For all I love my little Netflix Player box, it does have some drawbacks. For instance, discs you receive in the mail have a link on the website to report problems, while no such mechanism exists for streamed movies (a lack I noticed when trying to check out Shinbone Alley, a cartoon from the early '70s... somehow, they managed to get some "making of" material where the movie should have been). The biggest drawback, though, is that streamed content has to be made available through a licensing agreement with the owner/publisher... normally, that just means that the latest and greatest isn't available online, and, sometimes, content that was available gets pulled back (so if I feel a sudden urge to watch, say, Clan of the Cave Bear ,or Amadeus, I'll have to go to disc for now).
So, it's a pleasant surprise that the current season of Heroes is available as we speak (I gather they release each new episode on Tuesday). In exchange... season 1 of Heroes (which I had in queue for eventual perusal) is scheduled to go offline tomorrow. Never mind that it's the third most popular thing they've had available for the past three months, and second for all time... as of tomorrow, I'll have to schlep discs if I want to start the series. I suppose it's marginally possible that it's some capacity problem at Netflix, but it sure smells like something cooked up by the publisher to me (maybe they're getting ready to release a "collector's edition" of season 1?). Oh well... hopefully, it'll come back one of these days... and hopefully, I won't get a series yanked on me when I'm part-way through.
UPDATE: Season 1 is back, as of 04OCT08... except for episode 3. I watched the first two, and it looks like fun... so I guess I'll just have to find episode 3 online on the computer screen before I revert to the comfort of my living room for the rest. Again... what are they thinking?
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