I canceled my BritBox subscription after this tool showed me where to stream my favorite shows for free

Published Nov 14, 2026, 2:00 PM EST Former radio and TV guy (I Heart Radio and PBS). Now a writer, researcher, and musician who writes about the absurdity of our modern world and other offbeat topics. Specializes in weird music, the old web, retro video games and tech, and researching strange, yet interesting things. His work has appeared in Vice, Tedium, Star Trek.com, Today I Found Out, Typebar, SyFy Wire, and How To Geek. Currently working on a variety of music, web, and writing projects. Visit him on the web at https://djbuckfreelance.neocities.org/. When it comes to streaming, buying, selecting, or watching, I'm a picky viewer. It drives my wife bonkers. When I'm not being a thorn in her side about picking media to watch, I'm usually searching for ways to cancel subscriptions. Recently, I (somewhat begrudgingly) canceled my subscription to BritBox (the only shows I really like aside from cartoons are British TV). I still wanted to watch my favorite shows, so I sought out a legal, alternative place to stream my favorite shows for free. Searching for an alternative to my old subscription I still want to catch up on my favorite British shows Since I'm not a big television watcher, I never put a lot of thought into finding streaming services. But British television, which I used to watch on PBS late at night, is something that's always been near and dear to me. My favorite shows, like Red Dwarf, are usually easy to find, but they tend to run a bit costly. I wanted to find a place to watch one of my favorite shows without paying for an entire streaming service. The show in question is Father Brown. It's a classic whodunnit mystery show set in the 1950s, only instead of a Poirot-style detective, you get the unassuming yet clever Father Brown solving murders in the English countryside. It's a great show. I wanted to show it to my wife. But I canceled my BritBox subscription when it expired back in August. Fortunately, there are a few tools online that can help you find places to watch your favorite shows without paying for a subscription. I tested out two different aggregators for this: Just Watch and ReelGood. Just Watch A simple aggregator for where to watch TV shows The first service I tried was JustWatch. Although I'm looking for a specific British television show, I figured I'd search for a few other titles as well. I chose Doctor Who, Red Dwarf, QI, and Death in Paradise, bringing my total to five shows. I searched for Father Brown first. It immediately brought up the information page for the show and two options below it: Where to watch and Watch for free. This was already a good sign. I clicked on Watch for free. I was surprised to see the Roku channel listed as an option, which I assume is ad-supported. But the one that caught my eye was Hoopla. I had no idea it was available there. So I clicked on it, and it brought up the entire series so far. They're ad-free (yay!), and it doesn't cost a cent to watch them. The only requirement is a library card. And, yes, you can access Hoopla on a desktop computer. I use mine with Firefox on a Raspberry Pi that I have hooked up to a 32” TV. Hoopla is a library app, so although it might have a show on it, your experience might vary based on what your library district has available. The results were similar to my search for Doctor Who and Red Dwarf. Both were available on Hoopla. Red Dwarf was listed as “free with ads” on Pluto TV. As much as I dislike ads, I would probably make an exception with Red Dwarf occasionally. Interestingly, QI was only available on Tubi (free with ads), and Death in Paradise surfaced as free with Hoopla, so it's starting to look like Hoopla might become a more or less permanent replacement for my picky TV streaming. ReelGood An aggregator with detailed information After experiencing success with Just Watch, I thought I'd give ReelGood a shot. It's always good to get a second opinion on things. ReelGood brands itself as a destination to get “all your streaming services in one place." I conducted my first search for Father Brown. It was pretty impressive to see the splash page that it came up with for the show. When you scroll down a little bit, you can see where it's available. It lists two columns, where you can subscribe to watch it or where you can purchase it. While it's good to know that you can buy the entire series on Amazon or Fandango at Home, I was more interested in the free-to-watch areas. It listed Hoopla, of course, but it also revealed that Father Brown is available on Pluto TV with ads, and it's available on Philo, which is a paid app, so keep that in mind. I was impressed that ReelGood turned up a few additional options that JustWatch didn't list. As for the aggregator itself, ReelGood did a fine job, but I kind of like JustWatch’s interface a little bit more. When I'm looking for a new way to watch a TV show, I'll probably end up using both ReelGood and JustWatch to cover all of my bases. Streaming, licensing, and availability change constantly. These results reflect what's available now as of this writing. Looks like I'm using Hoopla for watching British TV After spending some time with the aggregators searching for my favorite shows, it turns out that the best option is Hoopla. Roku or Pluto TV are clear runners-up, if you can live with some minor commercial breaks. I can watch some ads, as TV commercials don't typically bother me in the same way that online ads do. But, really, Hoopla seems to just have everything I wanted from BritBox right now, which is good enough for me.​​​​​​​