When I was six, watching television was easy. I would roll into the living room on my plastic Ride On Fire Truck and park next to the couch where my parents would be nestled, my father pointing the four-button Zenith Space Command remote control channel changer at the only television in the house. Deciding what to watch took seconds. We had four channels, fifteen shows that played at specific times, and two decision makers, my parents, the only ones in the room with money to pay the cable bill and thumbs strong enough to push the Zenith’s buttons. Together, our family journeyed through Little House on The Prairie, The Jeffersons, Happy Days, Wonder Woman, and Mary Tyler Moore. “Binging” a series did not happen. Shows played once a week and programming stopped at midnight, the end marked by thirty-seconds of station identification, one-minute of O Canada, and forty-five seconds of static, coloured test bars. After that, the television turned into a crackling box of fuzz until programming resumed sometime close to noon the next day. Staying awake past the fuzz was so contrary to the moral order that the only place you would spot someone slumped in a lounge chair with the television crackling was in a horror film.

Had Brock and I decided in 1976 to watch a movie called Bonhoeffer, it would have been because the paper TV Guide told us a movie called Bonhoeffer was showing on one of four channels during one of five time slots. We would have arrived at the couch on time, nestled in, and happily watched our movie.

However, it was not in 1976, but in 2025, that Brock and I decided to watch a movie called Bonhoeffer, the true story of a Lutheran pastor who joined a plot to assassinate Hitler. We did not pick the movie because we knew it was playing on a certain streaming service at a certain time. We picked it because while listening to a podcast on my way home from Toronto one day, I heard a guest from Manhattan recommend it to a host in Florida. At least we knew what we wanted to watch. Deciding may have been quick in 1976, but in 2025 it can take anywhere from five minutes to five days to no decision at all as everyone grabs their device and scatters to different rooms to watch what they want.

Brock and I curled into our respective ends of the sofa, me next to the shelves I steadily populate with books I will never live long enough to read, and Brock next to the end table he steadily populates with reading glasses, phone chargers, and random pieces of hardware one never needs while sitting on the couch. Detaching from our individual devices to watch a movie together had sparked a joy in me akin to being seven years old and allowed to stay up late and watch Charlie’s Angels. With a flourish that would feather Farrah Fawcett’s hair, I raised the remote to find Bonhoeffer in the Roku television search field.

Several options with accompanying thumbnail images popped up on the right-hand side of the screen. Three documentaries, one mini-series, a film from Angel Studios whose thumbnail featured a young man with wide blue eyes behind round, 1940’s-era spectacles, and for no reason I could detect, Minions. Recognizing Angel Studios from the podcast, I knew wide eyes and round spectacles was the movie we wanted.

While I had chosen to search Roku, Brock had decided to search the world.

“Siri, where can I watch Bonhoeffer?” Brock asked iPhone like Captain Kirk asking Scotty to find more power.

“Got it!” I announced, winning the first leg of this Battle of the Network Stars and hovering the remote control in the air to point at the screen.

Brock looked up from his phone.

“It’s on Hoopla.” I paused. “Do we have Hoopla?” I paused again. “What is Hoopla?”

“No clue,” Brock answered. He paused and then, “Let’s download it.”

I clicked “Install” and then clicked “Agree” to a wall of legalese that was Hoopla’s Terms and Conditions and, for all we knew, lifetime rights for this mystery streaming service to sell our data, our house, or our functioning organs. Never mind. We were getting closer to our movie. Within seconds Hoopla was installed, a new button was added to the growing list on Roku, and I was clicking to open it.

“Sign in with your library card,” directed the home screen, the orange-font message sitting neatly under a giant Hoopla logo.

“Library card?” I reached for my phone. “I’ll get one.”

A minute later, I was on the Burlington Public Library page and down that rabbit hole that is called Enter Your Personal Information. I clicked on the first field of seven, thinking this would take no longer than a 1976 commercial break, and typed my name.

“I have a library card,” Brock broke my trance. I looked up. The thumbs he had poised over his phone froze. “I don’t remember my password.”

I watched as he typed, trying different passwords and finally succumbing to “Forgot My Password.” He clicked into his email, reset his password, and popped back to the library’s website to login.

Faster than Hal could lock a pod bay door, Hoopla replaced the orange-font message with a spinning blue and white circle. At last, the screen showed us what we wanted to see, what Roku had promised, wide blue eyes behind round spectacles, and the name, Bonhoeffer.

Joy and calm returned. We set down our phones, united our attention spans once again, and relaxed into the sofa. I hit play.

Two minutes later, I was reaching for the remote. “This is not the right movie.”

What had played was black and white footage of real Nazi soldiers marching, clips of the real Hitler shouting, and the style of dramatic voice-over only found in Gillette razorblade commercials and World War II documentaries. No wide eyes and round spectacles to be seen.

I clicked to exit. There was the correct thumbnail: wide eyes and round spectacles. I hit play. Nazis marching. Exit. Wide eyes. Play. Nazis marching. Brock, dismissing Hoopla for the bumbling fool it was shaping up to be, picked up his phone and with a gravitas that would intimidate a Klingon, commenced multilateral talks with Siri and the public library app.

“This would never happen with the paper TV Guide,” I grumbled, realizing we could have watched an episode of Welcome Back Kotter by now. Wishing for 1976 but stuck in 2025, I left Hoopla and headed back to the Roku search page to start the battle again.

In my mind’s eye, I could see the 1976 version of my father watching us over the buttons of his Zenith Space Command remote control channel changer chuckling at me at one end of the couch Googling, “Stream Bonhoeffer in Canada no marching Nazis” and Brock at the other end asking Siri to forget about Hoopla and find the damn movie. While we grappled with QR codes and two-factor verification, my 1976 father would wrap his arm around my mother and, with a mightiness of thumb not seen since metal gave way to plastic, execute three clicks to reach Laverne and Shirley. Nineteen seventy-six me would dangle my bare feet over the edge of the couch, hoping I could stay up late enough to see Charlie’s Angels. Maybe even O Canada. Or God and my parents willing, those static, coloured bars.

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