Thursday, September 28, 2017

Streaming Leave: A Benefit for All

I am not quite sure if this is a thing yet, but I suspect it is only a matter of time before HR departments at major companies across the nation start offering Streaming Leave. Even better, perhaps the government can require that companies offer it; as long as you fill out the proper paperwork you can qualify for the Streaming Television Leave Act, or STLA. This would allow for up to 12 weeks of paid leave, so you can catch up on the television series you are woefully behind on.

I would be the poster child for this benefit. Currently I am a season behind on Modern Family and The Big Bang Theory, as well as Sneaky Pete, three seasons behind on Parks and Recreation, five seasons behind on Veep and Portlandia, and, since I finally got around to watching it and am only a few episodes in, essentially six seasons behind on The Sopranos.

And then, of course, there is the frightful dilemma that I have gotten myself into with the Marvel series that are only available on Netflix streaming. About a year ago I stumbled across the fact Krysten Ritter, who I liked so much on Breaking Bad, had her own series on Netflix called Jessica Jones. I watched an episode and got hooked, so I watched the rest of the series, which was relatively easy since there were only 13 episodes. Not long after I finished, a spinoff series called Luke Cage cropped up, so I watched that, too.

For a long time I forgot about the Marvel Universe, but recently a new show called The Defenders cropped up featuring both Jessica Jones and Luke Cage, so I decided to start watching that. But wait, this show featured two other characters, as well—Daredevil and Iron Fist—and I never watched those series at all. Crap! I was WAY behind! So I decided not to watch The Defenders until I watched all of Daredevil (two seasons) and Iron Fist (one season), which is no small task.

Using basic math (with the aid of a small calculator) I figured out that if I just watched the shows I still need to see to complete the series mentioned above (and factoring in no new episodes of any of the shows listed that are still current, or any other shows that I currently watch, like The Walking Dead or Brooklyn 99) it would take me 171 hours and 40 minutes to get caught up. At eight hours per work day, that is over 21 solid days of television viewing.

Clearly, the STLA is something I (and I would imagine many others, in this golden age of television) would greatly benefit from. Of course an easier solution would just be to install Netflix and Amazon Prime on all work computers, but I think that’s probably asking for a bit too much. I’ll see if I can get something started on Change.org—but first I have to watch an episode of The Sopranos.