I ask because if this article about a critic who watched all episodes of Mad Men back to back and pronounced that basically it sucked.
In the past when I have tried t do this with various shows I’ve noticed I became somewhat fatigued by watching the shows back to back, and the ability to anticipate and savor a new show in real time makes that experience substantively different aesthetically and critically vs shows I’ve watched as collections of episodes across a short period if time. I think I lost of lot of the space and nuance in a shows when you watch a bunch of them in a time compressed crush.
I think a lot of more modern dramas tend to do that because they have season long plot arcs and since they expect you to tune in once a week they do little bits of brushing up your memory of events. If you’re watching 3 episodes of Grey’s Anatomy in a row, though, you don’t need those reminders and it ends up dragging the tempo down and feels tedious.
It definitely depends on the quality of the show. I did a marathon session of Weeds and I was struggling to get past season 3, whereas I watched all the Breaking Bad episodes and craved more. Same with Star Trek TOS. I can watch those one or two at a time, but I watched all the Star Trek DS9 episodes constantly over a month.
I’ve found that watching series shows back to back eventually causes them to become formulaic and predictable. And then the fatigue thing can set in because the sameness causes them to become less interesting and you wind up just wanting to get through your ration for the day rather than because you’re genuinely interested in what happens next.
Funny, just had a long discussion about this very topic topic with some friends tonight, using Mad Men as the main example.
Much to my surprise, I found that I appreciated Man Men a hell of a lot more when I watched it in discreet bites. I watched the first three season on DVD in quick succession, and really enjoyed it. But the difference when I came to watch the fourth season, which I did as it aired on a weekly basis, was a revelation. With a week between each episode I found so much more to enjoy. I had time to really reflect and chew each moment over, think about what was happening with the characters, and what the events of each episode had meant for them. I found it a much, much richer experience.
Mad Men, I think, is probably more susceptible to this than something more plot driven or tension-filled than, say, Breaking Bad or Battlestar Galactica (two other shows I’ve switched midway through from watching all at once to week-by-week) because it’s not so much driven by events, or a need to know what’s happening next, but by subtle characters moments and the depiction of the slowly-changing times.
Partly, too, there was the fact that I would discuss each episode a lot more with friends and co-workers who were watching at the same time. I had some really enthralling discussions of what was happening with each character, where their life might be heading, what was the significance of certain looks or comments, what a fucking bitch Betty was being, or whatever, that just didn’t have a chance to happen when I’d watch a show all by myself in a big chunk. Even the SDMB threads contributed to that - I"d come in a read people’s opinions after each episode and it often gave me a really different perspective. So there’s also a social, interactive aspect to watching a series slowly and at airing time that just doesn’t have a chance to happen in the same way when you’re tearing through a series on DVD, going “What happens next episode, I gotta watch one more. And maybe one more after that.”
This one seems like a no-brainer to me: of course you shouldn’t watch a show “all at once,” but instead watch one episode every week or so.
(1) That’s the way the show was meant to be watched, and the way its original viewers watched it.
(2) If it’s a really good, enjoyable show, I want to “ration” it, and not run through it all at once.
(3) If it’s not that good, I don’t want to get burned out on it.
(4) TV episodes, as opposed to full-length movies, are good entertainment when one only has an hour or less available.
I did this with Mad Men Season 1 to see what the hype was about. It turned me off - it came across as so sour and mean in overall tone. Never really considered if watching a string of eps in a row was a factor.
By the same token, I did the same thing with **24 **Season 1 right before S2 started back a few years ago and it was great. Banged out the season in a couple of days and had a great time.
Re-watched **Buffy **with my kids - man, we couldn’t devour those boxes of DVD’s fast enough…
Part of the problem with watching it all at once, particularly with Mad Men, is you can remember every bad thing that anyone has done right up until the end of the series. That makes the characters seem a lot less sympathetic, as compared to spreading it all out over a few years, because you forget things like who was basically a rapist in season one, for instance.
I have no problem watching a series of shows “all at once” (usually one or two episodes a night).
My wife and I would often have a “Weeds Weekend,” when we’d watch an entire season of the show in three nights. But I’ve seen or rewatched shows in a bunch many times and enjoyed them.
When I watch a bunch of episodes in a row, I tend to notice that the writers overuse a particular theme, or schtick. It isn’t so noticeable when there is a week between episodes, and in fact, can be part of what gives a show its character; but when you watch them back to back, there is no breathing room between resuing a device. As an example, McNulty’s catch phrase on the Wire was “what the fuck did I do?” It is funny when it pops up, but not when you’ve heard it 8 times in one day.
