Watching TV Online - Part 3 Of 4

In Parts 1 and 2 of this series, I informed you of the online options you had for viewing full episodes of some of your favorite shows on ABC, CBS, and FOX. In this Part 3, I'll tell you about what NBC has to offer as well as some of your other favorite channels. Strap in because it's going to be a bumpy ride!

The only rival CBS has when it comes to the sheer amount of programming available online is NBC. Are you a fan of Jay Leno and Conan O'Brien? If so, you'll be happy to know you can catch up with those late night leaders right from NBC's video page. What about shows like The Office, My Name Is Earl, or Heroes? You can watch those too along with other NBC favorites like Chuck, Las Vegas, American Gladiators, and Friday Night Lights. Like CBS, you can also watch some classic TV programming at NBC's site as well. There's The Alfred Hitchcock Hour and Buck Rogers to The A-Team and Miami Vice available for you to watch again or even discover for the very first time.

The quality of all of the videos offered is pretty decent and, except for having to watch a thirty-second ad at the beginning of each episode and several times throughout, the experience is OK. NBC really pushes a service they offer called NBC Direct that allows you to download episodes to your computer to watch later when you're not connected to the internet. That's great and all but if you click on the link while watching Miami Vice, for example, what you get won't be that episode of Miami's famous crime-fighting duo. Instead, you'll discover that you can only use NBC Direct with the a few shows. Expect to really only be able it to use it to watch Jay Leno and Conan though. Overall, NBC's site isn't that disappointing but one of its biggest downfalls for me is that they don't offer any of the Law & Order full episodes or even Saturday Night Live up for viewing.

The baby network, The CW, offers very little on its site right now. That is especially frustrating because just six months ago they offered up so many more shows. Going to their video section you'll really only find full episodes of Everybody Hates Chris, Beauty And The Geek, and Girlfriends available for viewing. They used to offer Smallville and Gossip Girl but they've taken those shows away from their fans online. In fact, the CW caused a little mini revolt with their fans when they recently chose to remove Gossip Girl. Stupidly, they think only the fans are going to be the ones to suffer from that action.

When it comes to watching full episodes put out by the higher up cable channels, it's a real hit but mostly miss experience. There are clunky and bloated sites with a fairly good amount of available shows to pretty and streamlined sites with next to nothing on them. Well, at least when it comes to full episodes of anything. While that is to be expected because of their cable status, some of these channels don't even throw their viewers a single bone. Not a bone that I can find anyway.

Not surprisingly, MTV comes out way on top when it comes to the amount of popular present and past programming offered online. To check out their offerings, follow that link I just posted and find the show you're interested in. Once you're at that show's main page, you can find its full episodes available by clicking on the corresponding link on the left side of the page. MTV offers everything from The Hills, The Real World, True Life, and The Paper to even Two-A-Days and Beavis & Butt-Head.

You would expect VH1 to follow MTV's lead in this arena but that's not the case. Sadly, most of what VH1 serves up are only short clips. The few shows that are able to be watched in their entirety are split up into sections. I don't really have a problem with a site splitting up a show because I'm sure it helps with their site's operational costs but at least offer up a few of the popular shows.

The USA network does offer some of their most popular original programming with Monk and Psych. But that's half of their online offerings. You got it, they only offer four different shows. A&E offers only four shows itself. Three of them are viewer favorites though: Intervention, The First 48, and Gene Simmons Family Jewels. What a bummer that Inked or Crime 360 aren't offered.

LifetimeTV doesn't do too bad of a job. Their selection includes shows like How To Look Good Naked, America's Psychic Challenge, and Matched In Manhattan along with several others. The Discovery channel, TLC, and Animal Planet all receive failing grades by only offering four shows between them. And to watch any of those four shows you have to use their special player. If you're a fan of The Alaska Experiment, Verminators, What Not To Wear, or Groomer Has It then perhaps it's worth it to you.

Those of you with young children are probably already familiar with The Disney Channel's and Nickelodeon's horrible websites. Talk about blinding you with their graphics and slowing your computer to a crawl! But if your kid is clamoring for some Hannah Montana, Corey In The House, or That's So Raven it's their for their viewing on Disney's site. Are they a SpongeBob SquarePants fan? They can find that sponge that lives in a pineapple under the sea right here.

Back to more adult programming, the amount of online programming offered by the SciFi channel and TNT is embarrassingly slim. Both of them may as well not put up any shows online at all. The SciFi channel offers a single episode of Ghost Hunters and only a few episodes of Battlestar Galactica along with five episodes of some show called Eureka. And TNT? You can forget about watching The Closer or Saving Grace online legally. Only if you're a fan of Charmed will you be happy.

One of my favorite channels, the History channel, offers five shows online. If you're a fan of Ax Men and UFO Hunters you'll be happy but if you're a fan of Ice Road Truckers like I am then you'd better remember to watch or record them when they are televised. The History channel's saving grace, if you will, is their overall website. There is so much outside of television programming offered online that I find myself at their site at least twice a week. The same goes with NatGeo (National Geographic) even though they only offer clips of shows. But both of these sites are so nicely designed that I find it hard to tear myself away from them once I'm there.

Do you have an interest in a particular program or channel that I didn't cover? Search for their website using your favorite search engine and see how well you fare. Post back here with a comment and let me know how successful you were in your search. I'm sure others would love to know what you were able to come across.

Tomorrow, I'm going to wrap up this series by going over some sites that you can go to and legally find a ton of programming all in one shot. For those of you interested in watching your shows on the go, I'll point out some options that may be available to you. Until then everybody!