Come see what all the strike fuss is about

On street corners and in front of large production studios, there are at this very moment at least a few picketing writers, holding signs, chanting pithy rhymes about hexes on execs and the like. These men and women are writers. They are on strike at the moment, which you’ve likely noticed because all your favorite shows have fallen into rerun hell.

The writers are striking over many things, but most of their beef has to do with DVD revenue and online revenue. The online revenue is the trickiest part, as no one knows what this form of online TV will be worth in the future. But with the quality of mainstream video sites like NBC.com rising everyday, I’d imagine the writers are going to angle for a pretty penny.

At one point my job to watch a lot of internet video. I’ve kind of seen it all at this point. At least I hope I’ve seen it all, because if there’s other stuff out there, I really don’t want to know about it. The internet is full of a lot of really dirty, crazy crap. You don’t even want to know, trust me.

The problem with the internet is that all the dirty crap is somehow streamed on easily viewable no frills players, while the larger corporations tend to junk up their video players with lots of ads on the page that makes the video really junky and choppy. Generally, it’s just not much fun to try to watch TV on the internet.

So imagine my surprise upon finding that NBC.com actually hosts a fully functional video player, not to mention plenty of content to keep even the most rabid of NBC fans happy for weeks upon weeks of pure NBC.com surfing.

NBC 24/7 allows for video multitasking via a feature that allows you to jump from one NBC owned website to another (i.e. from Bravo to SciFi) with relative ease. Among the main network websites, this is quite nearly revolutionary. While most of the networks can barely figure out how to get me a useful week-in-review clip to bring me up to speed on my favorite programs, NBC is linking you up to all of their media properties at once.

The real crown jewel of NBC.com is the full episode feature. Many full episodes of NBC’s best new programs are available for free online. Usually, the most recent 5 episodes are made available to the internet viewing public, but some shows have whole seasons for your perusal. Series that offer this marvelous feature include but are not limited to Friday Night Lights, 30 Rock, Las Vegas, Heroes, and My Name is Earl. All told, this adds up to countless hours of television on the Internet.
Now, this is not revolutionary in and of itself. What is somewhat revolutionary is the fact that NBC.com’s video player actually works. So you can actually watch every single on of these episodes. Memo to all the other networks – Copy NBC in this regard. Copy them shamelessly. A working video player is the first key to a functional video site.

Of course, NBC refuses to offer episodes of their best show, The Office, for free. They will, however, direct you to iTunes, where you can download episodes at a $1.99 a pop.

So if you’re bored at work, or at home, and you’d just rather check out some straightforward entertainment rather than the weird stuff the internet typically throws your way, I advise you to hit NBC.com. It’s easily the least frustrating of the big network websites.