# Netflix dumping entire new seasons at once kills the communal viewing experience **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 14, 2019, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/netflix-dumping-entire-new-seasons-at-once-kills-the-communal-viewing-experience/832545 "2019-04-14T19:04:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eyebrows_0f_doom/32/3119_2.png) [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eyebrows_0f_Doom)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2019, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/netflix-dumping-entire-new-seasons-at-once-kills-the-communal-viewing-experience/832545/61 "2019-04-18T03:27:50Z")
While there aren’t individual threads _here_ for separate episodes of streaming shows, if you really want to discuss a show there are plenty of other places online. [Previously.tv](http://Previously.tv) is a big one. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2019, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/netflix-dumping-entire-new-seasons-at-once-kills-the-communal-viewing-experience/832545/62 "2019-04-18T13:53:34Z")
> [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](#): > > While there aren’t individual threads _here_ for separate episodes of streaming shows, if you really want to discuss a show there are plenty of other places online. [Previously.tv](http://Previously.tv) is a big one. Sure, but isn’t that a symptom of what we’re talking about? Historically there have been threads here for nearly every popular show. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2019, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/netflix-dumping-entire-new-seasons-at-once-kills-the-communal-viewing-experience/832545/63 "2019-04-18T16:47:56Z")
News and Sports broadcasting will always be a communal experience that makes for good talk at the water cooler. This is due to the live nature of such programs, the core content will be the same despite different sources of information. ~Max ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2019, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/netflix-dumping-entire-new-seasons-at-once-kills-the-communal-viewing-experience/832545/64 "2019-04-18T16:54:10Z")
What about creating the equivalent of a book club for television shows? If you and your coworkers want to talk about a series while progressing through it, just agree on a schedule. Novelists usually publish their entire book at once, whereas in the past it was not unheard of for a novel to be first published in serial form (eg: Ulysses by James Joyce). ~Max ---
**Author:** ![ISiddiqui](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/97f17d/32.png) [@ISiddiqui](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ISiddiqui)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2019, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/netflix-dumping-entire-new-seasons-at-once-kills-the-communal-viewing-experience/832545/65 "2019-04-18T17:12:32Z")
> [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](#): > > While there aren’t individual threads _here_ for separate episodes of streaming shows, if you really want to discuss a show there are plenty of other places online. [Previously.tv](http://Previously.tv) is a big one. > [@bump](#): > > Sure, but isn’t that a symptom of what we’re talking about? Historically there have been threads here for nearly every popular show. Yet on the other hand on reddit there are threads for every episode of a streaming show. Recently I’ve been participating in conversations on the various episodes of “Love, Death, Robots”. It’s a bit easier there, as there is a subreddit for the show and then a stickied thread with links to discussion for each episode. It could be a limitation of the message board format here that prevents similar at SDMB. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2019, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/netflix-dumping-entire-new-seasons-at-once-kills-the-communal-viewing-experience/832545/66 "2019-04-18T17:19:36Z")
No, I think what prevents that from happening here is that this is a much smaller message board, so we’re only able to sustain a conversation about the most popular television shows. If you tried to open a thread about a lesser show, you’d only get crickets. Meanwhile Reddit is so large that you can talk about a show. I miss the IMDB message boards for much the same reason. ---
**Author:** ![ISiddiqui](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/97f17d/32.png) [@ISiddiqui](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ISiddiqui)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2019, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/netflix-dumping-entire-new-seasons-at-once-kills-the-communal-viewing-experience/832545/67 "2019-04-18T17:23:46Z")
My point was regardless of that, if you had a massive streaming TV show (like if Amazon’s Lord of the Rings becomes huge), you could have a similar set up here (but there would be complaints about cluttering up the main Café Society forum). ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2019, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/netflix-dumping-entire-new-seasons-at-once-kills-the-communal-viewing-experience/832545/68 "2019-04-18T17:26:02Z")
OK, that’s true. ---
**Author:** ![nightshadea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7ba0ec/32.png) [@nightshadea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nightshadea)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2019, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/netflix-dumping-entire-new-seasons-at-once-kills-the-communal-viewing-experience/832545/69 "2019-04-18T19:41:57Z")
ive seen people do live facebook chat groups for things like WWE etc …although I’ve seen things like that since AOL too … although on AOL they had it set up for the diffrent time zones because of spoilers …which you wouldn’t have too much of problem on Netflix if the group was watching it at the same time … ---