Mad Men is one of the few shows I’ve watched from the beginning–every Sunday night. It certainly benefited by having so many eager fans–online & otherwise–glad to rehash what happened each week & discuss how our characters are faring. But I’ve enjoyed “marathoning” other shows…
The article in the OP is not a review; it’s a review of the review by Daniel Mendelsohn that got him some press long months ago because of his pissy criticisms. He wouldn’t have liked Mad Men, no matter how he’d seen it. Why would anybody who seriously writes about American TV not have caught Mad Men from the beginning? Mendelsohn, back when his article made its initial splash, impressed me as a bitter classicist who finally deigned to turn his Olympian gaze upon what was amusing the peasants. He was not amused…
Now that original review is getting more hits. And most of us are eagerly awaiting more Mad Men.
Marathoning a show doesn’t preclude enjoyment but I think I get more out of a show if I watch it on a traditional schedule.
It sounds cheesy but I really do appreciate time to reflect on each episode whether I intend to do so or not. I’m always hungry for more so when I’m viewing a program as it airs, I usually read reviews of each episode and discuss it on forums.
Watching a series in bulk means you might skip through the theme song or scenes from the last episode, you probably don’t watch the previews. Little bits of seminal data don’t stick as well, skipping the theme alters the mood a little.
Story arcs just aren’t as fun in marathon form. Problems get resolved in a matter of hours instead of weeks/months.
Personally, I like a compromise approach. Once a week can be an agonizing wait for a really good show, but watching several episodes in a day is way too many. You don’t have time to appreciate them.
Recently, AMC started airing Mad Men from the beginning, with three episodes in a row every Sunday morning. I would DVR them, and watch one a night for three nights, then mull them over until the next week. I thought that was just about perfect…
I watched Mad Men over a couple of months, usually 2 episodes at a time, when it arrived on netflix. I enjoyed it very much despite the unsympathetic characters. The satirical elements and storytelling style were entertaining nearly every minute. I also appreciated the historical elements and unconventional characterization.
It really depends on the show, and you can’t really even categorize it by “genre.” For example, Lost is (based on my understanding, at least - I have to admit I haven’t seen it) a show that needed to be watched in real time, as each episode aired. This was because so much of the Lost experience came from watching and participating in the waves of speculation that exploded across the internet between episodes.
However, I don’t feel like that holds true for Battlestar Galactica, a similarly mythology-driven series, but one where the mythology wasn’t driving the action so much from episode-to-episode as the characters and plot. I personally watched BSG during its original airing (and frequently found the wait between episodes/ seasons agonizing), but have since also gone back and watched it straight through on DVD with friends who didn’t see the original airings. None of those friends ever exhibited sign of “BSG fatigue” - if anything, the continual blend of action and heavy plot twists drove them to need to find out what happens next as quickly as possible.
We’ve been doing Mad Men viewing 2-3 episodes per night for 4-5 nights per season and then taking a month off between seasons. I actually believe I like it more in this style. The setting up of character moves in earlier episodes is always awesome. Also the seeming disappearance of characters for several episodes is noticeable.
I think that good writing and not relying on the same narrative tricks as well as having multiple characters with story arcs helps with “fast viewing”. A show like Weeds suffers from having a central character who has other supporting characters, but all arcs still involve Nancy.
Other shows that benefit from “fast viewing” are shows like Coupling (tripod), Psych (Budd), Big Bang Theory (Wolowitz’s low standing due to being an applied science), and HIMYM (eating sandwiches) where there are a large number of self-refences in each episode which are easier to catch if shorter time between viewings.
We watched Mad Men almost all at once - an episode a night from the DVD from Netflix, then a few days while waiting for the next one. It worked well for us, since we could remember the threads of the story. We also watched The Wire that way and we were glad we did, since I doubt we could have keep everything happening straight over an entire season.
It has been said that these kinds of shows are like novels more than traditional TV series, and I think there is a lot of truth to that. Would you rather read Dickens in weekly chunks the way it was originally published or all in one piece?
The only negatives for doing this are in old shows, like Secret Agent/Danger Man, where we go “we’ve seen that set before!”
I watched Mad Men almost all at once the first time, I loved the marathon experience, and I still think it’s one of the best shows ever. Then again, I never was big on purposefully delayed gratification.