Paramount+ launch bids farewell to CBS All Access; our guide to what’s available and coming soon

Paramount+ Launch Opinion

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Paramount+ Launch Opinion

Today we bid farewell to CBS All Access and celebrate the launch of Paramount+ into the wide world of available streaming services!

For myself, it ushers in a long-awaited moment where I log into my TV provider account and cancel my ball-and-chain streaming package! That's about $50 buckaroos per month returning to my pocketbook. It's a beautiful day, my friends!

That's all because the streaming service by ViacomCBS will expand to include content not only from the vast media network (including CBS, Nickelodeon, MTV, BET, Comedy Central, and The Smithsonian Channel) but also launch with new must-see shows and reboots, as well as exclusive movies and a reduced theater-run window for Paramount blockbusters (more on this in a minute). That's over 30,000 episodes of TV, 2,500 films, and over 1,000 live sporting events and 24/7 news coverage for less than the price of a Venti Pumpkin Spice Latte from Starbucks (or two if you don't want to be bothered with ads). The value add means I no longer need an outrageously expensive TV subscription crammed with content I don't watch. I can get exactly what I want with Paramount+ plus a few other streamers for a heck of a lot less money.

For U.S. customers, Paramount+ offers a premium plan priced at $9.99/month, and an ad-supported plan for $5.99/month. Movie Reelist readers can get 1 month of Paramount+ for FREE through our affiliate link here!

I have younger children, and those kids adore Spongebob Squarepants. My youngest was devastated the day The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge On The Run got scrubbed from the release calendar due to Coronavirus. The film is available and streaming today on Paramount+ and joined by a 13-episode spinoff series called Kamp Koral: SpongeBob's Under Years. It's Spongebob's first spinoff in 22 years!

My wife loves Kevin Costner and everything about his Yellowstone series. The show's creator, Taylor Sheridon, has landed multiple deals on the streamer, including two spinoffs, the first called Y:1883 and the latter working title 6666. He's also gifting us an oil fortune show set in West Texas called Land Man, and Mayor of Kingstown, a drama about the business of incarceration in Kingstown, Michigan.

If you're one of my regular readers, you know I'm a science fiction nut. I've been pausing and unpausing my CBS All Access account with the release of new seasons of Star Trek: Discovery and Star Trek: Picard. The universe will expand again with the release of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. Fans will delight in the early adventures of the Enterprise back when Captain Christopher Pike helmed the famous starship. And now is a great time to introduce kids to the franchise with the youth-based animated series Star Trek: Prodigy.

Other exciting additions include Kelsey Grammer's return. He reprises his role as Dr. Frasier Crane in the Frasier reboot. There's also a rework of classic film's The Italian Job and Flashdance as episodic series. The human race will fight the alien Covenant by adapting the uber-popular Xbox franchise hit Halo. Live-action adaptations will also come to Dora the Explorer and Rugrats!

Oh, and about that new movie release window; while it could change in the future, ViacomCBS is shortening the theatrical release window due to the ongoing pandemic. New movies will arrive on Paramount+ within 30 to 45 days after hitting theaters. That means upcoming movies like Top Gun: Maverick, A Quiet Place II, Transformers 7 and many more will arrive on home screens much much earlier than ever before!

There's something for everyone in our family with the launch of Paramount+. What will you be watching? We'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments section below.

Paramount+ Launch Press Release

Official show and film descriptions provided by ViacomCBS/Paramount+. Stay tuned for release dates.

• Frasier – Frasier’s back – and he’s more exactly the same than ever. Kelsey Grammer reprises his role as the Dr. Frasier Crane.


• Grease: The Rise of the Pink Ladies – with both classic and new songs, and a diverse cast, the series is a prequel to the unforgettable musical film, Grease, and tells the story of how Frenchy’s older sister, Jane, founded the Pink Ladies. The series, from Paramount Television Studios, is executive produced by Annabel Oakes (Atypical, Transparent), Marty Bowen (Twilight) and Erik Feig (La La Land).


• Guilty Party – a dark comedy starring Kate Beckinsale as a discredited journalist who finds herself in over her head when she latches onto the story of a young mother sentenced to life in jail for murdering her husband – a crime she claims she didn’t commit.


• Inside Amy Schumer – the Peabody, Emmy, and Writers Guild Award-winning franchise returns with five specials starring Amy Schumer, one of the entertainment industry’s leading forces as a stand-up comedian, actress, writer, producer and director.


• Reno 911! The Hunt For QAnon – a super-sized event based off the long-running hit, critically-acclaimed Comedy Central series. Most recently, Reno 911! received two 2020 Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Short Form Comedy or Drama Series and for Outstanding Actress in A Short Form Comedy or Drama Series (Kerri Kenney-Silver). In 2021, the show is nominated for a Critics Choice Award.


