American Hostage Is Good TV Trapped Behind an $7.99 Paywall

The Times' chief television critic, James Poniewozik, has put a price tag on the streaming era's central problem: $7.99 a month, the cost of MGM+ (the service formerly known as Epix), and the only way to watch the new series "American Hostage." His verdict is blunt — the show is worth watching, and most people won't, because reaching for the wallet one more time is the price of admission.

Poniewozik laid out his case in a critic's notebook for The New York Times titled "Can You Afford to Watch TV?" His argument: streaming has delivered a wealth of excellent programming while quietly rebuilding the class system that cable once dismantled.

What's the show at the center of the argument?

"American Hostage" premiered a little over a month ago on MGM+. It dramatizes a real-life armed standoff at an Indiana mortgage office in 1977. Poniewozik calls it "one of those out-of-nowhere surprises I love to discover as a TV critic," praising committed performances from Jon Hamm and Giovanni Ribisi and noting it has "eerily timely things to say about the frustrations of the powerless with the powerful." His advice is direct: "You should watch it if you can. Which you probably can't, unless you reach into your wallet, one more time."

Why does one critic's price math matter?

Poniewozik admits that TV critics don't traditionally weigh cost when deciding what to cover. "This isn't restaurant criticism," he writes. But he argues the comparison has become unavoidable: TV consumption now "feel[s] like high-end dining, with no limit of upcharges and price hikes and caviar supplements sending the tab to the heavens." He also warns that many plans come in multiple configurations — monthly or annual, with or without ads, bundled variously — and that readers "may want a calculator." The $7.99 for MGM+ sits on top of what he calls an "endlessly scrolling list of subscriptions you probably already have."

What does fracturing by paywall do to the art?

The deeper cost, in Poniewozik's view, isn't financial. It's cultural. The subscription sprawl "creates yet another division of haves, choosing from a vast menu in media's first class, and have-nots, missing out in steerage." Television, once a universal if frustrating medium, is becoming "increasingly inaccessible, if often excellent." And he leaves the reader with the question that haunts every cancellation decision: "'American Hostage' is good. But is it $7.99-a-month good? Is any show?" As services keep multiplying and prices keep climbing, that arithmetic now belongs to the audience, not the networks.