Around this time of year, television networks begin the slow process of weeding out the fall crop of new shows—giving full season orders to breakout hits (Blindspot, Quantico) and axing the ones that got left behind by audiences (goodbye, Wicked City, I’m sure someone will miss you). But a handful of shows, whether freshman efforts or returning programs, will find themselves fighting for their lives. Sometimes low-rated programs can survive the TV bubble to stay on the air for years (see: 30 Rock), while others are cancelled much too soon (Freaks and Geeks, Firefly).

Whether they’re destined for cancellation or to live long, happy lives, here are nine underappreciated streaming shows you should be watching, as well as where you can watch them. They might not win Emmys or pull in big ratings, but they’re absolutely worth your time.

The next time you want to pick up a new show, look no further than these gems.

1) Jane the Virgin(Hulu)

Adapted from a Venezuelan telenovela, Jane the Virgin was one of last year’s most unexpected surprises, despite low ratings. Golden Globe winner Gina Rodriguez plays Jane Villanueva, an aspiring romance novelist whose love life gets complicated after she’s accidentally inseminated with an old flame’s sperm. It sounds ridiculous, but what makes the meta-blend of soap opera and farce (see: baby kidnapping, lesbian yodelers) work is Rodriguez’s winning performance and the deft writing. This season’s “Chapter Twenty-Eight,” dubbed a “fasterpiece,” covers a season’s worth of plot lines in 42 minutes without breaking a sweat. Jane the Virgin makes blending humor, heart, and the occasional murder look easy.

2) The Americans (Amazon Prime)

One of TV’s most acclaimed shows continues to be its most unsung, as The Americans has yet to get the love from either the Emmys or audiences that it deserves. FX’s Russian spy drama has long struggled in the Nielsen ratings, but deafening critical buzz has kept The Americans alive. Hailed by many as the best drama on television, Matthew Rhys and Keri Russell play sleeper cell operatives posing as a married couple in 1980s America. The KGB agents must choose between the life they’ve built with their children (who are unaware of their parents’ professions) and their mission. It’s the show you wanted Homeland to be: The Americans is both a complex family drama and a gripping thriller, and it features two of television’s most compelling anti-heroes.

3) The Grinder (Hulu)

Between memorable roles on The West Wing and Parks and Recreation, Rob Lowe has quietly staked his claim as one of the best actors on television. The Grindr picks up where Parks and Rec left off: On Greg Daniels’ local government mockumentary, Lowe played Chris Traeger, the most upbeat man in the world, and here he puts that same naive charm to good use. Lowe is a delight as Dean Sanderson, a vain TV lawyer who moves back home to run his family law firm, and The Wonder Years’ Fred Savage proves a surprisingly strong comedic foil as his deadpan younger brother. The show has struggled with middling viewership in its first season, but it’s already carved out a space for itself as one of TV’s funniest comedies.

4) iZombie (Hulu)

If you were one of the diehard Marshmallows upset about the cancellation of Veronica Mars, creator Rob Thomas all but brought your favorite gumshoe back from the dead. Starring New Zealand import Rose McIver, Thomas’s newest show has everything that made his previous cult hit great. Like Veronica Mars, it’s both a gripping exploration of PTSD and a whip-smart crime procedural. After a tragic zombie attack, medical resident Liv Moore struggles to make sense of what happened to her—as well as its effects on her life: Liv discovers that by eating the brains of murder victims, she can tap into their memories, which is great help to police.

That might seem like a silly premise for a show, but remember that there was a time you thought the same thing about a teenage detective from a town called Neptune.

5) Catastrophe (Amazon Prime)

Television is in the middle of a rom-com renaissance, with shows like Casual and The Mindy Project breathing new life into a tired format. In Amazon’s fantastic Catastrophe, Rob (Rob Delaney) and Sharon (Sharon Horgan) decide to reverse-engineer a relationship after a one-night stand ends in an unexpected pregnancy. Buoyed by the fresh, naturalistic writing and the engaging actors’ easy chemistry, the show is most reminiscent of Richard Linklater’s Before series. Both act as bittersweet meditations on the conversations that bring us together and the struggles that keep us apart. There’s more hard-earned truth in Catastrophe than a million Julia Roberts movies.

6) You’re the Worst (Hulu)

FXX’s own entry in the rom-com sweepstakes, You’re the Worst has a sharply different tone than Catastrophe. One of last summer’s breakout critical successes, the pitch black comedy explores what happens when two L.A. 20-somethings who are far too damaged for commitment (or general human contact) find themselves in a relationship anyway. What could be an excuse for hipster angst is actually TV’s best exploration of How We Love Now. The self-defeating Jimmy (Chris Geere) and jaded Gretchen (Aya Cash) are pretty terrible, but you can’t help but root for them, even when they aren’t rooting for themselves.

Bonus points to go a delightful and game supporting cast—including scene-stealer Kether Donohue, as Gretchen’s downward-spiraling best friend.

7) Difficult People(Hulu)

Difficult People won’t be for everyone. The Hulu show landed in hot water after its pilot made some risqué—to put it lightly—jokes about Blue Ivy Carter, but what I admire about the Amy Poehler–produced comedy is how fully committed the show is to its thoroughly unlikable leads. Difficult People is a clever, often painful satire of millennial narcissism. Julie Klausner and Billy Eichner play a pair of aspiring comedians who live in their own universe. In a memorable scene, Eichner interrupts an Oscar party to announce: “There was a small earthquake in L.A., but don’t worry: Emmy Rossum is fine.” As a fellow Brooklynite, theirs is a world I know well, and they completely nail it.

8) Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (Hulu)

I have no idea how Crazy Ex-Girlfriend got greenlit in the first place, but I’m very glad it did. Imagine this pitch: “It’s about a mentally unstable woman who stalks her ex-boyfriend across the country to West Covina, California, where she takes a job as a lawyer. Think Fatal Attraction meets Felicity but funny! Did we mention it’s also a musical?” But this fall’s oddest new show is also its most bold. Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is reminiscent of Fox’s Wonderfalls, a magical realist comedy about a Niagara Falls worker who received spiritual guidance from gift shop trinkets. However, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend may befall the same fate as Wonderfalls. Cancelled after four episodes, it’s now remembered as one of the most daring shows of the decade.

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is too good to last, but years from now, we’ll look back and see just how special it was.

9) Mr. Robot(Hulu)

USA’s Mr. Robot was—hands down—the best new show of 2015. Like the lovechild of Stieg Larsson and Chuck Palahniuk, the addictive cyber-thriller offers a timely vision of corporate espionage for the post-Occupy era. Rami Malek (who deserves an Emmy nomination) plays Elliott, a social anxiety-prone computer programmer recruited to join fsociety, a hacktivist group whose goal is to take down E Corp, as a means of inciting political revolution. In its first season, Mr. Robot also achieved a rare feat: Every single one of its episodes was rated 100 percent fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, while pulling off one of the most jaw-dropping twists in TV history. Watch Mr. Robot immediately and then please don’t talk to anyone about it.

Warning: This article contains graphic images. 

A woman—who was identified as a patron, not an artist—was allegedly stabbed by another patron with an X-Acto knife after an argument. The woman sustained non-life-threatening injuries to her neck and arms, and was transported to Jackson Memorial Hospital. The woman accused of stabbing her has been identified as 24-year-old Siyuan Zhao and is in police custody. According to WSVN, the arrest report states that while being taken into custody, Zhao said, "I had to kill her and two more." 

Photo via BenGrantham/Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

I first saw Phoebe Robinson perform in summer 2014, hosting Blaria Live!—a show born from her blog, whose tagline is “Seeing the world through the eyes of Black Daria”—at a packed comedy club in the East Village. She was joined by her new co-host, The Daily Show’s Jessica Williams. The lineup she procured was impressive: Comedy legend Janeane Garofalo was headlining. At that show, Robinson and Williams told the audience hilarious stories about their boyfriends (who are white), being women in comedy, and the trials and tribulations of New York City apartments.

A year later, I saw Robinson and Williams perform again, their show now rebranded as 2 Dope Queens, hosted at a much larger venue in Brooklyn. Robinson danced on stage, wearing skimpy overall shorts and a crop top that read “I KNOW GUACAMOLE IS EXTRA.” She told the audience stories of being newly single, going on a wild trip to Las Vegas, and dealing with racist Uber drivers.

Robinson’s career has been on the up-and-up as of late. You Can’t Touch My Hair, her collection of personal essays about race, gender, and pop culture, is coming out in 2016. She’ll also be co-hosting a 2 Dope Queenspodcast on WNYC with Williams in the new year. Before that, she was a staff writer on MTV2’s Girl Code and appeared on Broad City and The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore. You can also see her doing standup all around New York City, live-tweeting Empire and How to Get Away With Murder for Glamour, and writing personal essays and recapping Scandal for Vulture.

Here’s what she had to say about meeting Williams, how Daria inspired her, and how she talks.

The last time I saw you perform, you spoke a lot about your recent breakup. How do you figure what’s OK for you to write about your personal life and what’s not?

In terms of the breakup, I don’t want to make jokes about him because he’s a great person, it just didn’t work out, so I’m very respectful about that. When I joke about how I’m recently single it’s never about him. That’s unofficially off limits to me. Anything else, I’m pretty much down to talk about just because I’ve built my comedy career on being conversational and open about my personal life. If I’m not disrespecting anyone, it’s OK for me to talk about. When I went on [Late Night with] Seth Meyers, so much of my act was about my boyfriend. When we broke up, I had to come up with completely new material. I’ve been trying to put together some stuff about race, especially because the climate in America right now is really tense, so I want to find a way to talk about race that doesn’t feel preachy, but also doesn’t make anyone feel guilty.

So much standup is straight white guys who have a completely different experience to me or you and the fact that we can bring different topics to the table that people maybe haven’t heard talk about in a funny way is a goal of mine.

We met a year and a half ago. I was doing background on that piece she did about black hair in the military. I introduced myself and she said, “Oh, I know who you are. I’ve been watching you.” Because she started out doing improv and so did I. She was really nice and sweet, so I asked her to be a guest on my Blaria podcast. When we do the podcast, we really hit it off. She told me she had always wanted to try standup, and I was like, “Well I have my show coming up next week.”

She had never done standup before?

No. But she’s done so much live performance, you can’t tell she hasn’t done a lot of standup. So I asked her to co-host my live show, Blaria. She’s done so much live performing that I was never worried it wasn’t going to go well. We really hit it off and she was serious about it, so it was like, “Let’s keep doing this.” And now we’re doing a podcast with WNYC. I feel like she’s my work wife. We have a very special relationship and I’m really excited to see where it goes.

