Last week Hulu announced plans for its new Hulu Plus service. Immediately following the announcement, internet commenters from around the world did something they rarely do: complained long and loud about the details of the announcement.

"The price is right, but they're still going to have ads? No thanks!" "So let me get this straight, they're giving us access to all the seasons of 'Arrested Development' -- which we already have now, for free! -- except now they want us to pay for them? Choke on your own genitalia and die, Hulu Plus!" said the usually very reasonable denizens of the interwebs.

While I'm never one to doubt the insightfulness of snap decisions, I think in this case the complaints are wrongheaded. Sure, the announced set of features for Hulu Plus leaves a little something to be desired, but get beyond that. What we're seeing right now is a game changer. Hulu Plus is about to take over the way we consume television.

There have been more than a few game changers in the history of TV -- color, HD, Farah Fawcett's nipple, etc. -- but today we're just going to focus on the steps that got the world ready for Hulu Plus.

Step One: VCRs

The VCR was the first really sensible way for people to watch movies whenever they wanted and record their shows when they weren't home. Except it really wasn't very good for watching movies and the only way you could get it to record consistently was to sprinkle it with centaur blood. Also, according to every stand-up comic from the years 1982-1989, all of them blinked 12:00 at all times of the day and night.

The important thing about the VCR was that it changed the way we thought about the TV. Instead of being at the beck and call of our TV overlords, watching at the exact time and place they said we had to, the VCR promised a future where we determined our own TV watching fate. If only the technology would catch up with that promise ...

Step Two: DVRs

... And it did with the invention of TiVo. I suppose the Digital Video Recorder was technically just a refinement of VCR technology, but the leap from VCRs to DVRs felt like the bone-to-spaceship match cut in '2001'.

The ease with which you were able to record on a DVR made the idea of timeshifting a show to fit your schedule not a hard-to-achieve novelty like on a VCR, but a God-given right. We're at the point now where no one ever expects to "miss" a show.

Step Three: DVDs

The other problem of the VCR -- giant, unwieldy tapes that tended to lose fidelity every time you actually watched one -- was solved by the DVD. The idea of archiving shows a season a time to watch at your convenience would have been preposterous in the VHS era; 'Law and Order' alone would require most homeowners to tack on an addition to their home and that's before you consider 'SVU' and 'Criminal Intent.' With DVDs however, the space became far more manageable -- more an eMachine than an ENIAC.

So TV fans began to believe that access to a show's back catalog was well within their rights. This idea is so ingrained in most of us it's hard to believe that, just 15 years ago, getting a complete set of even a popular show would have required the purchase of poorly dubbed VHS tapes in the back alleys of swap meets and comic book conventions. Now, though? We get annoyed if the fifth season of 'Mama's Family' isn't readily available at Best Buy (intolerable side note: it isn't!).

Step Four: Hulu Plus

Hulu Plus is the next logical link in this chain and is the paradigm for the next 10 years of TV consumption.

Here's what you get for your $9.95 a month: an entire season's worth of episodes for roughly 35 mainstream network shows. On top of that, you get thousands of archived episodes, including full series runs of shows like 'The Office,' '30 Rock', and 'Buffy.'

Even if you were interested in just 'Buffy,' a year's worth of Hulu Plus pays for itself ($120 for Hulu vs. $300 on DVD).

The real leap forward is that Hulu Plus is pretty much device agnostic. Unlike HBO Go from earlier this year, Hulu Plus doesn't care how or what you watch it on: if you have an internet connection and a screen, you're watching TV. iPads, iPhones, Playstations -- all of them will stream Hulu Plus.

It's right about now that you'll accuse me of being on Hulu's payroll. I'd like to be -- I have the same aversion to selling out that KISS does -- but that's not the reason I'm so excited for it.

I'm pimping Hulu Plus so hard because it's where those previous steps have been heading all along: the service allows you to time shift and place shift entire catalogs of network television legally for $9.95 a month (in HD!). This isn't iTunes over-pricing single episodes to the point of ridiculousness, this is a massive corporate entity reasonably pricing high quality content for viewing anywhere in the United States.

This is everything we've always asked for. We need to embrace it lest the networks get cold feet and decide to follow the music industry into the grave by trying to recapture some of that early-2000s DVD cash-cow magic. Do you want to pay $40 for a season of 'Nash Bridges' again? Neither do I.

That's why the early arguments against Hulu Plus are so grating. Yes, it has commercials in a paid service, but then, so does cable (and for a lot more money a month, I might add). Yes, its catalog is far from complete, but that's to be expected in the beginning phases of a new way of doing business. And yes, your subscription doesn't let you own the shows, but for most of us, convenience trumps ownership every time (I mean, walking all the way to the DVD player to watch something? Like a peasant?).

So, after criticizing internet commenters for their tendency to overstate, let me end on a relatively mild note: I'm not saying that Hulu Plus will initiate Ray Kurzweil's prediction of the singularity, but I'm pretty sure we'll all be watching a service a lot like it afterwards.



(Jay Black is a writer and a comedian who really hopes you like this column. For more information about Jay or to check out one of his live shows visit www.jayblackcomedy.net.)


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