On Binge-Watching

Discuss TV shows old and new.
Post Reply
Message
Author
User avatar
domino harvey
Dot Com Dom
Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2006 2:42 pm

Re: TV of 2012

#1 Post by domino harvey » Sun Oct 14, 2012 9:11 pm

Argument against binge-watching TV series -- since this is how most of us discover / get caught up with shows, any thoughts? I recognize his points, but part of the allure of obtaining an entire season at a time is the instant gratification factor, and his positing discounts reflection on the whole as unoccuring, which is unfair (and a little snobby, no? -- "I was experiencing this show first as it happened, you're just a quick study")

User avatar
Matt
Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 12:58 pm

On Binge-Watching

#2 Post by Matt » Sun Oct 14, 2012 9:53 pm

1. Episodes have their own integrity, which is blurred by watching several in a row.

Well, maybe the integrity of the episodes is blurred for you, but it isn't for me. I can pay attention.

2. Cliffhangers and suspense need time to breathe.

I can agree with this to some extent, but not all series end with a cliffhanger every week or leave viewers in suspense. A show that did that would be pretty tiresome and would also violate your first point: if an episode has integrity, it can stand on its own. An episode with a cliffhanger does not stand on its own, it needs the resolution to complete it.

3. Episode recaps and online communities provide key analysis and insight.

TV audiences did alright without them for about 50 years, and many TV viewers still do just fine without them.

4. TV characters should be a regular part of our lives, not someone we hang out with 24/7 for a few days and then never see again.

I have acquaintances I see every day and I have very dear friends I see once every few years. I can spend an hour a week for 13 weeks with a friend, or I can spend 13 intense hours in one day with that friend: which do you think is likely to be the better bonding experience?

5. Taking breaks maintains the timeline of the TV universe.

This is just BS. By this logic, there should be a month between each episode of "Mad Men." And I guess ABC should have had a two-year gap between seasons 2 and 3 of "Alias".


To quote the great TV philosopher, Miss Shirley Brahms of "Are You Being Served?": "You do your thing your way, I'll do my thing my way."

User avatar
Murdoch
Joined: Sun Apr 20, 2008 11:59 pm
Location: Upstate NY

Re: TV of 2012

#3 Post by Murdoch » Sun Oct 14, 2012 9:59 pm

This just seems part of the I-saw-it-first culture where people for some reason get off on telling others how they saw the show when it originally aired. The sometimes year-long hiatuses between seasons for something like The Sopranos or Mad Men aren't exactly optimal to the viewing experience, and being able to go quickly through the show helps with the especially convoluted series.

Still I do think this kind of mass consumption is a problem that's easy to fall prey to. I know I've had the desire to follow that Portlandia sketch where Fred and Carrie waste away in their apartment for weeks while they run through the entirety of Battlestar Galactica.

flyonthewall2983
Joined: Mon Jun 27, 2005 3:31 pm
Location: Indiana
Contact:

Re: TV of 2012

#4 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Sun Oct 14, 2012 10:27 pm

I'm not really a fan of binge-watching, but I fall prey to it too. I finished the first four seasons of Breaking Bad in less than a week, but curse myself for not watching it as it happened. There are some shows I've watched that if I binge-watched them to catch up, I'd probably have quit a few seasons in (looking at you, True Blood).

User avatar
tarpilot
Joined: Thu Jan 20, 2011 10:48 am

Re: TV of 2012

#5 Post by tarpilot » Sun Oct 14, 2012 11:30 pm

Matt wrote:3. Episode recaps and online communities provide key analysis and insight.
Even money on this article actually being a well-crafted troll by Nathan Rabin

User avatar
colinr0380
Joined: Mon Nov 08, 2004 4:30 pm
Location: Chapel-en-le-Frith, Derbyshire, UK

Re: TV of 2012

#6 Post by colinr0380 » Mon Oct 15, 2012 10:55 am

I think the article has a point but one way isn't necessarily better than the other. I also think it has a lot to do with the show whether binging works or not.

I like saving things up to watch in one go (although in my case it is the irresistible "can't say no" greed of there being another episode to watch straight away!) but at the same time there is a comforting consistency to tuning in to this weeks episode (which has just happened with Parade's End).

Sometimes I don't want to watch the next episode straight away but be able to mull it over for a little while, even if it is just a day or two. But you can do that with boxsets too, you just need a bit of self control to stop after one episode and watch something else (self control that I don't really have if it is a particularly exciting episode!), so waiting until the entire series is out shouldn't really be seen as a problem but as with all home entertainment an empowering way of letting the viewer programme their own evening's viewing instead of relying on the schedulers to do it for them.

