Pluto TV Is Pure Quarantine Comfort Food

We’re in uncertain times, here folks. Seriously, did you think as recently as two weeks ago that toilet paper would become a hot item and Vanessa Hudgens would get nearly cancelled for, uh, being a pandemic apologist…? I… yeah… yeah things are… bleak. We all need as few decisions on our minds as possible, and that’s a problem in the era of peak TV. We all have too many streaming services with too many options, forcing all of us to play Hey Mr. DJ hour after hour as we cobble together a TV playlist. And now that we’re all at home all the time, that task has doubled or tripled. And not only do we have to find things to watch, we have to find things to watch that distract us from a stock market crash, massive layoffs, a pandemic—oh god, I swear I’m getting to something fun!

That fun thing is Pluto TV, a free TV streaming service that has brought a lot of entertaining certainty to my life during this hellishly uncertain time. Pluto stands apart from Netflix and Hulu and other heavy-hitting services in one key way: all of its channels broadcast live with commercial breaks, meaning you can’t fast-forward or rewind or choose an episode to watch. Instead of being paralyzed with two equally good options (do you watch Coach-era Cheers or Woody-era Cheers?), Pluto is the ultimate set-it-and-forget-it TV experience. You just have to make two choices: to turn on Pluto, and then to find a channel. And oh, the channels Pluto TV has!

Since being acquired by Viacom last year and undergoing a massive interface makeover in early 2020, Pluto’s lineup is bigger, better, and weirder than ever. The service offers the best of both worlds: there are channels that play a variety of content and channels devoted to one binge-worthy show. With Viacom’s stable at its disposal, there are a lot of channels built around MTV, VH1, BET, CMT, Comedy Central, and TV Land. You want movies? You can drop in on the 007 channel, which is all James Bond all the time. There are also genre-specific channels with lineups of comedies, dramas, thrillers, romances, and more.

Personally, I’m holed up in Pluto’s kookier corners during this quarantine. There are whole channels devoted to the early seasons of RuPaul’s Drag Race, the entire run of American Gladiators, choice episodes from Mystery Science Theater 3000, and all of the original Addams Family sitcom. I wake up, put on American Gladiators, and spend all day catching glimpses of spandexed beefcakes and bombshells tossing Midwestern personal trainers headfirst into giant red, white, and blue cushions. It’s. Glorious.

The biggest addition to my life, though, is the BUZZR channel, a 24/7 retro game show network that I have eagerly followed on social media for years despite not being able to watch it. Now my time has finally come, and I can witness the glory of The Match Game Hollywood Squares Hour for myself, every single night. Other bonuses: surprise appearances by my heroes John Astin and David Letterman on ’80s Password Plus! And the fact that these episodes are airing live and not available at my request makes catching them feel like an event. I’m still apologizing to my cat, who got caught in my frenzy upon seeing Letterman on an episode of Password.

My only complaint, and I will add it in here in the hopes that someone at Pluto notices, is that BUZZR’s aspect ratio is distractingly wonky through Apple TV. The tight cropping poses unique problems for shows where reading clues is the whole thing.

But whatever! I get to see ’80s Charles Nelson Reilly (which looks a lot like 2020 Me) and that’s what really matters.

Another Pluto perk, one that might seem off-putting at first: commercials, specifically stretches of time where the Pluto logo sits onscreen (presumably because the over-the-air sponsor was regional or not cleared for streaming). I know this sounds annoying in our age of commercial-free bingeing, but these breaks are built-in phone-checking moments (but I suggest spend it texting with your shut-in friends and not scrolling through Twitter).

Pluto’s redesign earlier this year came at the perfect moment, a moment none of us saw coming (even though literally everyone in power could’ve and should’ve seen coming). I love tuning in and tuning out with Pluto, and you will too. Join me in my shut-in haven, where gladiators and drag queens roam.

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