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I Haven’t Been on Disney+ Since ‘The Mandalorian’ Ended
As it turns out, that initial nostalgia trip can only take you so far.
A few days ago, I turned on my Roku stick and was scrolling through my channels. I got to the Disney+ app, considered opening it for about three seconds, and then went back up to Netflix to find something to watch. It struck me as odd; November and December were dominated by Disney’s streaming service. Now, however, I find myself with very little desire to open that app. So what happened?
Well, the reason I kept coming back every week ended. The Mandalorian finished its eight-episode first season, and ever since, Friday nights have been taken up by something different. I also burned through most of the series that brought me a sweet sense of childhood nostalgia. In the early days of Disney+, I wrote a piece about Disney using nostalgia to essentially grab us by the wallets. Well, as it turns out, that can only take them so far.
Sure, all of the Star Wars, Marvel, and Pixar offerings are there, but as a film collector, I already had all of those. The thing that hooked myself — and a lot of people — on Disney+ was the Disney Channel shows from our childhoods. Between Lizzie MacGuire simply not being as good as I remembered and my weeklong binges of Even Stevens and Kim Possible, I got…