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New Streaming Service Discovery+ Is Where To Get Your 90 Day Fiance Fix (And That’s Okay)
Seemingly out of nowhere, Discovery+ was upon us. A new direct-to-consumer platform that includes a smorgasbord of the Discovery portfolio’s streaming and linear networks (including HGTV, ID, Food Network, TLC, Discovery Channel, Animal Planet and OWN), it was announced seemingly out of the blue a month before its domestic debut (it has been available since March 2020 in India and is already in England, the Netherlands and several Eastern European countries). Discovery+, which is often, hilariously, abbreviated to D+ (in an attempt, perhaps, to drift off the goodwill of Disney’s streaming juggernaut), aims to provide low-impact comfort food — the kind of service where, for $5 (with commercials) or $7 (without commercials), you can lose an entire afternoon to one of the many 90 Day Fiancé iterations (including several that are exclusive to the new streaming service) without knowing it. And, for now at least, that’s okay.
Discovery+’s interface is clean and intuitive; it’s divided thematically at the top (for things like “relationships” and “true crime”) and then by the actual networks/brands below, making it very easy to jump to a certain brand or channel’s programming (did you know there were Australian, British, and “Bridesmaids” spinoffs of Say Yes to the Dress? Well you do now). There are also original programs on Discovery+ across the various brands, many of which ping off of existing Discovery portfolio properties. In that way, it’s not dissimilar from the approach other brands like HBO Max or Disney+ have trotted out – originally programming based on recognizable properties, a smattering of outwardly new (but still accessible) content, and a deep bench of catalog material to sift through.
What separates Discovery+ is how much it leans into those earlier properties and how little it attempts to even remotely rewire what already works. It’s just more of the same – high-calorie junk that you can spend all day shoveling into your mouth without ever truly being full. And, again, that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
