For many weeks this summer/fall and into the 4th quarter, I have regularly enjoyed watching episodes of the first 3 seasons of Arrested Development on the Roku Channel. (To be clear, these are the original seasons that aired on Fox before the production moved over to Netflix,) I watched perhaps two dozen episodes, each one for free, and through November I got somewhere deep into season 2. Each episode included those little 1.5 minute commercial breaks -- the ones you can't fast-forward through as you get with the Roku Chanel free shows. I even had Arrested saved in my Roku Channel Save List so that I could easily return and watch the next consecutive episode. All good.
But starting Thu 12/1 evening when I went to my Roku Channel Save List, I discovered that Arrested wasn't there. Moreover, it suddenly didn't appear in Roku Channel Search, either. Of course, a search using my Roku *device's* Search found the series available for a fee by adding Netflix or Hulu and subscribing to the series. (I already knew anyone could do that.)
On the evening I couldn't find AD in my Roku Channel Save List or its Search, it didn't occur to me that that evening was the very first day of a calendar month. Even now I have no idea if that's just coincidence. But now it sort of feels like some switch flipped at Roku at midnight and Arrested was deleted altogether. And if that's the case, um, well OK then. But what's particularly irritating is that I got absolutely no advance warning. It just vanished without notice from my Save List and from Roku Channel Search.
I chatted with Roku Support and could get nothing more than verification that AD is only available for a fee on other platforms and that my device can add those channels. My front line rep wasn't able to explain my experience or even confirm that such a sudden change actually happened on my Roku Channel in my account. All that she could do was confirm to me that Arrested isn't on Roku Channel as of our chat plus say she'd relay my concerns as feedback. No way to open a trouble ticket that might get me a more definitive answer (or perhaps launch a technical investigation that might reveal some programming change error got made as the calendar month flipped from Nov to Dec). So, that absence of a two-way feedback loop was equally disappointing.
Something tells me this was a conscious deletion by Roku Channel and likely for some defensible reason. But after so many weeks of watching a free access TV series from the first episode forward, it's really jarring to have it get withdrawn suddenly plus with neither warning before nor explanation after. Not a good Roku Channel user experience!
Now this experience makes me wonder whether other free content I'm now enjoying on the Roku Channel will likewise suddenly go away randomly... Has anyone else had a similar experience with any other TV series carried on the Roku Channel? Or likewise lose your access to Arrested Development starting around 12/1/2022?
