Time's Running Out

In some of my idle moments, I pop over to Netflix and watch old episodes of Saturday Night Live. The first few seasons with the original Not Ready for Prime Time Players were a true watershed moment for comedy and for television. The show's comedic style and the way it was presented were genuinely new and edgy for the TV environment of the mid-1970s.

I watched most of those early episodes when they originally aired, but I had never seen them again since, so when I discovered that the entire catalog of SNL episodes was available to watch on Netflix I was quite pleased. I've been working through them at a leisurely pace, and I've also been looking forward to seeing the stuff from the early 1980s, considered a fallow period in the show's history and a time when I stopped watching the show regularly.

On Netflix the show's seasons are organized by decades, and a few days ago I noticed that the 1970s episodes that I have been watching are only available until November 15th, which is in three days. The 1980s episodes are only available to stream until December 12th. I'm almost done with the '70s anyway, but there's no way I'd be able to get through all of the '80s in a month, and I wish I'd noticed sooner.

I also don't know why these seasons are being dropped from streaming; I know Yahoo made a deal for SNL clips, but when it was announced I don't recall any mention of it affecting Netflix's existing content. And of course these shows will still be available on discs, but that's starting to seem terribly old-fashioned, and I'd rather keep my DVD queue flowing with more relevant content.