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Call it the calm after the storm.
Viewers have weathered a deluge of new movies over the past couple of months, as Apple Inc. and Walt Disney Co. launched new flagship shows on their streaming services while their more established rivals responded with a torrent of new series to counter them.
But the frenzy will subside in January, offering a chance to pause, catch up, and give budget-minded subscribers a chance to save money.
The “Star Wars” spinoff series “The Mandalorian” ends its first season on Disney+ in December, and the shows that Apple TV+ launched in November will wrap up their runs as well. And while January will bring a handful of buzz-worthy shows on various services, the flood of original content will slow to a relative trickle.
As this column mentioned last month, consumers can take full advantage of cord-cutting by capitalizing on the ability to add and drop streaming services each month, and all it takes is good planning and timing. Remember, a billing cycle starts when you sign up, not necessarily at the beginning of each month.
Consumers can also take advantage of a multitude of deals for free streaming trials, as Disney and Apple in particular focus on building subscriber bases rather than growing revenue for now. You’re never going to get a better deal than free, and the offers won’t last forever.
Free possibilities aside, when it’s time to decide where your subscription dollars should go, this column What’s Worth Streaming will be here to help. We will rate each major streaming service every month as a “play,” “pause” or “stop,” similar to investment analysts’ ratings of buy, hold and sell, and pick the best content that will help you make your monthly decisions.
Here’s a look at what’s coming to the various streaming services in January 2020, and what’s really worth the monthly subscription fee.
Netflix ($8.99 or $12.99 a month)
Netflix will be well-stocked with new additions in January, including two of the streamer’s best returning shows.
One of the dirty secrets of Netflix NFLX, +0.15% is that while it has many good series, there aren’t a whole lot of great ones. But “BoJack Horseman” is one of the greats, and it returns Jan. 31 with the second half of its sixth and final season. The animated comedy about a former TV star veers from absurdest humor and clever animal puns to coping with existential angst, addiction and depression. The final batch of episodes will see if a newly sober BoJack can finally achieve happiness and find some redemption after a lifetime of being a generally horrible horse/man. It’s a surprisingly powerful and empathetic series that can be laugh-out-loud funny and heartbreakingly sad, often within the same episode. It’s not to be missed.
Read: Here’s what’s coming to Netflix in January 2020 — and what’s leaving
Empathy is also the key to another January returnee, “Sex Education,” which is back for its second season Jan. 17 and is well on the road to becoming Netflix’s next great series. The premise flirts with disaster: A shy British high school student uses what he’s learned through osmosis from his sex-therapist mom (a never-better Gillian Anderson) to start a sexual-advice business for his classmates. What could be raunchy and juvenile in less capable hands is instead sweet and full of heart and yes, still extremely raunchy and graphic. It’s a delightful, smart teen comedy that avoids cliches and treats its cast of fully formed characters with respect and kindness in a way that few other series do.
Other notable additions in January include a spooky new season of “The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina” (Jan. 24), the medical/cop-procedural spoof “Medical Police” from the creators of “Children’s Hospital” (Jan. 10), and the three-episode “Dracula” miniseries, from the makers of “Sherlock” (date TBA).
Play, pause or stop? Definitely play. Netflix is still the one must-have streaming service, even without “Friends,” which is leaving on the new year.
Hulu ($5.99 a month or $11.99 with no ads)
Hulu only has one notable original debut in January, but it’s adding enough older shows and currently-airing shows to make it a worthy addition.
“Saturday Night Live’s” Aidy Bryant returns for a second season of “Shrill” on Jan. 24. It’s a unique, smart and often painful comedy about a self-described fat woman who, for the first time in her life, truly has a sense of her own self-worth and is unashamed about her body. It’s easily one of Hulu’s best shows.
Last year’s acquisition of Fox Entertainment by Walt Disney Co. DIS, +0.19% is finally paying dividends for Hulu, which is majority-owned by Disney. Aside from HBO, FX has been arguably the cable network with the highest quality of shows over the past two decades, and those series will be making their permanent streaming home on Hulu starting in March. A trio of FX classics are heading over early: “Damages,”“Rescue Me” (both Jan 1.) and “Justified” (Jan. 17). Denis Leary’s damaged, misogynist antihero on the firefighter drama “Rescue Me” might have aged poorly in today’s social climate, but the legal thriller “Damages,” starring Glenn Close and Rose Byrne, and the modern Western “Justified,” starring Timothy Olyphant as a trigger-happy U.S. marshal in Kentucky, will be excellent candidates for binge-watching.
Read: Here’s what’s new on Hulu in January 2020, and what’s leaving
Another late, great show joining Hulu in January is the second season of “Lodge 49,” which AMC recently canceled. Don’t let that scare you off though, it’s a quirky, surreal, thoroughly warmhearted comedy about lost souls finding community amid the wreckage of late-stage-capitalism in America.
Hulu will also launch a selection of network shows the day after they originally air, so if you need your fix of “The Bachelor,”“Jeopardy’s Greatest of All Time” tournament (both starting Jan. 7), the Golden Globe Awards (Jan. 6) or Fox’s “9-1-1 Lone Star” (Jan. 20), those are there too.
Play, pause or stop? Play, Hulu has a great month ahead.
