I started a thread about House a few weeks back where a few posters agreed that it’s a poor choice to watch a bunch of episodes back to back. It is so rigid
ly formulaic that all the repeating elements become seriously annoying. Seriously, does every frickin’ disease cause seizures?
More recently I’ve started watching Psych, and though I like it, the lead guy’s constant self-absorption and cute little quips make me want to punch him in the face. Hey Gus, he said exactly the same thing to you the last time – are you ever going to stop putting up with his bullshit?
What other programs don’t stand binge-watching well?
The Brady Bunch - The family situation seems to be more bizarre and the protagonists become more unlikeable the greater numbers of shows that you watch.
Hill Street Blues - Really doesn’t stand the test of time. A few really good episodes cloak the fact that the entire series was rather dull.
Bonanza - Stayed on for so long that it rehashed several stories over its run. Also the “funny” episodes really aren’t that funny to a 21st century audience.
Gunsmoke - See above.
Friends - A number of their “funny quirks” start to resemble sociopathy the longer that you watch the series. Not as funny now as it was when it aired. May never have been funny.
Full House - Awful when it aired. Awful now
Perfect Strangers - See above
Law & Order: Criminal Intent - It’s actually sad to watch how much this show declines in its later seasons. Losing Jamey Sheridan and Courtney B. Vance and including Saffron Burrows and Jeff Goldblum finally drove a stake through its heart.
Star Trek:Voyager - Just too uneven. If you attempt to bingewatch this series, you may find that you’ll lose interest before you get to some of the better episodes
I loved the earlier seasons of Bones but I think it’s going to feel close to the House experience if binged. It’s better enjoyed with time between episodes. I watched it on Netflix DVD, so I had forced delays.
Of the series I was really looking forward to watching on DVD, the one that most surprised me with how difficult it was to binge on was The Rockford Files. I loved it when it originally aired, and I still love it now, but there’s really not a lot of there there, and it can be wearying to watch an endless stream of light banter, car chases and fistfights. I did finally make it through the entire series, but I needed quite a few substantial breaks along the way.
OTOH, I would never have guessed that Simon & Simon would end up being one of the most fun series to binge watch, maybe because there was a tremendous amount of variety in the types of stories they handled.
I found Veronica Mars annoying to watch back to back due to the same reason the OP had problems with House - I figured out the formula really quick and the show got boring. I’m sure if I had a week between episodes (as I did when watching House), it wouldn’t have grated on me so much.
I don’t know if this counts, but “Breaking Bad”. The show was so intense that I wanted a little time to process things and see how I really felt before moving on. Sometimes I’d leave an episode having that awful gut feeling of “somethings wrong” for an hour or so. Like you’d have if you hit a parked car and went off without leaving a note.
“Seinfeld” is not good for binge watching on the first go - the plots can be too frustrating to piggy-back them. It would turn humorous frustration into exasperation. After that first go, it’s all good.
“Boardwalk Empire” is tough to binge because its hard to suspend your belief that beautiful women would actually sleep with Steve Buscemi for that long.
“Dexter”, despite weak moments, had moments that were so dark I’d feel depressed after watching too many in a row.
I would think this is true for any show that is basically monster/case/illness/crime of the week. Binge watching only makes sense when there is some type of season long story arc.
You think? I came in to Lost binge-watching to catch up to season 3, and I found that having to switch to watching commercials and waiting a week between episodes was excruciating!! Much better for me just to get that mess all over with in a few weekends.
Yep, as others have said, formula can kill it. It’s like how several Elvis or early Beatles songs sound the same when you listen to a bunch at once. For me, much as I like The Closer, I wince at that moment at the end of Act 2 where an offhand comment by someone (typically Fritz) would spark the insight that breaks the case. However, I have no problem binge-watching the Flynn/Provenza eps.
Came in to post Breaking Bad. We did binge watch it, but often we could only watch 2, maybe 3 episodes because we were left with such a dark feeling, it was hard to shake.
My wife has me watching “Sherlock” and the 90 minute format means that I’m done after a single episode. Something about the extended running time but in a standard TV episode format (vs the usual ‘W’ shaped plot structure of a film) just drains me.
Most “murderer of the week” type shows, for me. The episodes blend together too much and I forgot who’s dead, who the suspects are, etc. Also, although shows like this are normally kind of lighthearted in tone, they can start to feel a little callous when binge-watching and every episode opens with the murder of some undeserving person.
Actually, I can watch the original Law & Order episodes back to back, no problem, especially the ones with Orbach and Noth, because they don’t get intensely personal. Never could tolerate the spin offs though.
The show has a formula that they very really waver from. One at a time, it’s not annoying, but back-to-back-to-back you notice how they are all the same plot.
For me it was “Dexter”. After approximately 4-5 seasons in a two-day period I was on serial killer overload. I did the same with Downton Abbey, but Dexter was a whole nuther thing.