How does Daria inspire you?

I had had conversations with a bunch of separate people and they had all called me a “Black Daria.” I thought it was funny that people were individually saying that to me. I thought it would be a fun name for a blog and I like to combine words in my regular life like an idiot, so I thought it’d just be “Blaria.”

I started watching Daria when I was in college because I didn’t have cable growing up. It’s such a smart show with a different type of female character. I don’t think there’s been a high school female character like her since. On current shows like Pretty Little Liars, all the girls are polished and look like models who happen to be in high school. Daria was [a] very smart, strong female character. I also relate to the black character Jodie quite a bit. So I wanted to pay homage to the show.

Jessica [Williams] and I came up with the idea after we did a show at Union Hall. It was one of those shows that just killed. We hadn’t seen each other in a while because we were both traveling and we had so many stories to tell each other and I was like, “Why don’t we do a storytelling podcast? That was so fun.”

At that point we decided to change the name of our show from Blaria to 2 Dope Queens because one, for legal reasons, it probably wouldn’t get cleared, but also because the show had morphed from it being my baby and my idea to Jess coming in as my co-host. I think it really grew into a product that represented both of us. We needed to change the name so it’d feel like ours. We came up with 2 Dope Queens because we’re always calling each other “queen” and we’re always calling things “dope” and there are two of us.

That is the best possible explanation you could offer.

So WNYC has been really amazing and helpful. We’re really excited about it because there are not a lot of podcasts with women of color, especially comedy ones. And the fact that we know so many different types of people—comedians, writers, storytellers, musicians—so we feel like through this podcast we can really expose an audience to different people they haven’t heard of before. Like for a storytelling show we taped for the podcast, we had Lizz Winstead [the creator of The Daily Show], who people have obviously heard of, but she doesn’t do many storytelling podcasts. So it’s great to have this comedy legend tell a super awesome story.

Most storytelling podcasts seems overwhelmingly white.

We’ve run into that with our show. We’re doing more festivals now, which is great. It seems literally every time we do a festival, they’ll tell us who’s available to perform in our show, and it’s all white people and one black person who may or may not be a standup. I’m always like, “We cannot be the tokens for the show.” Our show is all about diversity. We have people of color and LGBT people. We want to have all these different types of voices telling different stories. We don’t want seven people who all sound like Marc Maron. And Marc Maron’s amazing. Because there’s more than that in comedy.

Photo by Mindy Tucker 

Last night's "Close Encounter" sketch had the trio being interviewed by the NSA about their abduction. And when McKinnon's character shares her memory of having her boobs checked out by some aliens less friendly than E.T., that's when Gosling just couldn't hold it together any longer. 

Screenshot via Saturday Night Live/Hulu

With all due respect to Coldplay’s Super Bowl gig, Adele’s network-television specials, and that time Mumford & Sons went to Guitar Center and got crunchy, 2015 has a tiny cluster of truly artful icons and one undisputed band of the year: dive rockers Eagles of Death Metal.

It was a year when the terrorists declared war on our indie rock venues—and the world spit back in its most defiant scenester denim, resolved to never be intimated at shows. (Almost a month after the Paris attacks, some people still think EODM actually plays metal.)

That’s where this year’s Spotify suite begins. The 24-hour, 360-song playlist goes on to an unlikely protest anthem we heard bouncing in the streets of Chicago just hours after America streamed the Laquan McDonald footage.

Thanks to mix contributors Joshua Bradshaw, Patrick Caldwell, Jim Hill, Jeremy Hurd, Blake Hurtik, Andy O’Connor, Austin Powell, Victoria Ramirez, Robert Rich, Aaron Sankin, Tara Seetharam, and Harrison Yeager. 

Check out past iterations of the year-end mix: 

2012 | 2013 | 2014

Photo via Steve Cadman/Flickr (CC BY SA 2.0)

Come January, for a $3.99 fee, subscribers can catch new original series from Dan Harmon (HarmonQuest) and Amy Poehler (The UCB Show). Subscribers will also be able to stream Saturday Night Live, 30 Rock, Parks and Recreation, the U.K and U.S. iterations of The Office, revered sketch show The Kids in the Hall, NBC’s late night shows, and, curiously, Saved by the Bell. 

After spending a few hours on Seeso, which is set up much like Netflix, it’s clear it’s trying to intimately appeal to the comedy-nerd society, reinforcing our knowledge of references and quotes with good-for-yous. It will be interesting to see if NBC becomes a destination for originals or if people will shell out for it. So far, there hasn't been a comedy-only streaming option of this magnitude. 

If you want more than SNL and 30 Rock, Seeso has an impressive vault of more obscure shows as well as originals. Here’s a guide to what to watch.  

1) The UCB Show

Brought to you by the Upright Citizens Brigade—Poehler, Matt Besser, Ian Roberts, and Matt Walsh—this improv, standup, and sketch show attempts to replicate the live experience of a UCB show. From the one episode on Seeso so far, it’s hard to tell if the setup is really going to work; it’s not easy to transfer the experimental, challenging format of live improv to TV, and even harder to get the casual viewer to stay tuned. But it’s exciting that someone is trying. 

2) Funny as Hell

A standup anthology hosted by Jon Dore that showcases sets from Chelsea Peretti, Amy Schumer, Kumail Nanjiani, and more. Seeso is also set to debut original comedy specials from Cameron Esposito and Wyatt Cenac in the new year.  

