Cryptopia

ABC will air Paradise, which bowed in January on its sister platform Hulu, over eight Mondays starting tonight at 10 p.m. ET.



I’m not sure I recommend it even to those who love everything in the pilot because,
for me, it all falls apart too much as the season concludes.

The series has a big twist at the end of its first episode that reviewers have rightly if sometimes backhandedly praised for at least not coming halfway through the season or more. A number of recent shows have belated reveals that reframe their plot or their very premise — for example, 2023’s miniseries The Crowded Room (which I’ve not seen) and the first season of 2024’s Sugar (which I have and I still might write about), both from Apple TV+. Game-changing information can undoubtedly blow a viewer’s mind while blowing up the heretofore perceived status quo in exciting ways: see USA’s Mr. Robot early on, HBO’s Westworld maybe, and for sure NBC’s The Good Place in the hands-down best rule-breaking “Holy shirt!” cliffhanger ever cliffhung on a half-hour comedy. Yet when you take so long to get to a twist, or in another recent trend use most or all of your first season just to set up the actual series premise, you risk not only turning away viewers before they experience full-on the show you ostensibly wanted to make but possibly alienating viewers who enjoyed the series they were watching prior to the colossal switcheroo.

Five to Stream Up

Hulu began streaming all five live-action incarnations of Star Trek today. You can watch The Original Series, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise free through March 31st.

Also today on its Tumblr blog Hulu launched a March Madness bracket showdown
to supposedly determine Star Trek’s “Greatest Character of All Time”. While I realize that Hulu is just having fun, it’s put up an awfully shallow field. Never mind that Q is the only adversary listed; there are absences from the core cast of every series, including (well, not including) Uhura, Sulu, Chekhov, and McCoy. And somebody somewhere must be upset that no-one from Enterprise appears. The number of extant brackets would have to double to add characters, yes, but coming up with another sixteen names wouldn’t be difficult. Although more characters may not have changed matchups in the final rounds, especially if the presumptive favorites were seeded properly, fans are gonna ask where Bones is.

You can check out Hulu’s preface, bracket overview, and the categories open for voting so far to decide for yourself whether participation strikes you as fun or legitimizing a hopelessly flawed tournament. My knock on Star Trek Madness aside, Hulu is a great way to catch up on current and classic television.


Related: Eau de Kirk • 7 for 007 • What’s Future Is Prologue