NBC and Amazon have made the pilot episodes for NBC’s new series “The Bionic Woman”, “Chuck”, “Life” and “Journeyman” available for free download. By free download, you can download them to a Windows PC and watch them on it or on TV via the TV out on your computer - or you can download them to your Series 2 Tivo (I don’t think they have Series 3 support yet). Links to the shows and an explanation of how to get them on your Tivo (it’s easy and it’s officially supported, no hackery involved) are after the cut.

NBC recently had a well-publicized kerfluffle with Apple over the iTunes Store, resulting in NBC deciding not to renew their contract to carry their TV shows on iTunes. Given that Apple can’t guarantee that those shows will be available for the whole season, they’ve decided not to offer any of NBC’s new fall programming (they wouldn’t be able to offer season subscriptions to shows).

There’s a lot of finger pointing. NBC says that Apple was inflexible in its pricing. Apple says that NBC wanted to raise the price on shows and wanted them to try to detect and prohibit pirated video and music from being loaded on iPods (which I can see no reasonable technical way to do other than requiring everything to be authenticate and DRM’ed, which is definitely well beyond “reasonable”).

It looks like an extension of Univeral’s push back on iTunes. Apple now operates the third largest music store in the US. Earlier this year EMI broke away from the rest of the record industry in deciding to offer DRM-free music on iTunes, a move which makes the record industry - which is all about control - extremely nervous. It’s clear that the music industry is only uneasy partners with Apple, especially after Steve Jobs spoke out against DRM. As a result, Universal announced that they would conduct their own limited test of selling DRM-free music downloads - with a variety of online stores that were not Apple and the iTunes store.

Omitting the world’s largest online music store from such a test makes it clear that it’s less a test of selling DRM-free music and more a test of the iTunes Store’s strength.

NBC is part of Universal, and the word is that their TV shows account for about 40% of the iTunes Store’s TV sales, so they can have a real impact on the iTunes store by removing their product. The question is, who will it hurt more? Will the Apple iPod/iTunes ecology stand up to NBC’s withdrawl?

My guess is that Apple will roll along with Office and Battlestar Galactica fans missing their fill-in episodes that they’ve bought from iTunes, and that NBC will miss out on some great opportunities to help support struggling shows. Time will tell.

The Lowdown

But you’re here for the free downloads, right? Click on the graphic to go to Amazon’s page for the show.

Bionic Woman	Chuck
Journeyman	Life

“The Bionic Woman” is the obvious most likely show that I’ll keep watching. I really hope they find at least a cameo for Lindsay Wagner in it. I have to admit, it wasn’t great though I think that I’d give it a several episode chance even without its link to “The Bionic Woman” from the 70s (I want to give you a link to DVDs of it but I’m surprised to find that it’s not available in the US on DVD!). It’s link to the recent remake of “Battlestar Galactica”, sharing producer David Eicke and some of the cast, is also interesting. But I think it’s worth giving a chance just standing on its own. It was also nice seeing Katee Sackhoff (Starbuck from the new Galactica) playing a different character and being … different).

I haven’t had a chance to watch “Chuck” yet, but a friend says it’s the most promising of the lot, the story of a computer geek who becomes a spy. Will he prance around in different costumes each week?

“Journeyman” is a time-slipping show which I initially confused with “Life on Mars”, a British TV show not yet available in the US on DVD which is being remade into an American TV show by ABC. This is not that show. That show involves a cop who wakes up in the 70s. This show involves a reporter who wakes up a decade earlier but doesn’t stay there. It was well made, offered a couple of intriguing bits but in the end I really tend to dislike this kind of “Sliders”/”Quantum Leap” show. They generally involve a person in extraordinary circumstances where the circumstances take a back seat to them doing good deeds each week. If you’re slipping through time, why is your greatest concern rescuing cats from trees each week?

“Life” is a quirky cop drama with a quirky cop. The cop was incorrectly convicted of a crime he didn’t commit, spent 12 horrific years in jail, was exonerated and is now back on the force as a detective. To survive he studied zen. And it has a lot of funny zen bits in it. It’s appealing and well-made and I just don’t find that I have room in my heart for another quirky cop these days. Perhaps you do.

Tivo

If you have a Series 2 Tivo you can direct Amazon to download videos to your Tivo. You can delete them from your Tivo and still download them again later. Otherwise, you can download them to a Windows PC (sorry, Mac and Linux users) and from there to up to two portable media player devices as supported by Windows Media.

If you want to know more, check out my writeup from last March, but note that their $15 offer has long since expired.

[tags]tivo, amazon, unbox, bionic woman, nbc, pilots, tv, free, chuck, life, journeyman[/tags]

|  Print This Post