3) The Mighty Boosh

If you’re a fan of British comedy, you’re in luck. This BBC show about two zookeepers who go on fantastical, bizarre adventures has seen a new fandom online, and inspired many a Halloween costume. 

4) Nathan Barley 

The Mighty Boosh’s Julian Barratt (who plays Howard Moon) shows up in this early-aughts series from Black Mirror’s Charlie Brooker and Brass Eye’s Chris Morris. If Black Mirror eerily reflects our current techno-anxiety, Nathan Barley cannily predicted the current fuckboi/prank-bro epidemic, but it also emits a subtle emotional resonance among all its garbage people. 

5) Garth Marenghi's Dark Place 

This Channel 4 series only lasted one season in 2004, but like The Mighty Boosh, it's thrived online in the last decade. The horror-comedy, created by Richard Ayoade (The IT Crowd) and Matthew Holness, imagines a low-budget alternate reality of fake blood and hack-author dialogue that traps you in the bowels of a haunted hospital. Would this show be popular if it came out in 2015?

6) The World of Alan Partridge

Steve Coogan built something truly timeless with the character of Alan Partridge, a talk show host (Knowing Me, Knowing You) who’s pushed down a few rungs to radio show host (I’m Alan Partridge). Partridge is constantly putting his foot in his mouth, à la Larry David, but Coogan’s strength is making his vulnerability seep in like warm milk. 

“Netflix Conscience,” a parody of Eminem and Dr. Dre’s 1999 song “Guilty Conscience,” is a re-imagination for the digital age. Smosh’s Ian Hecox and Anthony Padilla spend the video vying for the attention of Netflix watchers, trying to convince them to either turn off the service or binge until morning. The song covers every issue, from sharing your logins to how to pick a perfect film for “Netflix and chill.”

The song will be part of the forthcoming Smosh album Shut Up and Listen, out Dec. 10. 

H/T Tubefilter | Screengrab via Smosh/YouTube

Today, the newest member of the Kandashian family was give a name: Saint West. The announcement was accompanied by an emoji interpretation of Kim, Kanye, daughter North, and son Saint, because this is how empires are built. 

The company's head of content Ted Sarandos announced on Monday that in 2016, Netflix plans to produce 31 original scripted series, up from this year's 16. Ten standup specials and 10 feature films are also planned, as well as 12 documentaries. Sarandos, speaking at the UBS Global Media and Communications Conference in New York City, said they're also "aspiring to take Netflix fully global." 

In 2016 Netflix has Chelsea Handler's new talk show, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword Of Destiny, and Pee Wee's Big Holiday on the calendar for January, February, and March, respectively. 

Fuller House, Jadotville, Marvel's Luke Cage, Judd Apatow's Love, and Brad Pitt's film War Machine are also on the books next year, and Netflix snatched up the coveted rights to season 3 of Black Mirror in September, as it continues to bite the ankles of major networks. November saw the debut of two critically acclaimed original series—Jessica Jones and Master of None—which gives Netflix even more momentum going into 2016. 

H/T Engadget |  Illustration by Max Fleishman 

Trunko edits her blog from the small town of Copley, Ohio, where she lives with her parents and attends high school online. Both Tumblrs post follower-submitted content on topics like love, loss, and family. In Dear My Blank, Trunko curates anonymous letters sent in by people who never plan to give them to their intended recipients. In the Last Message Received, she shares "the last messages people received from ex-friends or ex-significant others, as well as from deceased friends, significant others, and relatives."

Both blogs have amassed tens of thousands of followers and rake in thousands of submissions a week despite being relatively new—she started Dear My Blank in March and just launched Last Message Nov. 10. Her thinking behind their quick success? Things like crushes and missing someone are universal adapters—especially during the holiday season.

"A lot of people are getting more sentimental and thinking more about family and interacting with loved ones," she told the New York Times.

In its first two weeks alone, the Last Message Received reportedly saw more than 2,500 submissions from followers.  No official release dates have been announced for the books yet, but they're both slated to be released sometime in 2016. 

Illustration via Max Fleishman

Stephen Colbert has a completely unorthodox plan for defeating ISIS.

The United States has been dropping so many bombs on militants in Syria—more than 20,000 of them so far—that it's starting to run out. But the reason they’re not as effective is a surprising one: many ISIS fighters may be taking Captagon, a black-market amphetamine that gives them euphoria and makes them feel like they’re invincible.

But because we know that many of them are drug users, Colbert suggests dropping ecstasy and glowsticks on them instead. It’d never happen, but the visual is kinda great.

There are few with a comedy CV like Rob Huebel.

After weathering the storm of John McEnroe’s eponymous talk show—which famously recorded a 0.0 Neilsen rating despite a theme song sung by the tennis star’s wife—he starred in the MTV sketch show Human Giant alongside UCB chums Paul Scheer and Aziz Ansari before racking up a torrent of eye-catching turns on every U.S. sitcom worth watching: Childrens Hospital, The League, Archer, Parks and Recreation, 30 Rock, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Arrested Development, The Office, The Mindy Project.

He seems busy. But in the calm before a new season of the Golden Globe–winning Transparent is dropped on the masses, now seemed like the right time to get Huebel on the line to ask what it’s like to be a comedian “going straight” and why L.A.’s Halloween decorations aren’t always what they seem.

