In the new issue (July/August 2021) of Discover magazine, there’s an article where they mention a research study which tested this. They had three groups in the study. One watched six episodes of a television show in one day. One watched those six episodes one per day. One watched those six episodes once per week. They tested how well the participants in the study did on a quiz on the show one day later. They also tested how well the participants did on a quiz 140 days later. The binge-watching group did better than the other groups on the quiz one day later but poorer on the quiz 140 days later than the other groups. So binge watching is better for fairly immediate recall but worse for long-term recall.
I wonder how well the once a week group would remember it if they also got together a couple times over that week to discuss the show and to speculate on what they thought was coming next.
I assume that would boost their recall substantially.
I assume the binge watching group would also boost their recall substantially if they met 12 times to discuss the show.
Maybe, but the whole point is that they are not given that chance.
Over in the Loki thread, which I have been avoiding as I haven’t had a chance to watch this week yet, we have rather spirited discussion about what has happened, and what we think will happen next.
If Disney had just released all the episodes at once, then that thread would be very different in nature.
Releasing all the episodes in a season at once absolutely murders discussion, I hate it. I think the only reason netflix does that is to differentiate themselves from standard TV, but the other services that drop them once per week are better for it.
It almost forces you to binge watch it in order to be able to have any discussion about it and not worry about spoilers.
I haven’t watched this weeks Loki yet, hopefully I’ll get a chance tonight, so that means that I’ve avoided that thread today.
If they had dropped the whole season, I’d have to avoid the thread until I had a chance to watch the whole thing.
Even besides the coordination, the quality suffers too. There’s no speculation (since a lot of the people in the thread binged it and know what happens). Every post has to declare where they are in watching it so that other people can decide whether to read that or not or put it into context. It’s really hard for the guy on episode 3 to discuss it with the guy on episode 9 because 9 knows what happens. I don’t think any show could reach a really big cultural status like saying Game of Thrones or Breaking Bad with a drop-a-season method. It just doesn’t have time to become a communal experience. Stranger Things I guess is the closest we’d ever get.