Affair Season 1-2 Showtime
Seasonal vs Local. Set in Montauk New York, this story of an Affair between a married repressed writer and a waitress at the Lobster Roll is told from multiple perspectives. The hour-long episodes are usually broken up into two points of view (her story and his story). Backstories are sadder than you expect and ego plays a large role in how the characters evolve. Local family rivalries developed from decades of shady behavior get wrapped around the couple’s trysts and result in a murder mystery as well as a romance. Brilliant actors in this cast include Dominic West (Noah Solloway), Maura Tierney (Helen Solloway), Ruth Wilson (Alison Lockhart) and Joshua Jackson (Cole Lockhart).
Subscription Services
YouTube
You don’t have to subscribe to YouTube to watch it but you should to get the most out of the service. YouTube will learn what you like and continually serve up recommended videos on your home page. Part of the Google family, YouTube content includes music, tv clips, movie trailers and video bloggers. Most of the content has been uploaded by individuals but some media companies including CBS, BBC, Vevo and Hulu are offering some of their material as part of the partnership program. This is more than a channel with cute animal videos. YouTube is the place for catching up on bits you missed like The Late Late Show with James Corden’s carpool karaoke or a daily dose of gossip from the Wendy Williams Show channel. Remember reruns? Well YouTube has it all from Merv Griffin to The Brady Bunch to The Rosie Show. A new service called YouTube Red allows you to stream ad free. For 9.99 per month, you have unlimited access to music, videos and new original programming with zero interruptions.
Hardware
fireTV stick
Amazon’s fireTV is another one of the new breed of electronics called streaming sticks. Similar to Chromecast and Roku, firetv is about the size of a jump drive and plugs into your HDMI source on your television. You receive a stick and a remote and a compact wall power with cord. There is an HDMI extender for a hard to reach back of the set plug in. The fire stick has premium components including dual core processor, one gigabyte of RAM and eight gigabytes of flash storage significantly better equipped than the Roku. The remote is slim and trim and easy to navigate. When you order a fireTV, it will be automatically connected to your Amazon account. If you are an Amazon Prime member, this is the choice for you as the Prime content loads almost immediately. You have the option to rent or buy, and shows will live in your Amazon cloud account. The coolest thing of fireTV are many free games. They work fine with the remote, but you can also get an add-on gaming controller. It is also portable. Travel with your fireTV stick and have your entertainment world with you.
