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Tubi, the free streaming service owned by Fox, could become more popular than Disney Plus if current trends continue. According to a new report by Bloomberg, the FAST (Free Ad-Supported TV) service is already racking up more viewing hours than Peacock, Max and Paramount Plus, and it’s on track to eclipse Disney Plus too. In the US, Tubi’s viewers have increased their viewing from 1% of all streaming TV viewing time to 1.7%, and that shows no signs of slowing.
According to The Verge, however, it’s possible that those hours might not be active viewing – that is, people sitting down to consciously watch a specific show. Instead, viewers may just have the channel on as a background thing. It’s what The Verge describes as “low-stakes viewing [that] a lot of people prefer to veg out to”.
That’s not to say there aren’t some great shows on Tubi, though. There are, and these are some of our favorites – not including Columbo, because of course everybody loves that one already.
Luther
Luther manages to stay just on the right side of absolute ridiculousness in its tale of a cop who – wait for it – breaks the rules and does whatever it takes to catch the bad guys, and often feels quite sad and angry about stuff. The criminals are really nasty, the London setting feels claustrophobic and the whole ludicrous enterprise is held together by the sheer charisma of Idris Elba in the lead role.
Luther is one of several really great UK cop shows on Tubi. We’d also recommend Line of Duty and The Fall, which features a magical performance by Gillian Anderson. But if you fancy something more quirky, Tubi has that too…
Midsomer Murders
The gentle county of Midsomer in England has a body count that Quentin Tarantino might consider a bit much. After 23 seasons of slow-burning crime drama, the show remains reassuringly, eccentrically bloodthirsty, so much so that if it were a real place we’d have cordoned it off by now and nuked it from orbit to keep everyone else safe.
Broadchurch
From the slightly ridiculous to the utterly harrowing. Broadchurch is another British crime show, but its three seasons are very dark and often very sad. The first season features two Doctor Who’s: Jodie Whittaker as a grieving mother and David Tennant as the detective investigating her son’s death. As if that wasn’t good enough, the second detective on the case is Olivia Colman and one of the press pack hounding the cops and the grieving family is Vicky McClure. This is proper grown-up television and it’s one of our favorite shows from recent years.
Alone
Tubi isn’t just British cops staring moodily into space, although there’s definitely lots of that. It’s also home to fun shows such as The History Channel’s Alone, which serves up 10 seasons of survival-based reality TV. The 10th season is set in Northern Canada and features bears, wolves, moose and a few humans too.
Pride and Prejudice
This gorgeous adaptation of the beloved Jane Austen novel features Colin Firth as the wet-shirted lust object Mr Darcy and Jennifer Ehle as Elizabeth Bennet. Variety called it “a delight”, while Entertainment Weekly called it “sumptious”, saying that “the five-hour adaptation – yes, meticulous in its attention to period detail; yes, lovingly respectful of the text; oh, yes!…with that eye-popping scene of Colin Firth’s Mr. Darcy stripping down for an impromptu swim — is meant for a luxurious Sunday afternoon of swooning on the sofa, preferably with a cat (borrow one from the neighbors if you need to) and a bottle of chardonnay.”