Rob Huebel: Where are you calling from?

London.

Shit. That’s a whole other time zone.

Well why don’t I put you at ease by starting off in an American context? How was your Thanksgiving?

It was good. Thank you for putting it in terms I can understand. Our American Thanksgiving was lovely; I went up to Seattle with my wife.

In your tweets you were giving it to your little cousin Duane, and his piss-stained teeth…

Yeah, obviously that person doesn’t really exist, I create fictitious people and family and just whale on them.

…which I expected. But I was wondering if you actually met with family or were just tweeting in a room by yourself.

I always forget that there are real people that actually follow me on Twitter. Yesterday when I got on the plane to come back, I started criticizing the flight I was on and making fun of the people of the TSA and all that shit. And this guy on the plane came up to me after and was like “Hey man I’m a big fan and was reading your tweets.” It’s just embarrassing.

For some reason you assume there’s some sort of disconnect there.

You think it just goes out into the world.

You’ve got this bunch of stuff that’s coming out soon—a new series of Childrens Hospital, the movie Night Owls, Transparent’s returning… Does it annoy you that all this stuff’s coming out at the same time? Because that must be a year’s work in the space of a few weeks.

But then it must work the other way when you’re working for six months on something that isn’t coming out for two years and it looks like you haven’t been doing anything?

Yeah, for sure. I just shot a movie with Will Ferrell and Amy Poehler, and I was telling my parents about it and they’re like “well, when’s it going to come out?” And it’s not going to come out until 2017. It takes so long; it definitely works against you sometimes.

The second season of Transparent [Huebel plays Maura’s son-in-law Len Novak] is coming out pretty soon. When you started getting into standup and improv, did you see yourself playing a role in something like this? It’s probably closer to drama than comedy.

No, not really. When I first started out, I kinda just wanted to do comedy stuff, and thankfully I had a fair amount of success. I’ve been able to be on I think almost virtually every American sitcom.

But the cool thing about Transparent is that the show is funny but not like a sitcom is funny. It all comes down to the writing. … The writers on that show are so good that you don’t have to worry about anything. There are so many things that can go wrong making a TV show or a movie, but if the writing’s good that’s like 95 percent of it.

Was there a link between getting this role and your work on The Descendents? Because I can see similarities between the two; at their soul is a sort of sad, reflective humor.

Yeah, it really just started with The Descendants. I mean I’m a big fan of the director, Alexander Payne, and I just got that off an audition. Originally I auditioned for Matthew Lillard’s part and ended up getting this other part and got a few scenes with George Clooney. It was really the first of these kind of more serious parts that I’d done. Alexander Payne’s movies are always very funny, but I didn’t have anything funny to do really.

But it was one of those things where I felt that I was out of my league. We were shooting that in Hawaii, and you get out there and you look around and there’s George Clooney and Alexander Payne and I’m trying to figure out who the weak link is in the scene and “Oh, I’m the weak link!” I know Clooney’s not going to fuck it up. I know Alexander Payne’s not going to fuck it up. So I was just trying not to fuck it up.

Goofball? I’ve always thought in your comedy you came across more as a sociopathic prick.     

I’ve got a pretty good track record of playing assholes and douchebags. I just like those guys. I have two brothers, and we used to always laugh at oblivious people. People who are so cocky and full of themselves that they just don’t realize how stupid they are. And those kind of idiots really make me laugh. I don’t think that I’m a terrible person in real life, so it’s really fun to play a terrible person and get paid to do it.

Do you think there’s much crossover in audience between say, Transparent and Childrens Hospital? Would people recognize you from both?

Nowadays I think audiences aren’t that segregated; I think everyone watches everything. Everyone watches comedy. Everyone watches drama. As long as it’s good. Now the problem is that there’s so much stuff, so many shows.

It’s too easy to access, so many channels, Netflix…

Yeah, I have a real problem now when I go onto Netflix; it takes me a half hour to pick something out. They’ve got to figure something out, whether it’s their algorithm… Maybe if they had it curated like a video store: “Will Ferrell recommends this movie” or “Jennifer Lawrence recommends these 10 movies.”

Apparently though, some people love flicking through. That’s why they still have it. It’s the highlight of their day. The laboriousness.

Ugh, it gives me anxiety. I just want it to pick something. Or maybe give me a choice of like, two things. When I go on there, I just go down a rabbit hole.

I want to ask you about your series Do You Want To See A Dead Body. It’s going to be on Comedy Central?

Well I hope so. I’m going to shoot the pilot for it.

How does it relate to the shorts with the same name you did for Funny or Die on HBO?

It’s expanding on those shorts. So yeah, I shot them for Funny or Die a few years ago where I take celebrities out to see a new dead body each week. We never explain how I find these bodies…

Yeah, that’s what I’ve never understood. It seemed like you didn’t know if there was a dead body or where it was, but you always ended up finding one.

That’s the beauty of it, we never explain it. I don’t know that we have to.

I agree. But how do they always stumble upon a dead body? It’s intriguing.

Yeah, like, am I in some sort of club? Is there like a chatroom? Do I have an app on my phone?

You’re always very confident that you will find one. But then surprised that it is where it is.

Right. So the series is just a longer, more complicated version of that. Every week I take a different celebrity to see a different dead body. But that’s really just a jumping-off point. What it really is is me forcing them to hang out. Sort of me shoehorning myself into a relationship with someone I don’t really know that well.

