I really enjoy the aesthetics of old shows like The Twilight Zone or Batman, but can’t always find ways to watch them on major networks. While this is frustrating, I’ve found a few handy ways I can watch older shows and movies that aren’t on the big streaming platforms—with one or two exceptions.
YouTube can be an excellent tool for finding obscure episodes on any old show or, in some cases, a much better version. It’s how I finished the rest of The Twilight Zone after it was removed from Netflix.
However, there is just one itty-bitty problem. On YouTube, anyone can upload an episode, so it’s possible and very likely that the channel is infringing on a studio’s rights. YouTube can still be a legitimate source for movies and TV shows!
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The Internet Archive, like YouTube, can be a great option for watching old shows, but it, too, can suffer from copyright infringement. However, unlike YouTube channels, the site is much more open to removing material when it infringes someone’s rights. It also has a special DMCA exemption.
What that means for you is that there’s less of a legal gray area if you were to visit the Internet Archive and watch—not download—old shows that may or may not still be tied up in copyright.
For an option that doesn’t have you wading through murky copyright waters, I recommend Plex. For starters, the platform is no longer limited to you streaming your own physical media. Plex has free channels, which are ad-supported, and it’s usually older content. This is my go-to whenever I want to watch Charmed.
More importantly, you can connect with other Plex users who may have uploaded old shows they have physical copies of. You can then be invited to their Plex channel and enjoy their library. And another good deal is that Plex isn’t hard to set up.
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There are two streaming services that I frequently use for old shows; Pluto TV is the first of the two. Its library of classic TV shows is massive. You’ve got The Outer Limits, The Johnny Carson Show, Mission: Impossible, The Twilight Zone (my personal favorite), and, for something more recent, Family Ties.
Pluto TV is definitely where I spend the majority of my time perusing older shows, given how easy they are to find. There’s an entire section dedicated to it!
The other half of the duo is Tubi; however, finding older shows is a bit of a pain. Shows are broken up into different categories, but there’s nothing specific to the classics. Instead, they’re filtered by genre.
That said, it has a solid library of older anime shows I’ve been revisiting, like Inuyasha and Yu-Gi-Oh!, but you’ll also find older Doctor Who seasons (First through the Seventh Doctor) and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
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Shout Factory TV is a little more obscure. It’s due to the oddball TV shows available (for free, I might add). There’s Super Sentai Zyuranger, Father Knows Best, Farscape (that’s a weird one), and even Pee-wee’s Playhouse. I wasn’t expecting that last one! I even watched a few episodes of Superman, the animated series from the 1940s. It isn’t a large library, and it doesn’t always have every single episode, but it’s been nothing but a positive option in my rotation.
2
The Roku Channel
While the Roku Channel isn’t among my favorite Roku apps, it’s still a useful service for older shows and movies. It’s completely free, and you don’t even need a Roku device to access the Roku Channel. And the best part is that it’s set up like Netflix.
New (but old) content is always being cycled out. I’ve been catching up with Married…with Children and Quantum Leap. The Roku Channel is ad-supported, though, which I think is a small price to pay to see Al Bundy over and over again.
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Like Shout Factory TV, Popcornflix is another obscure streaming platform that has an odd assortment of older shows and equally obscure shows. Luckily, if you want to ignore low-budget shows for something familiar, Popcornflix has an entire section for TV classics like Charlie’s Angels and 21 Jump Street. I also came across Merlin, starring Sam Neill and Helena Bonham Carter, which I forgot about, and now I’m excited to revisit.
It just goes to show that if you want to watch a TV show that’s a little old and crusty, you can usually find it somewhere on the internet and never have to rely on any major networks or spend a dime.
