I feel as if binge watching a series changes the feel of the show - let me see if I can explain.
We decided to watch Scandal when it showed up on Netflix - we’d never seen it on network TV. So we’d watch an episode or 2 a night for several nights in a row. Not quite a weekend dawn-to-dusk marathon session, but definitely more frequently than the broadcast schedule. Because of that, I found myself getting really irritated at several of the characters, especially Olivia.
It felt like she hopped from one bed to another, always proclaiming her love but when these shifts came in rapid succession, she just came across as a whore. Same with the President - what a waffly weenie! Character development seemed erratic and occasionally random, and sometimes plot twists seemed contrived or forced. We quit watching midway thru the 3rd season and never looked back.
I just recently started working my way thru Gilmore Girls - yep, only 15 years after it first aired. Similar feelings - I felt myself wanting to slap various characters for being flighty or whiny or needlessly annoying. I almost quit when I got to season 4, but out of total boredom, I’m halfway thru season 6 now. But I’m not sure why.
I was late to How I Met Your Mother, and again, I stopped at one point because it stated feeling tiresome. I did get back to it and watch thru the end of the series and it was OK, I guess.
Oddly enough, I don’t get the same feeling from House of Cards - maybe it was written with the realization that people might binge? Or maybe it’s just written better. Same with Orange is the New Black. Are Netflix-specific shows just better quality? There are a couple others I want to check out.
Am I alone in this? Does anyone else find certain shows don’t work well for binge-watching?
I’ve found that I start nitpicking shows if I watch episodes back-to-back. Because of this, I now limit myself to watching one episode a day on series I’m catching up on.
Yes and I think sitcoms like How I Met Your Mother are a prime example. Because the meta-plots are usually limited, you spend a lot more time with iterations on a basic theme of whatever the sitcom happens to revolve around. Lightweight shows like this are great fun as a an occasional dip, but I find they can get to be a little bit of slog when you start plowing through them. A little while back I watched Raising Hope, which much like the related My Name is Earl turned out to be by my standards a reasonably clever, amusing show ( at least through the first 2-3 seasons ). But I could only watch so many episodes at a time before I had to take a break. Seeing Cloris Leachman shed her clothes for the third episode in a row ( or whatever ) rapidly became less wacky than annoying.
By contrast I think “slow-moving” dramas ( which are more about plot than the situation ) can sometimes improve with binge-watching. As an example one of the complaints of even fans of the HBO show Carnivale when it was running was the glacial pace of the plot. But I never had any complaints on that front because I binged on it which pretty much eliminated that issue for me ;).
When you binge a show in a marathon episodes blend together. You have less time to reflect and think about the story, so you may not see plot points coming or appreciate certain nuances. There’s less build up so finales and big moments aren’t as anticipated, which can reduce their impact. Just zoom past all the cliffhangers, instant satisfaction.
I think it’s the most satisfying to watch an episode and then discuss it with friends/on the internet, but it’s pretty much only possible to do that while watching the show air real time because you’ll find oceans of spoilers for older shows. It’s nice when you know a friend who can let you vent/theorize about a show they’ve already seen. I’ve been that guy before, I think the best policy is to just take a “…wasn’t it cool when X” approach. As long as you don’t accidentally misplace what episode the cool moment took place!
I doubt many others would do this but, if it’s obv. a quality show, I watch 2 epi’s at once but the first one will be rewatching what I last saw. In a quality show it’s like seeing so much more. The first time you literally just catch the surface.
Started doing this with The Wire back in the day. Apart from seeing so much more the whole treat lasts so much longer. Love it!
We watch one each of a drama and a sitcom a night. There doesn’t seem to be a good term for such a lowish form of binge watching. We don’t spend a weekend watching an entire series.
Right now we have just finished The West Wing regular episodes and are watching batches of DVD extras. The sitcom is Seinfeld.
My experience: Great shows do really well in this pattern. They just flow.
The entire run of The West Wing was really good. I had heard that it wasn’t so great the last few seasons, but I disagree. There was a difference in the last season as they were splitting focus between the White House stuff and the election, but it still was good for me.
Seinfeld, nearing the end of season 6, is even better than I remembered it. I know that the latter part isn’t so great, but maybe it will work better watching it this way.
Less than great shows don’t do well.
Scandal is a problematic show. The “Daddy Speeches” and plot lurches become tiresome really fast. This is a problem with the show, not how you’re viewing it.
E.g., we’ve been watching it more less as aired. (Maybe a week or two behind airing.) And this last season really, really highlighted the problems with the show.
A good while back, our drama was Grey’s Anatomy. The first 3 seasons were generally great. The next two seasons were still pretty good. Then it fell off the cliff during season 6. (And then we were caught up.) So more or less 5 seasons of good nightly TV, then … ugh. Similarly when we did The Big Bang Theory. It’s not how you watch it, it’s the show.
I’m not a binge watcher. Partly this is because I like to vary things up rather than spending hours on end on the same thing; and partly it’s because TV episodes are great for when I have a half an hour or two of free time I want to fill with whatever I happen to be in the mood for right then; and partly because one episode a week is the way the shows were intended by their makers to be watched. Many shows’ episodes follow a pattern or formula that makes them easy to appreciate when watched individually but which wears thin when watched back to back.
By the way, I guess reading a novel straight through that was originally published in installments, like those of Dickens, counts as the literary equivalent of binge-watching. I should probably read a chapter or two a week if I want to have the same sort of experience Dickens’s original audience had.
I’d never thought about this, but having read peoples’ opinions and doing a little thinking, I agree that it comes down to quality. Also that sitcoms may not lend themselves to binge-watching (for me, two or three episodes per day). I tried Scandal when it came out and quit after the first episode. Thinking that so many people liked it and maybe I needed to give it another chance, I watched a few more episodes and still didn’t like it.
I wonder if Netflix has done some research on this psychology with their shows? Someone mentioned flow, and of their shows I’ve watched, they have it. I love Orange Is The New Black and will be doing some major binge-watching the weekend of June 12.
If you like character-driven dramedy, I’d recommend Frankie and Grace. It has that flow. There are a few weak points, but Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin and June Diane Raphael (plays Fonda’s younger daughter) are EXCEPTIONAL. Give it two episodes before you decide. It was difficult to get into the first episode, which I also read in some reviews, but for me it was well worth it.
I gave up on Breaking Bad when it first started airing after 2 or 3 episodes. I couldn’t get into it. What kind of show was this?
Later, we started watching it from the beginning. (Mrs. FtG hadn’t seen any episodes.) Again, one episode a night. It definitely worked better for me this way. I think this was after 3+ seasons had aired??? Once caught up, then the usual way after that.
If you haven’t tried the one-episode-a-night style, give it a chance.
I prefer to binge watch dramas, it keeps the story going for me. Sitcoms are different, it just depends. I don’t want to binge watch any shows I’ve seen before it just gets tiresome when I know what’s going to happen, but I might re-watch a series a few shows at a time.
Just like to add that for me, binge-watching is hardly a new thing. I first started doing it once VCRs got reasonably priced, say the mid-eighties They were still not exactly cheap, so usually only one member of our family would have one and they’d tape a couple weeks worth of shows and then we’d all get together and watch them at some point. Doing this, as well as fast forwarding thru commercials, was definitely the way of the future even back then!
A recent show that benefits from binge watching is The Walking Dead, watching weekly it can be tedious and boring.
But binging reveals a great character study in Rick, and it flows better and details long forgotten like a comment made over some pigs connects with a later situation.