But what I’m proposing to do is to use actual dead bodies in the show, that’d be really cool and people would be excited to come out and see a real dead body. I don’t know if Comedy Central would allow that though. Or the City of Los Angeles. Or the Health Department.

Are you worried there’s going to be some sort of Stand by Me lawsuit?

No, that’d be great. Stand By Me is a great movie. But yeah that’s just sort of the jumping-off point. It would start off like Stand by Me, but every episode would take a totally different turn and sometimes we don’t even find the body, sometimes there isn’t even a body. I just lie because I wanted to hang out with them.

Have you ever seen a dead body, personally?

Um… Yes, I have. I think I saw my grandmother when she died. And we just had this thing out here—this is horrible—there was a guy around Halloween who was in a car accident and his body flew out of the car, up into the air and got stuck on a sign over the highway. It was like 30 feet up in the air and got stuck there and his body was hanging onto this sign. It was shocking, but it was the day before Halloween so a lot of people thought that it was a Halloween thing. So I saw his body. On the news. In real life, I don’t really know that many dead people.

Screengrab via Funny or Die/YouTube

Great news, music fans. 

It looks like Prince is finally okay with us watching his 2008 Coachella performance of Radiohead's "Creep" on YouTube! 

The saga started in 2008, when YouTuber Miles Hartl uploaded a video he’d taken of the performance to his channel. Hours later, the clip was taken down and replaced with a message from Prince’s label, NPG records, claiming copyright violation. 

Considering the song wasn’t Prince’s or NPG’s to begin with, Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke was confused by the entire situation. 

When asked about it in a 2008 interview, Yorke had this to say:

Really? He's blocked it? Surely we should block it. Hang on a moment. Well, tell him to unblock it. It's our... song.

Monday, after seven years of silence on the issue (and seemingly out of the blue), the rocker tweeted a link to Hartl’s original video, live and back in action. 

H/T Digg | Screengrab via Prince/Twitter

Is Justin Bieber using his fans as a dating detective service? The singer posted a picture of a young woman on his Instagram Monday, asking his 47.2 million followers, "Omg who is this!!!"

While he didn't explain why he wanted to know her identity, his Beliebers quickly figured out that she's Cindy Kimberly, who has her own Instagram following. It's a modest 150,000 subscribers. She posts mostly pictures of herself and her art.

H/T Mashable | Illustration via Max Fleishman

On the list itself, six were actual groups, while the other four included awards shows like the iHeart Radio Music Awards (No. 7) and the VMAs (No. 9). Of the six bands to make the cut, only Fifth Harmony (No. 5) and One Direction (No. 1) represented the West—the other four riding the hallyu wave from South Korea.

But who are these K-pop idols continually winning the battle for social media hearts and minds?

Got7

Of the four groups in the top 10, Got7 is the youngest, debuting in 2014. This seven-member boyband ranks as the second most trending hashtag this year. The boys hail from popular label JYP Entertainment and unlike many other groups, have a very multinational, multilingual team with members from Korea, Thailand, America, and Hong Kong. Their name reflects the seven-member count, but also represents luck. So their name really means that they're "seven people who has got luck."

The group has released three singles this year—"Just Right" in June, "If You Do" in September, and their holiday music video, "Confession Song" in November. Got7 also recently performed in the U.S. at the Los Angeles KCON in August.

Exo

A couple spots down at No. 4 sits nine-member boy band Exo. The group from SM Entertainment—a huge rival company to JYP—has been busy at work in 2015. This year, they released their second full-length album, performed all across Asia, recorded a webseries, made a Japanese debut, and can be currently seen promoting Star Wars.

Exo debuted in 2012 and have gained global popularity ever since. In 2015, they've released three music videos—"Call Me Baby" in March, "Love Me Right" in June, and "Lightsaber" in November. They also announced their first ever North American tour, scheduled for February.

방탄소년단 (Bangtan Sonyeondan)

Bangtan Sonyeondan, or BTS for short, ranked sixth on the list of top music trends. They are a seven-member, hip-hop boy group from Big Hit Entertainment, whose name literally translates to "Bulletproof Boy Scouts." In an interview, member J-Hope explains that "bangtan" means "to guard against something." Thus their name implies that they will block against societal pressures, as well as protect their value and worth.

As a hip-hop group, the boys' music style differs from contemporaries like Exo and Got7. However in 2015, they have proved to be formidable contenders in the K-pop world. Allkpop reported today that BTS has either ranked or topped five different Billboard charts with their newest album, despite being from a smaller label.

The group debuted in 2013, and in 2015, BTS released three music videos—"I Need U" in April, "Dope" in June, and "Run" in November. They also recently performed in the U.S. on their Red Bullet tour.

Big Bang

Of all the K-pop groups who broke Twitter's music top 10, Big Bang is the most senior. Despite their long reign, the five-member boy band came in at No. 10. The group comes from the third of K-pop's "big three" companies, YG Entertainment. (SM and JYP are the other two.) 

Although a favorite, Big Bang as a whole was on hiatus for three years, and each of the members pursued solo or sub-group activities instead. In K-pop, individuals usually can't promote as solo artists until their group has established a well-known name, which Big Bang has been doing since 2006. While the Big Bang members have been releasing successful singles on their own since 2012, this year marked their long-awaited comeback with their mini-album series, "Made."

