You’ll probably remember a few weeks ago when Apple and NBC had a big showdown, resulting in the pulling of NBC content from iTunes for the upcoming season.  Today, NBC answered with their own download service.

The upside?  It’s free.  The downside?  It’s severely crippled.

Starting in October, Heroes, The Office, Life, Bionic Woman, 30 Rock, Friday Night Lights, Late Night with Conan O’Brien and The Tonight Show with Jay Leno will all be available for download from ”NBC Direct”.  From the time a program comes available, the viewer has one week to watch before the show disappears.  In the coming months, NBC will add other features, such as the ability to use on portable devices, HD content, and “expanded platform functionality”…non-Windows computers, to be sure.

From the press release:

“With the creation of this new service, we are acknowledging that now, more than ever, viewers want to be in control of how, when and where they consumer their favorite entertainment[…]Not only does this feature give them more control, but it also gives them a higher quality video experience.”

I’m not sure how I have “more control” when I’m crippled by a limited viewing time window, and where I can watch.  While this is a suitable replacement for streaming the video from the website, I don’t see it as an iTunes replacement yet.