Nothing is worse than having access to a streaming service and wanting to watch a show, only to find that the show isn't there anymore. It used to be rare, but streaming services are pulling TV shows and movies more frequently now to save money.
Turns out that Paramount Plus just did exactly that. It shockingly pulled a show on me, and I'm furious.
The show in question is "The Gold" starring Hugh Bonneville, Dominic Cooper, Charlotte Spencer and Jack Lowden. The show tells the story of the London Brink's-Mat robbery of 1983. The six-episode first season was a hit for the BBC in the U.K. and a slightly quieter hit in the U.S. for Paramount Plus. It was also a critical success, scoring a 92% fresh rating on the Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer. The BBC even renewed it for a second reason this past November.
But now, if you have Paramount Plus there's no way to watch the show. And people are only finding out when they go to Paramount Plus to find the show. I only found out thanks to a recent episode of "The Watch," a Ringer podcast.
So what happened? How did it happen that a critically successful show, renewed for a second season, with star power in the cast and two major studios behind it get pulled from a major streaming service? And now that it's gone from Paramount Plus, can you still watch it? After doing some research, I have the answer to both questions.
The mystery of the disappearing 'The Gold' solved
While I just found out that "The Gold" had ironically been robbed from Paramount Plus, it looks like people have slowly been noticing this disappearance from the Paramount catalog for the past month. A Reddit thread in the r/ParamountPlus subreddit shows comments from about a month ago indicating the show had mysteriously disappeared.
While it seems odd that they'd [Paramount] then also sacrifice the U.S. streaming rights, maybe the money just didn't add up for Paramount Global, which is amid Peacock merger rumors and financial struggles.
That thread also indicated that nobody had seen this coming or knew why it happened. So I did some digging and I think I figured it out. "The Gold" debuted on February 12, 2023. The show disappeared around February 2024. So did Paramount only have streaming rights for their co-production for a mere year? The math dictates that's the case, but the logic doesn't track. Why would Paramount lose the rights to a show currently in production for its second season?
The reason, it seems, could be a simple one. In the season 2 announcement, Deadline reported that Paramount was no longer involved with the production of "The Gold." While it seems odd that they'd then also sacrifice the U.S. streaming rights, maybe the money just didn't add up for Paramount Global, which is amid Peacock merger rumors and financial struggles.
While not a satisfying end to this mystery, I do feel confident it's the most likely cause for why "The Gold" is no longer on Paramount Plus. So now the question becomes ... where can you watch it?
Where to watch "The Gold" season 1
If you're in the U.K., there's good news. Your best bet for watching "The Gold" was always BBC iPlayer, and you can still watch it there right now. And if you're a Brit abroad, you can use a VPN like ExpressVPN to watch wherever you are.
But if you're an American, you're limited to paid video-on-demand streaming services like Amazon, Apple TV, etc. Of these, I'd recommend buying or renting "The Gold" from Amazon. Amazon gives you the most options for buying or renting: 4K, Full HD and standard definition.
I'll probably be doing that myself soon. You can rent the whole first season for just $9.99 in standard definition. That's robbery compared to getting it as part of a Paramount Plus subscription but given the show has been praised by so many, including Esquire, which called it "British TV at its best," I just have to watch this show one way or another. Let this be a lesson to anyone trusting streaming services to keep a show around.
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