Starting in May, Big Bang released a total of eight music videos. Going until August, the group debuted two music videos on the first of each month. They also toured the U.S. and Canada this fall during their Made World Tour.

Screengrab via jypentertainment/YouTube

Whether it’s a flamboyant best friend or an over-sexed single, gay characters on screen tend to be broadly drawn and fail to resemble reality. But what if straight people were painted with the same broad strokes we use for gay characters?

That’s the premise of a hilarious new webseries from real life gay comedians Kelley Quinn and Chris Burns and gay director Hayley Kosan.

In Straight Marriage, Burns and Quinn star as a perpetually discontent couple who bicker over mundane details, can never remember each other’s star signs, and serve pretzels for dinner.

Burns interjected to correct her: “I would say it’s fun bickering. There’s an Everybody Loves Raymond quality.”

The two recalled that the idea for the series occurred to them one day when Burns was rushing Quinn out of the apartment where she had been dogsitting and the two began riffing.

Spatting at each other like an old married couple, they riffed so hard that they didn’t stop until they parted ways to get on separate trains. But at some point along the way they came up for air and agreed they would film a webseries about straight marriage.

“I want to do an episode where I’m ordering for Kelley in a restaurant,” said Burns.

Although the series is light and comical, both Burns and Quinn have serious thoughts on representation in film and television.

“A show I think does really well with queer representation is Orphan Black,” Quinn said. “I think in general a sitcom-y show is going to paint with broader strokes, so a lot of the shows I love don’t do great with gay stuff.”

“I’d like to see [more characters] where gay isn't the unusual thing but just a character detail,” Burns added.

Said Quinn: “I'm a little weary of fraught coming-out stories. Give me more gay rom-coms! Give me more character arcs where someone struggling to accept their otherness is not the only thing happening in [his or her] life! Queer representation in the media lately seems either to skew very dire or very caricature-y. We’re making progress, but I’d like to see that change.”

In that spirit, give us more wine and more of this hilarious series, please!

Screengrab via Kelley Quinn/YouTube

The Daily Dot is celebrating Woman Crush Wednesday, better known as #WCW onTwitter andInstagram, by highlighting female creators onYouTube whose work we admire.

With Fifth Avenue exploding into a winter wonderland and my YouTube subscription list filling up with Christmas hauls and cookie tutorials I have no ability to execute, I feel confident in announcing the holidays are officially upon us. And this year, instead of relying on Amazon to find that perfect gift for your aunt/doorman/boss/dog walker, look no further than pioneering beauty and fashion vlogger Fleur DeForce.

By the time she was set to graduate university, Fleur’s channel had grown so much that she began making videos full-time, hitting 1.7 million subscribers this year on her main and vlogging channels. Her channel is filled to the brim with hauls, makeup tutorials, outfit inspiration, gift guides, and monthly favorite videos. What sets Fleur apart within the beauty community is her relatability and authenticity as a creator. Her fans trust her completely because when talking to her audience, Fleur is talking to a friend, giving makeup tips and style advice that she’s tested and supports. In her daily vlogs, Fleur is Fleur, sharing both her great and rubbish moments that further support her life motto: Pursuing hardwork and happiness pays off.

Screengrab via Fleur DeForce/YouTube

BY TODD LONGWELL

Following a week of rumors, Amazon unveiled its Streaming Partners Program Tuesday, which enables Prime members to add on a variety of SVOD services and manage them all in one place, and puts those services in front of millions of paying customers who can now subscribe with a just a few clicks.

The program leverages Amazon’s heft as the country’s largest internet retailer, giving it an edge against its biggest competitors, Netflix and Hulu, which, unsurprisingly, are not among the services offered.

As part of the program, Amazon will be offering Prime customers discounts on some subscriptions. For instance, Showtime will be available for $8.99 a month, which is the same price offered to Hulu subscribers, but $2 less than it costs via Apple iTunes Store and Google Play.

Other launch partners include Starz, A+E Network (Lifetime Movie Club), AMC (Shudder and SundanceNow Doc Club), Gaia, RLJ Entertainment (Acorn TV, Urban Movie Channel, Acacia TV), DramaFever (DramaFever Instant), Tribeca Short List, Cinedigm (Dove Channel, Docurama, CONtv), Smithsonian (Smithsonian Earth), IndieFlix (IndieFlix Shorts), Curiosity Stream, Qello, FlixFling (Cinefest, Nature Vision, Warriors and Gangsters, Dox, Monsters and Nightmares), BroadbandTV (Hooplakidz Plus), Defy Media (ScreenJunkies Plus), Gravitas (Film Forum, Daring Docs, Fear Factory) and Ring TV Boxing.

“The way people watch TV is changing, and customers need an easier way to subscribe to and enjoy multiple streaming subscriptions,” said Michael Paull, VP of digital video at Amazon, in a statement. “With the Streaming Partners Program, we’re making it easy for video providers to reach highly engaged Prime members, many of whom are already frequent streamers, and we’re making it easier for viewers to watch their favorite shows and channels.”

For the SVOD services, the Streaming Partners Program has selling other selling points. Amazon will handle all customer service and manage billing and credit card expirations, and provide a reliable streaming infrastructure with compatibility across a multitude of devices.

Read the full article at the Video Ink.

