Unpopular Opinion

Quiet.

Old man talking.

So I don’t like the Netflix model for television series. I like their shows, mind you, a great deal of my viewing time takes place on their platform. Their original programming is of the highest quality.

But I don’t like their model. More precisely, I don’t like the trend of binge watching shows.

We live in an age where technology and a diverse group of storytellers and actors can put some of the best entertainment available in the history of the medium, and we down it like a 12 year old me would a bucket of KFC.

It takes thousands of man-hours to create these universes, writes these stories, build these sets, let alone act and produce them. Why can’t we savor it?

To age myself further, I miss the days of Must See TV on Network television.

I miss the days of watching an episode of Cheers, talking about it the next day at school, then letting anticipation and excitement build for the week until another new episode airs. Yes, of course I want all the answers and all the character moments I crave in the immediate, letting the content sit with me only makes it better.

Which brings me to my other point, and I speak only for myself here, I’m not digesting the shows in the same way. By binge watching, I’m missing character names, key points and not thinking about them the same afterwards.

I’ll watch a season of Daredevil in a few days, and when season 2 hits a year later, I have no idea who anyone is, or where we left off.

All that said, and this will be an unpopular opinion, I wish they would not dump an entire season of a show on us at once, but rather dole them out on a schedule.

They took a year to make this season, the very least I could do ™ is spend more than half a day on it.

I know the counter argument is going to be about control, about giving the user the choice as to how they enjoy the content. My counter-counter-argument would then be, with social media a part of our daily existence, it’s impossible to not get things spoiled.

All in all, I guess I just miss the shared experience of everyone gathering around the TV at 9pm on a Thursday night for Cheers.

-Because I Can.

Quote of the Day

“Life Itself is the Proper Binge.”
-Julia Child