# Which TV series are particularly bad for binge viewing
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-tv-series-are-particularly-bad-for-binge-viewing/688599
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [May 16, 2014, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-tv-series-are-particularly-bad-for-binge-viewing/688599 "2014-05-16T18:38:16Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)
#### Post date: [May 16, 2014, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-tv-series-are-particularly-bad-for-binge-viewing/688599/1 "2014-05-16T18:38:16Z")
[I started a thread about _House_](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=720732) 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?
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### Author:  [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)
#### Post date: [May 16, 2014, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-tv-series-are-particularly-bad-for-binge-viewing/688599/2 "2014-05-16T18:49:20Z")
I find _SVU_ to be emotionally wearying after the 5th or 6th episode straight.
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### Author:  [@nevadaexile](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nevadaexile)
#### Post date: [May 16, 2014, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-tv-series-are-particularly-bad-for-binge-viewing/688599/3 "2014-05-16T18:52:03Z")
_ **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
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### Author:  [@Sicks\_Ate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sicks_Ate)
#### Post date: [May 16, 2014, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-tv-series-are-particularly-bad-for-binge-viewing/688599/4 "2014-05-16T18:53:35Z")
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.
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### Author:  [@SpoilerVirgin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SpoilerVirgin)
#### Post date: [May 16, 2014, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-tv-series-are-particularly-bad-for-binge-viewing/688599/5 "2014-05-16T19:22:59Z")
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.
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### Author:  [@ISiddiqui](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ISiddiqui)
#### Post date: [May 16, 2014, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-tv-series-are-particularly-bad-for-binge-viewing/688599/6 "2014-05-16T19:29:36Z")
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.
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### Author:  [@AnthonyElite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AnthonyElite)
#### Post date: [May 16, 2014, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-tv-series-are-particularly-bad-for-binge-viewing/688599/7 "2014-05-16T20:18:52Z")
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.
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### Author:  [@hotflungwok](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hotflungwok)
#### Post date: [May 16, 2014, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-tv-series-are-particularly-bad-for-binge-viewing/688599/8 "2014-05-16T20:22:36Z")
_The Prisoner_. Don’t watch the whole thing in one weekend. Trust me.
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### Author:  [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)
#### Post date: [May 16, 2014, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-tv-series-are-particularly-bad-for-binge-viewing/688599/9 "2014-05-16T20:29:58Z")
I imagine Criminal Minds would be pretty wearying after a while. Just a little too grim to binge on.
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### Author:  [@polar\_bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/polar_bear)
#### Post date: [May 16, 2014, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-tv-series-are-particularly-bad-for-binge-viewing/688599/10 "2014-05-16T20:50:29Z")
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.
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### Author:  [@Nippless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nippless)
#### Post date: [May 19, 2014, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-tv-series-are-particularly-bad-for-binge-viewing/688599/11 "2014-05-19T13:52:45Z")
Lost
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### Author:  [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)
#### Post date: [May 19, 2014, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-tv-series-are-particularly-bad-for-binge-viewing/688599/12 "2014-05-19T15:23:05Z")
> [@Nippless](#):
>
> Lost
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.
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### Author:  [@epbrown01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/epbrown01)
#### Post date: [May 19, 2014, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-tv-series-are-particularly-bad-for-binge-viewing/688599/13 "2014-05-19T15:38:08Z")
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. 🙂
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### Author:  [@IvoryTowerDenizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IvoryTowerDenizen)
#### Post date: [May 19, 2014, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-tv-series-are-particularly-bad-for-binge-viewing/688599/14 "2014-05-19T16:01:27Z")
> [@AnthonyElite](#):
>
> 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.
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.
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### Author:  [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)
#### Post date: [May 19, 2014, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-tv-series-are-particularly-bad-for-binge-viewing/688599/15 "2014-05-19T16:30:54Z")
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.
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### Author:  [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)
#### Post date: [May 19, 2014, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-tv-series-are-particularly-bad-for-binge-viewing/688599/16 "2014-05-19T16:44:20Z")
> [@AnthonyElite](#):
>
> 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.\
Thirding “Breaking Bad” - it is so intense that we are kind of rationing them - we only watch one every couple of days.
> [@Jophiel](#):
>
> 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.
That’s another very intense show.
I think most of the ones mentioned have a refractory period - you have to recover a little from an episode. 🙂
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### Author:  [@Bozuit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bozuit)
#### Post date: [May 19, 2014, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-tv-series-are-particularly-bad-for-binge-viewing/688599/17 "2014-05-19T16:48:21Z")
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.
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### Author:  [@toast\_pakora](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/toast_pakora)
#### Post date: [May 19, 2014, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-tv-series-are-particularly-bad-for-binge-viewing/688599/18 "2014-05-19T22:18:23Z")
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.
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### Author:  [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)
#### Post date: [May 19, 2014, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-tv-series-are-particularly-bad-for-binge-viewing/688599/19 "2014-05-19T22:57:51Z")
**Castle.**
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.
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### Author:  [@SUZ\_MAC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SUZ_MAC)
#### Post date: [May 19, 2014, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-tv-series-are-particularly-bad-for-binge-viewing/688599/20 "2014-05-19T23:00:25Z")
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.