Illustration by Max Fleishman

BY LARRY CARROLL

There is no arguing the fact that Kevin Spacey is one of the greatest actors America has to offer. From Verbal Kint to John Doe to Lester Burnham and Frank Underwood, the man is nothing short of a national treasure, and he has two Oscars on his mantel to prove it. So why, you may be asking, is he infecting your Facebook feed with a sponsored ad?

The House of Cards star is front-and-center for MasterClass, a site that allows celebrities to teach online courses in their chosen professions. But while many people would undoubtedly kill to possess Spacey’s acting chops, one has to ask: Are you really paying to have the legendary star of L.A. Confidential as your personal instructor, or is this some kind of Internet scam?

RELATED: Kevin Spacey reprises ‘House of Cards’ role in this rather odd Chinese shopping commercial

“Learn Kevin’s methods to stand out in the casting room, perfect a monologue, master impressions and more,” the MasterClass site explains, teasing the Spacey sessions for spring 2016. “The star of The Usual Suspects, American Beauty and House of Cards teaches the practical techniques that have made him a stage and screen legend. Pre-order to secure your place.”

The site says you can secure Spacey’s tutelage for $90, or even “Give as a Gift”—because nothing says “merry Christmas” like being taught how to push Zoe Barnes off a train platform convincingly.

The site, which is littered with pictures of Spacey appearing casual and inviting—look, he’s holding a Starbucks cup and wearing a vest!—seems to imply at every turn that the actor is going to be Skyping with you on a nightly basis, yet stops just short of saying so.

Instead, your $90 fee gets you a 40-page downloadable workbook, access to 29 video “lessons” that last more than five hours in total, and “office hours.” But before you head over to the Old Vic for some one-on-one time with Professor Spacey, you might want to read the fine print: You are expected to upload videos of your acting, which will get feedback from “the class” (i.e., another wannabe-actor sitting at a computer somewhere); Spacey himself will “critique select work.”

Browsing through the MasterClass back catalog, additional instructors include professors Usher (who “teaches the art of performance”), Serena Williams (“teaches tennis”), Christina Aguilera (“teaches singing”) and possibly one of the only living thespians out there even more accomplished than Spacey: double Oscar winner Dustin Hoffman, similarly teaching an acting class.

If you want a peek at what Spacey’s “lessons” may entail, watch the video on the site. The actor holds court, doing some of his trademark impressions to off-camera people laughing, and goes on to show him emphatically interacting with unnamed students in a theater and telling them “Farther, farther! Keep it up!” When one student waves her hands too emphatically as she speaks, he puts a chair down and makes her sit in it, saying: “Keep in that mode; sit on your f*****g hands!”

Honestly, watching the slickly edited video, it might just make you want to fork over your 90 bucks. So, is it a scam? Let’s just say that the ad fits right alongside all those posts about religion and politics—be careful what you believe.

Screengrab via MasterClass

Lucky for us, thanks to today's technology, virtually any item of pop culture we miss from the '90s, from Friends to Clueless to My So-Called Life, can be livestreamed on Hulu or Netflix, ordered on Amazon Prime, or has a sequel or re-boot in theaters.

So, remind your loved ones during this holiday that the dream of the '90s doesn't necessarily have to ever end. Fill everyone's stockings with a variety of Clinton-era relics (Bill, that is). 

1) The Magic School Bus "World of Germs" science kit

The dark secret of The Magical School Bus was that no real science teacher could ever stack up to Mrs. Frizzle. I mean, she took her students on a field trip to the inside of another student. This "World of Germs" science kit will teach you how to you grow your own bacteria, make a fungus bubble, use yeast to inflate a balloon, and more. It's how science class was meant to be. 

Available at: Target

2) Space Ghost cross stitch pattern

Price: $8

Available on: Etsy

3) Daria iPhone 6s case

Price: $25.41

Available on: Red Bubble

4) Ninetendo Gameboy mug

Price: $13:95

Available on: Etsy

5) My So Called Life stud earrings

Price: $9

Available on: Etsy

6) Mystery Science Theatre 3000  T-shirt

Price: $20.08

Available at: Spreadshirt

7) Freaks and Geeks nail decals

Price: $7

Available on: Etsy 

8) Fifth Element vinyl figures

Price: $9.99

Available at: ThinkGeek

9) Cher's Outfit from Clueless 

Price: $92.58

Available at: Etsy 

10) Are You Afraid of the Dark?  Samsung Galaxy case

Price: $26.04

Available on: Red Bubble

11) Bob Saget "Thug Life" T-shirt

Price: $12.99

Available at: Etsy

12) Pac-Man heat change mug

Price: $12.15

Available on: Amazon

13) "You've Got Mail" chain necklace

Price: $8.82

Available at: Etsy

14) Tamagotchi 

Price: $14.99

Available at: Amazon

15) Donkey Kong barrel game card storage

Price: $9.99

Available at: Amazon 

16) Salute Your Shorts "Donkey Lips" wall clock

Price: $30

Available at: Society6

17) Power Ranger rug

Price: $28

Available at: Society6

18) Furbacca

Price: $65.71

Available at: Amazon 

19) Star Wars Trapper Keeper 

Available at: Mead.com

20)Seinfeld  hair rug

Price: $28

Available at: Society6

21) Spice Girls makeup bag

Price: $28

Available at: Etsy

22) Floppy disk notebook

Available at: Etsy