**Author:** ![Lucas\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucas_jackson/32/303_2.png) [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2019, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/netflix-dumping-entire-new-seasons-at-once-kills-the-communal-viewing-experience/832545/70 "2019-04-19T19:24:47Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > Can you agree that shared experiences and discussing those shared experiences are part of what forms a cohesive community, a culture? > > For several decades television viewing, just TV as it is, was a major shared experience in America, and one that was shared across many American sub-cultures, by those of different faiths and those of no specific faith, by various different ethnic groups who otherwise had few commonalities.It created shared reference points and even shared myths. Watching shows at the same time is not quite the same as a bunch of people across the country of one cultural group all going to Easter Sunday services, or having a Seder meal, all at the same time, but it was of the same type. > > What, in our increasingly heterogenous society, is replacing it as a shared experience? And if nothing does, is there an impact to having fewer shared communal experiences? Yeah but that’s like saying TV ruined going to the live theater. Even though it’s ‘just TV’ I do watch a lot of it and I enjoy discussing programs that I’ve watched with like-minded folks. But just as we’ve moved from theater to episodic TV, we’ve moved from episodic TV to binging. And in my opinion, with no loss of communal experience. I’m old enough (64) to have gone through a lot of varying experiences regarding communal entertainment. Me and my friends have adapted to the changes along the way with no decrying of loss of quality. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2019, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/netflix-dumping-entire-new-seasons-at-once-kills-the-communal-viewing-experience/832545/71 "2019-04-19T20:03:27Z")
> [@Lucas\_Jackson](#): > > Yeah but that’s like saying TV ruined going to the live theater. Even though it’s ‘just TV’ I do watch a lot of it and I enjoy discussing programs that I’ve watched with like-minded folks. But just as we’ve moved from theater to episodic TV, we’ve moved from episodic TV to binging. And in my opinion, with no loss of communal experience. > > I’m old enough (64) to have gone through a lot of varying experiences regarding communal entertainment. Me and my friends have adapted to the changes along the way with no decrying of loss of quality. I think the shift in publication of novels from serial form to whole books is a more straightforward comparison, although there may be none alive who remember the change. But for those who want that communal reading experience, there exist book clubs. My mother was part of a book club where they agreed to read such a book or so many chapters before each meeting. I see no reason not to create the equivalent group for television series, should a group of people want that communal experience. It could even be done here on this forum - an original post saying “we are discussing this series, three episodes a week starting on 4/22. For example, please don’t discuss episode 4 before 4/29 and avoid watching if you can.” If changing thread titles is allowed you could change the thread title to the most current episode on your schedule. ~Max ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2019, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/netflix-dumping-entire-new-seasons-at-once-kills-the-communal-viewing-experience/832545/72 "2019-04-19T20:29:50Z")
> [@Lucas\_Jackson](#): > > > [@DSeid](#): > > > > Can you agree that shared experiences and discussing those shared experiences are part of what forms a cohesive community, a culture? > > > > For several decades television viewing, just TV as it is, was a major shared experience in America, and one that was shared across many American sub-cultures, by those of different faiths and those of no specific faith, by various different ethnic groups who otherwise had few commonalities.It created shared reference points and even shared myths. Watching shows at the same time is not quite the same as a bunch of people across the country of one cultural group all going to Easter Sunday services, or having a Seder meal, all at the same time, but it was of the same type. > > > > What, in our increasingly heterogenous society, is replacing it as a shared experience? And if nothing does, is there an impact to having fewer shared communal experiences? > > Yeah but that’s like saying TV ruined going to the live theater. Even though it’s ‘just TV’ I do watch a lot of it and I enjoy discussing programs that I’ve watched with like-minded folks. But just as we’ve moved from theater to episodic TV, we’ve moved from episodic TV to binging. And in my opinion, with no loss of communal experience. Sitting at home and watching television is _definitely_ less of a social, communal experience than going out to watch a live theater performance or to watch a movie in a public theater. ---
**Author:** ![Ashtura](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ashtura/32/2963_2.png) [@Ashtura](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ashtura)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2019, 7:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/netflix-dumping-entire-new-seasons-at-once-kills-the-communal-viewing-experience/832545/73 "2019-04-20T07:21:32Z")
The upward tick in working from home is killing that too. But I’ would not give it up for the world. I also love binging from time to time. The ability to gorge in what you love outweighs water cooler talk. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/netflix-dumping-entire-new-seasons-at-once-kills-the-communal-viewing-experience/832545.md?page=3)