Disney+ ($6.99 a month)
Is there life without “The Mandalorian”? That’s the big question for Disney+, which faces its first month without fresh episodes of the hugely popular “Star Wars” spinoff, which ends its first season in December.
Disney+ will fill that hole with a pair of hugely popular movies: the live-action “Aladdin” remake and the super-realistic CGI remake of “The Lion King,” both of which earned more than $1 billion apiece in 2019. Get used to it — the main appeal of Disney+ will lie mostly in family-friendly movies for the foreseeable future, at least until it launches more “Star Wars” and Marvel spinoff series later this year.
Read: Here’s what’s coming to Disney+ in January
That also might make January a good time for budget-minded consumers to drop the service, at least for the time being. Realistically, Disney+ is going to be a must-have streaming service for families with kids for years to come, but the next few months will probably be your last chance to drop it for a while without fear of missing out on hot new content.
But if doing that would cause the kids to revolt, don’t feel too bad, there is still plenty in the archives worth the $6.99 a month. Here‘s one you may have forgotten about: “The Rocketeer,” the 1991 movie starring Billy Campbell as a jetpack-and-leather-jacket-wearing hero being chased by the FBI, the mob and Nazis in 1938 Los Angeles. It’s a fun thrill ride with old-school sensibilities, but not to be confused with the 2019 Disney Junior animated series aimed at young kids.
Play, pause or stop? Pause. If your kids just can’t live without “Star Wars”/Marvel/Pixar movies, you’d might as well pay up, as it’s still a good deal. But if you’re subscribing month-to-month, and they can last a couple of months before watching “Frozen” for the 46th time, now’s the time to take a temporary break, before the Disney content machine really gets into gear.
Amazon Prime Video ($12.99 a month or $119 a year)
After a December avalanche of high-quality new releases, Amazon.com Inc.’s AMZN, -0.15% Prime Video will start the new year slowly. The best bets are a trio of comedy specials: “Broad City” co-star Ilana Glazer stars in her first standup special, “Ilana Glazer: The Planet Is Burning” (Jan. 3), which will be followed by “Catastrophe” co-star Rob Delaney’s “Jackie” and Russell Peters’ “Deported,” which was filmed in Mumbai (both dropping Jan. 17).
Other originals include the family-friendly movie “Troop Zero,” starring Viola Davis and Allison Janney; “James May: Our Man In Japan,” a fish-out-of-water travel show from the “Top Gear” and “Grand Tour” co-host; and “Ted Bundy: Falling For A Killer,” a docuseries about the notorious serial killer told from a female perspective.
Read: Here’s everything coming to Amazon Prime Video in January 2020
Also making a splash will be last summer’s horror hit, “Midsommar” (Jan. 3), starring Florence Pugh, which skillfully balances dark comedy with seriously twisted and unsettling terror.
Play, pause or stop? If you’re paying month-to-month, January is a good time to save a few bucks and stop your subscription. You can always come back when there’s more new stuff.
Apple TV+ ($4.99 a month)
After a big November launch and a slow December, it’s an even slower January for Apple TV+, which will drop just one new show: a full, eight-episode season of “Little America” on Jan. 17. The anthology series from Kumail Nanjiani and Emily Gordon — creators of the Oscar-nominated comedy “The Big Sick” — features the inspiring, romantic and humorous stories of immigrants, based on true stories. Based on the trailer, it looks good. But there’s still no reason to pay for a service with only 13 series and movies.
Play, pause or stop? Stop. Based on Apple’s AAPL, -0.08% track record, TV+ will likely be worth getting at some point in the future, but it’s not there yet.
CBS All Access ($5.99 a month or $9.99 with no ads)
Of course, for some, one good series can make an entire service worth paying for (See: Disney+ and “The Mandalorian”). That outlook will be put to the test in January as CBS All Access launches the long-awaited “Star Trek: The Next Generation” spinoff “Star Trek: Picard” (Jan. 23). Patrick Stewart will reprise his iconic role as the now-retired captain of the starship Enterprise, who leaves his vineyard and heads into space one more time on a mission to protect a mysterious girl. Expect to see familiar “TNG” faces such as Jonathan Frakes, Brent Spiner and Jeri Ryan along his adventure.
For diehard “Star Trek” fans, that alone may be worth the subscription price. But “Picard” will only be dropping one episode a week, so if you want to be strategic and have enough patience, the best bet is to wait until March to sign up, so there will be more episodes to binge at your own pace.
Despite the existence of CBS All Access, ViacomCBS Corp. VIACA, -0.70% is focusing more on making shows for other streamers rather than putting all its chips in its own service. Its vault of originals is light, with the prequel series “Star Trek: Discovery,” Jordan Peele’s reboot of “The Twilight Zone” and “The Good Wife” spinoff “The Good Fight” the best of the bunch.
Play, pause or stop? Stop. There’s just not enough there for most people, and while “Picard” is appealing, “Star Trek” fans will be better served waiting until the end of the show’s run and having the ability to binge-watch the entire series.
Mike Murphy is a MarketWatch editor and former TV blogger who still watches way too much TV. Follow him on Twitter at @mmmmurf or email your streaming questions to mmurphy@marketwatch.com.
