February 23, 2021 Disney+ launched their new Star brand. This service is now available in Europe, Australia, New Zealand and Canada.

Content on Star will include Disney Television Studios (ABC Signature and Twentieth Television), FX Productions, 20th Century Studios and Searchlight Pictures.

The Good: Adds more adult fare content, easy to set up.

The Bad: Price increase, although it adds content not sure it warranted the price increase. No way still to browse movies or TV shows in a A-Z style.

If you already have a Disney+ subscription then when you open the app in Canada you’ll be asked to set up all your profiles with access to Star.

As the Star content is more adult fare you will have to enable TV-MA on each profile to gain access to the Start content with a particular profile.

Star content is included with your current Disney+ subscription but it comes with a price increase going from $8.99 per month to $11.99 per month or $119.99 per year.

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First Impressions

A lot of the TV shows on Star come from Hulu which for now will remain a US only service, but some Canadians had hoped that this new service would essentially be Hulu Canada.

At first glance the user interface seems fairly simply and the setup went smoothly. It doesn’t feel like there is much new content.

TV Series

One of the first things we noticed was that you can’t sort or search the content by established channel brands like FX, FXX or Fox.

Instead TV content within the Star section seems to be divided up by a few simple predefined categories. The shows aren’t sorted in alphabetical order either and you can’t seem to sort them that way.

Crime and Mystery Series which includes things like Sons of Anarchy, Stumptown, Criminal Minds, Alias, Revenge, Bones, 911, 911 Lone Star, The X-Files, Lie to Me, Hill Street Blues, Boston Legal and few others as you can see below.

There is also a Drama Series category which includes shows like Homeland, The Resident, Empire, For the People, GCB, My So Called Life, Firefly and some others.

Shows like Sons of Anarchy, 911 and 911 Lone Star also show up again in this category which is a huge pet peeve of ours since it’s a way for a streaming service to pad categories and make it look like there is more than there actually is.

There is also a Bingeable Series section that includes New Girl, Cougar Town, Last Man Standing, Glee, 24, Scrubs, M*A*S*H, How I Met Your Mother and others.

There’s also a Adult Animation series section that includes The Simpsons which was already on Disney+ but adds things like Family Guy, Futurama, Bob’s Burgers and a few others.

Overall there really isn’t a lot of TV series on here especially when you compare the TV shows available on Star against what is in the FX and Fox sections on Hulu.

FX series on Hulu

This is especially true once you start to dive deeper into some of the shows.

As an example the Fox series Bob’s Burgers is now on Disney+ Star but only two seasons are available (Season 9 & 10)

Bob’s Burgers on Disney+ Star in Canada - Seasons 9 & 10

On Hulu though they have every season (Season 1 - 11) and new episodes that air for the current Season 11 show up the next day.

Bob’s Burgers on Hulu on Demand - Seasons 1 - 11

In Canada Bob’s Burgers new episodes are broadcast on CityTV, but the City TV app only has Season 11 episodes and you need to log in with a cable subscription

Of course in Canada if you want to watch Seasons 1 - 8 of Bob’s Burgers then you’ll need an Amazon Prime Canada subscription.

Bob’s Burgers on Amazon Prime Canada - Season 1 - 8

This is a common theme with a few shows on Disney+ Star. Another example of this is with the show 911 Lone Star. Only Season 1 is available.

On Hulu though again both Season 1 & 2 are available, with new episodes showing up next day after air.

Hulu on Demand 911 Lone Star - Seasons 1 & 2

So if you want to watch Season 2 in Canada you need to use the CTV app but only the most recent episode is free, older episodes require a cable provide log in and password.

So anyone thinking that Star from Disney+ is going to be Hulu Canada is going to be sadly disappointed.

It shows you how fragmented the rights for all these Fox shows are with pre existing deals in place with Canadian networks like CTV, CityTV and Global.

It doesn’t get much better with FX and FXX shows. So far FX shows that are missing from Star include Atlanta, The Americans, American Horror Story, Archer, Baskets, Better Things, Devs, The Comedians, Fargo, Feud, Justified, Legion, New York Times Presents, Nip Tuck, Pose, Rescue Me, Trust, What We Do in the Shadows, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, The Assassination of Gianni Versace, You’re The Worst, Wilfred, FX Hip Hop Uncovered, Mrs America, Dave, Breeders, Mayans, Fosse Verdon, Damages, Married, The Shield and The People v. O. J. Simpson: American Crime Story.

Muh of FX and FXX content is currently owned by Rogers in Canada who has a FX Now streaming app but you have to have cable to use it and it doesn’t have full seasons of any of these shows on it. In all honesty Rogers has ignored this network and it’s great content library for years since they shut down Shomi.

We did find one odd FX show. The League, but it doesn’t show up in the Star section under any of the predefined categories, instead you can only find it if you use the search function.

Maybe over time this may change but Hulu in our opinion is still the better offering if it’s TV series your after as it costs $11.99 US a month for the commercial free version but also has content from other networks including NBC, ABC and CBS on top of the Fox and FX content.

It remains to be seen what Star on Disney will grow into with TV Series.

Movies

We’re still going through the movie collection, check back later this week.

Disney+ Adds Star in Canada

First Impressions

TV Series

Movies