• The Game – the popular BET sitcom returns with a mix of original cast and new players, and will offer a modern-day examination of Black culture through the prism of pro football.


• The Harper House – an animated family comedy that follows an overconfident female head of a household as she struggles to regain a higher status for herself and for her family of oddballs after losing her job and moving from the rich side to the poor side of an Arkansas small town.


• The Weekly Show with Trevor Noah (Working Title) – Trevor Noah will star in and produce an initial six episode series looking at stories across the societal landscape and talk with the people behind the headlines: people you know; people you don’t know; and people you didn’t even know you didn’t know.


• Younger – Darren Star’s critically acclaimed smash-hit, Younger, follows Liza Miller (Sutton Foster), a talented editor navigating the highly competitive world of publishing — while juggling the complications of mixing business with pleasure and facing the lie she created about her age to land her dream job.


• Criminal Minds – top rated series in broadcast and streaming returns with a new scripted series that brings the team back together to investigate a single, fascinating case over 10 episodes.


• Flashdance – a young woman struggles to make her mark in the ballet world while navigating romance, money, art, friendship, and how to love herself. Award-winning Mad Men writer Tracy McMillan is writing and executive producing the drama series which will pick up from where the story left off, but in present-day. True Blood’s Angela Robinson will direct and executive produce the series with Lynda Obst.


• Halo – based on the iconic Xbox franchise, Halo’s epic universe and cast of characters come to life in this new original drama series. In the new television adaptation, Halo will take place in the universe that first came to be in 2001, dramatizing an epic 26th-century conflict between humanity and an alien threat known as the Covenant. Halo will weave deeply drawn personal stories with action, adventure and a richly imagined vision of the future.


• Land Man – set in the proverbial boomtowns of West Texas, Land Man is a modern-day tale of fortune seeking in the world of oil rigs. The series is an upstairs/downstairs story of roughnecks and wildcat billionaires fueling a boom so big, it’s reshaping our climate, our economy and our geopolitics.


• Love Story – Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage, the executive producers of Gossip Girl, The O.C. and Looking for Alaska, are bringing to Paramount+ a series based on the award-winning perennial film, Love Story.


• Mayor of Kingstown – follows the McLusky family, power brokers in Kingstown, Michigan, where the business of incarceration is the only thriving industry. Tackling themes of systemic racism, corruption and inequality, the series provides a stark look at their attempt to bring order and justice to a town that has neither.


• Star Trek: Strange New Worlds – the next installment of the popular Star Trek franchise is based on the years Captain Christopher Pike manned the helm of the U.S.S. Enterprise. The series will follow Captain Pike, Science Officer Spock and Number One in the decade before Captain Kirk boarded the U.S.S. Enterprise.


• The Italian Job – when the grandchildren of the legendary Charlie Croker inherit his old safety deposit box, the quest for the infamous Italian bullion is reignited. The series, from Paramount Television Studios, is executive produced and written by Matt Wheeler (Hawaii Five-0), and produced by Donald De Line.


• The Man Who Fell To Earth – starring Oscar-nominee and BAFTA-winner Chiwetel Ejiofor, is based on the Walter Tevis novel of the same name and the iconic film starring David Bowie. The series will follow a new alien character who arrives on Earth at a turning point in human evolution, and must confront his own past to determine our future.


• The Offer – a scripted limited event series from Paramount Television Studios, based on Oscar-winning producer Al Ruddy’s extraordinary, never-revealed experiences of making The Godfather. The 10-episode event series is written and executive produced by Michael Tolkin (Escape at Dannemora, The Player). Ruddy will also serve as executive producer, alongside showrunner Nikki Toscano (Hunters), and Emmy® Award-winning producer Leslie Greif (Hatfields & McCoys).
  The Parallax View – a scripted series from Paramount Television Studios, based on the iconic film. The series will be executive produced by Paula Wagner.


• Y:1883 – follows the Dutton family as they embark on a journey west through the Great Plains toward the last bastion of untamed America. It is a stark retelling of Western expansion, and an intense study of one.


• Yellowstone Spinoff, 6666 (Working Title) – founded when Comanches still ruled West Texas, no ranch in America is more steeped in the history of the West than the 6666. Still operating as it did two centuries before, and encompassing an entire county, the 6666 is where the rule of law and the laws of nature merge in a place where the most dangerous thing one does is the next thing… The 6666 is synonymous with the merciless endeavor to raise the finest horses and livestock in the world, and ultimately where world class cowboys are born and made.


• Avatar – Nickelodeon’s new animation studio division dedicated entirely to creating content based on the wildly popular world of Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra. Led by the series’ original creators Mike DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko, in partnership with the Nickelodeon Animation Studio, Avatar Studios will produce for Paramount+ a wide-range of Avatar-inspired content, ranging from spinoffs and theatricals to short form.


