Here’s how we watched the Oscar’s online in Canada without television.  We have an NVidia Shield TV streaming media player on which we installed Kodi.  The USTVNow Plus was “added on” whereby we could stream or record ABC’s 2017 Oscars. 

The stream was not continuous at first, with fits of bufferings, so it was not the same as watching it through cable. Almost an hour in, the stream became unavailable.  About ten minutes later, we were able to access it once more.

We managed to hear speech read as absentee Asghar Farhd won for The Salesman.  Letter posted in article on Rolling Stone website was penned by all nominees.  

Mid-show, a Hollywood tourist group, not limited to a newly-wed and a soon-to-be-wed couple, on a bus tour were brought through the front of the theatre, introduced to and interacted with many of the Oscar stars.  Prompted by Kimmel to give up her sun glasses, Jennifer Aniston hands them over.  All were encouraged to touch Mahershala Ali’s Oscar that he won earlier for best supporting actor for his role in Moonlight.  Kimmel’s sidekick, Guillermo, helped usher them out.

The presence of Katherine Johnson on stage was charming and moving.  The NASA research mathematician behind the story in the Hidden Figures movie was wheeled on stage.  Many of the audience visibly moved; we were honoured by her presence; it was just like watching royalty as the cameras caught her enjoyably survey the vast audience.      

After the single ten-minute disconnection, streaming was smooth to the end.  If only that was the time USTV Now would be unavailable!  It was not too smooth an ending for the award show.  Moonlight won best picture after a misread of La La Land as a winner, absolutely stunning those on stage, in the audience, and those watching.  There will be one person in America finding that blunder tweet worthy.  No joke about Steve Harvey can solve that, Kimmel.  You should have gone with a line explaining a real example of fake news.   

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