I think maybe Dickens WOULD work better read in weekly segments, like they were released. I know that I wouldn’t have had to fling “Pickwick Papers” across a room if it hadn’t kept going on and on and on and on…
I agree with the ‘netflix plan.’ Watch a disc, then, later, watch another. But not a whole season at once.
Of course, I watched most of season three of ‘Angel’ yesterday, so don’t listen to me.
I can’t imagine watching a regular network show one week at a time. In fact, there are NO shows I watch week at a time. First of all, commercials. Life’s too short for me to watch commercials. The only time I have to put up with commercials is during live sports. Also, there is just too much that can interrupt the watching of a show. A phone call that comes in you have to take, weather “alerts” which block off half the screen, you name it. This isn’t 1976.
The whole anticpation thing is overrated. Networks used to annoy me with this crap. They’d show a repeat after a cliffhanger episode.
Technology screws up my life in many ways. When I get to control what I watch, when I watch it, and how I watch it, that is me making technology work for me.
I’ve been reading a lot of Dickens. For some of these longer works, I actually will read a couple of chapters per day. I think this works well.
Just wanted to say that many complaints (commercials, real-life interruptions, missing shows because of your schedule, etc.) are solved by having a DVR. We lurves our ReplayTV.
You’re not the first to say it . . . I don’t have much of a memory for details either, though I sometimes make some weird connections that make my husband tell me I’m nuts. 
I do enjoy catching things when re-watching a season. Hey, if you catch everything the first time through, what fun is watching it again? For that reason, I think I’d really like rewatching Carnivale, and considering Tamarlane’s comments . . . scampers off to add Carnivale to Amazon wishlist
I hope that someday in the future, you’ll be able to get whatever episodes you want on demand after they air, and then everyone will be happy, from the first-run lovers to the whole-season watchers. You may say that I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one . . .
There are quite a few series I’ve only seen on DVD. The list includes: Alias, 24, Firefly, Dead Like Me, Wonderfalls, and The Job. There are others, but they are just not springing immediately to mind. I also have DVDs for series that I did watch on broadcast t.v. That list includes: Buffy, Angel, Frasier, As Time Goes By, Fawlty Towers, and Yes, Minister.
I prefer DVDs. No commercials. You can take them with you travelling with a portable dvd player or a laptop. You can watch as much as you want when you want. If I want to spread over months, fine. On the other end of the spectrum, I watched the entire first season of Alias last winter in three days when I was on holidays with nothing specific to do and it was forty below out and blizzarding. I don’t watch much broadcast t.v. at all anymore. And the less I watch, the less I like to watch.
Another binge viewer here, and I much prefer it that way. I’m currently watching on DVD: Six Feet Under, Smallville, The Shield, and I’ve got Deadwood queued, as well as I, Claudius, Band of Brothers, Deadwood, Grey’s Anatomy, Scrubs, X-Men: Evolution, & Entourage. I love knowing when I sit down to watch a show, I can watch two, or three or four eps back to back.
Between the DVDs I own, and Netflix, I could watch TV everyday and never switch over to regular broadcast or satellite TV. In fact, we’re starting to discuss whether we even still want to keep the satellite.
There are only a few shows I like discussing the day after, and it’s usually here on the boards anyway. I have no one in RL to chat about this stuff with, with the possible exception of The Amazing Race & Survivor, which I can chat with the roommate about.
My friends are becoming the same way. It used to be, “OMG, did you see last night’s episode of [whatever]?” Now it’s just, “OMG, I just finished season one of [whatever], I couldn’t believe it when…”
I usually tape them on Sky+ (basically a British tivo-alike) and watch them 2 or 3 at a time which I think is a good middle ground.
Only exception is ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’ which is an every week occurence.
Watching ‘Lost’ this way is painful though as we’re still on season 1 in the uk so it’s really tempting to get the DVD for season 1 (region 1) and see how that ends.
I believe the U.S. is on Season 2 Episode 6 (or thereabouts) - we’re still on episode 13 of season 1 
Podkayne, I must conclude that you are an alien life form. I cannot fathom seeing a positive aspect to cliffhangers. Seems to me they’re usually done at the end of a season (or at a mid-season break) to ensure that people will tune in again once re-runs are done. I cannot comprehend finding any pleasure in waiting months for the conclusion of a story.
Also, I think you underrate the advantage of not having commercials. That alone far outweighs any pleasure of having the anticipation doled out in weekly doses with time for rumination. The only reason I watch any of my shows when they’re aired is that I would have to wait too long for the DVD’s.
Another vote for everything at once on DVD. Having to schedule my life around a show (or even schedule my life around recording a show) sucks. I’d rather wait a bit longer and then watch it at my own pace, in superior sound/picture quality, no commercials.
I’ll set my own cliffhangers. If I want suspense, I’ll build it myself, thank you very much.
Here’s another issue, with older shows: I rented a Star Trek TNG DVD once. In some ways the quality was too good. It looked like a set, and you could hear the plywood floors creaking. It did have some nice extras, though.
[Monty Burns]Co-mer-shuls?[/MB] Oh yeah, now I remember. what commercials are. People who don’t have TiVo have to watch those.
Those poor, poor people.
Well, a cliffhanger is good when it sets up a great bit of anticipation and then pays off when it comes back.
However, most of the time the payoff isn’t worth it.
[Mini Rant]
My pet Peeve: Season 2 of 24 ended with a great cliffhanger. Beatiful set-up for Season 3.
Season 3: There’s a clip from the season 2 cliffhanger and then…well, it’s 3 years later and very little is mentioned about the whole thing. Just a few little nods in the first episode.
Damnit! Why sqaunder a perfect setup like that? And then why remind us of that fact? I think some people need to be “interrogated” by Jack.
[/Mini-Rant]