• Dora the Explorer – a new live-action series based on the iconic character, designed for an older audience of kids 6-11 and their families.


• iCarly – a new chapter for the most successful kids’ sitcom of all time, where original cast members Miranda Cosgrove, Nathan Kress and Jerry Trainor join new friends for a look at these characters’ present-day lives, adventures and comedic mishaps.


• Kamp Koral: SpongeBob’s Under Years – the first-ever spinoff of SpongeBob SquarePants, Kamp Koral is a CG animated original series that takes viewers back to when the iconic characters of Bikini Bottom met for the very first time, in a summer camp like no other.


• Rugrats – an all-new series featuring Nick’s iconic babies, back together with the original voice cast in new CG animation.


• Star Trek: Prodigy – the first-ever Star Trek for the kids and family audience, combining the Nickelodeon sensibility with the action and adventure hallmarks of the Star Trek franchise.


• The Fairly OddParents – a live-action take on one of Nick’s longest running and most successful animated hits.


• Big Brother Live Feeds – offers an in-depth, exclusive pass to the show where fans have the opportunity to watch all the action inside the Big Brother house.


• Dating Naked – the most vulnerable social experiment returns to bring dating back to its most honest, unguarded and naked form. Can these modern daters strip back their preconceived notions, carefully curated images AND their clothes to reveal their true selves and find love?


• Ink Master – the tattoo competition reality series where some of the nation’s top tattoo artists battle it out in various tattoo challenges that not only test the artists’ technical skills, but also their on-the-spot creativity for the title of Ink Master.


• Love Island on Paramount+ – an extension of the popular CBS reality series that takes subscribers beyond the boundaries of what’s shown in the broadcast with exclusive content and live visits to the Villa.


• Queen of the Universe – in a singing competition like no other, drag queens from all around the world compete to see who is Queen of the Universe. High heels, high octaves, high competition – this drag queen singing competition will blow your wig off. From Emmy Award-winning production company, World of Wonder.


• Road Rules – back with a new roster of Road Warriors. These strangers will be abandoned in a far-flung location and stripped of their modern-day luxuries by boarding a restricted life in an RV, traveling from location to location. They will be guided by a set of clues, odd jobs and missions for money. If they last to the end of the trip, they walk away with the life changing prize.


• RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars – the best of the best from the Emmy Award-winning RuPaul’s Drag Race return to compete for $100,000 and a coveted spot in the Drag Race Hall of Fame. In each episode, legendary queens will battle it out until only one drag queen is crowned the winner.


• The Challenge: All Stars – twenty-two of the most iconic, boldest, and fiercest Challenge All Stars from the original Real World and Road Rules have been selected to return for a second chance at the ultimate competition. All have history, but when relationships are the key to survival, will these legends be able to form new bonds or will their past lead to their demise? With $500,0000 and their legacies on the line, which of these All Stars will prove they are still the best of the best?


• Behind the Music – Behind the Music is back! The groundbreaking and prolific music documentary series returns with several new episodes and the best of the vault remastered and updated for today’s audiences with artist interviews, a creative refresh and reimagined visual style.


• From Cradle to Stage – this new six-part, unscripted television series from Director Dave Grohl was inspired by his mother, Virginia Hanlon Grohl, and based on her critically-acclaimed book, From Cradle to Stage: Stories from the Mothers Who Rocked and Raised Rock Stars. The series is a dynamic personal exploration of the special relationship between successful musicians and their moms. Each episode features a famous performer and their mom as well as Dave and Virginia.


• Unplugged – MTV’s most iconic musical performance franchise will come to Paramount+ several times a year as special intimate MTV Unplugged events featuring some of the world’s biggest artists.


• Yo! MTV Raps – MTV is bringing back its most storied hip-hop series and music franchise Yo! MTV Raps for Paramount+. The return of Yo! MTV Raps will include hosted segments, live performances, cyphers and lifestyle content, and will serve as a comprehensive deep dive into the current state of hip-hop. After its debut 33 years ago on August 6, 1988, Yo! MTV Raps became the premiere destination for all things hip-hop. The advent of the series was crucial to the rise of rap music worldwide, creating a global passion for the genre and greater hip-hop culture, which has since become the most dominant force in mainstream music and pop culture worldwide.


• The Real World: Homecoming: New York – almost 30 years later, the original “seven strangers” that paved the way for modern reality TV are moving back into the New York loft where it all began. Viewers will be reunited with the cast from the very first season of The Real World in a brand new multi-episode docuseries to find out, once again, what happens when they stop being polite… and start getting real. Series begins streaming on Thursday, March 4th.