I think television, at least in Britain, has conspired to ruin long form television series though. From rushing through three or four episodes in a bunch to get through an underperforming show so that a new one can take its place (or even worse, shifting a show around the schedules so that it plays at different times or days. Or even in this digital age on different sub-channels - Channel 4 did this with the final seasons of The Sopranos), through to constantly getting interested in series (24, Lost, Nurse Jackie, Mad Men) that then got taken by pay-per-view after they were successful (although that did mean with most of them that I didn't have to witness their declines!)

I don't think the viewer has ADD, more the schedulers do. They definitely cannot commit to anything for a full run (unless they produced it, in which case they have no option) without their eyes being drawn by a newer and flashier show around the corner.

Personally my interest in watching TV waned when the commercial broadcasters were allowed to add in an extra advert break during primetime, which usually came just before the final scene in the programme forcing viewers to wait three minutes for a minute and a half of wrap up (I often equate this with the way that I stopped frequenting my local library as much when they reduced their loan period from a month to three weeks. It might not sound like a big change but it had a significant impact on whether I really needed to read that book, and now to watch that episode), and now if a show interests me I just wait to watch it uninterrupted on DVD, if at all.

This is the climate which makes the success of something like Downton Abbey a little bit of a surprise. Although ITV were really committed to that show, since they heavily invested in its production, and Downton is neatly filling in the Inspector Morse/Midsomer Murders/Poirot block of the Sunday night schedules.

But that leads to my other point, which is that an episode of Morse or Midsomer Murders is kind of a mini-film in the sense that it is self contained and often repetitive so doesn't really work for binge viewing. More than one epsiode would perhaps be overkill. Some television, especially classic TV (Quantum Leap, Lassie, Bonanza, Cagney & Lacey, St Elsewhere, E.R., Dallas etc, etc. Even 24 doesn't exactly work in a big binge because then the inconsistencies and time compressions become even more apparent) is 'situation of the week' stuff with maybe a couple of soap opera-style threads running throughout a season or a couple of big two-parter specials.

That seems a little different from the current trend of long form complex narratives which do benefit from catch up sessions and binge watching of five or six episodes in a row to follow the ebb and flow of the storyline and characters. I don't think that this means one style of television series is better or worse than the other, but I do think they are aiming at doing different things.


(And none of us would be on this forum if we didn't enjoy talking about the films and TV programmes that we are enjoying with others!)

User avatar
Mr Sausage
Joined: Wed Nov 03, 2004 9:02 pm
Location: Canada

Re: TV of 2012

#7 Post by Mr Sausage » Mon Oct 15, 2012 11:43 am

colin wrote:(which has just happened with Parade's End).
How is Parade's End? I've always thought someone should make a miniseries out of it, but it poses the same difficulties of adaptation as Conrad's books, there being a heavy focus on psychology, consciousness, and manners. I'd like to know if the current adaptation solved those problems.

User avatar
colinr0380
Joined: Mon Nov 08, 2004 4:30 pm
Location: Chapel-en-le-Frith, Derbyshire, UK

Re: TV of 2012

#8 Post by colinr0380 » Mon Oct 15, 2012 1:10 pm

I'm afraid I have not read the original novels to be in a position to do much of a comparison but the series (5 parts each running an hour) was excellent. I get the impression that it was streamlined and simplified some for television (but then what adaptation isn't?) but Tom Stoppard did the adaptation if that counts for anything.

The other good thing about these adaptations getting made is that they inspire associated promotional documentaries, such as this one on Ford Maddox Ford.

User avatar
Mr Sheldrake
Joined: Thu Jun 07, 2007 9:09 pm
Location: Jersey burbs exit 4

Re: TV of 2012

#9 Post by Mr Sheldrake » Mon Oct 15, 2012 1:22 pm

I read Parades End last month and can't wait to see what Stoppard did with it.

As for binge tv watching, I've recently become addicted to Korean tv shows. Most are 20-26 episodes of 1 hour length for 1 season only. Three times in the last month I've done all-nighters to watch the last 10 episodes of a show I particularly liked.

A current show I'm watching, Nice Guy (aka Innocent Man) comes in 2 episodes a week, anticipating to see what site (hulu, viki etc) gets the next episodes first, I'd much rather have watched this in big gulps. One of the female stars, Moon Chae-won, strikes me as one of the best young actresses in the world today. She has been used previously for her liveliness and her proficiency in over-the-top melodramatic scenes. In Nice Guy she is restrained, quiet, and really delivers in the payoff scenes.

User avatar
Mr Sausage
Joined: Wed Nov 03, 2004 9:02 pm
Location: Canada

Re: TV of 2012

#10 Post by Mr Sausage » Mon Oct 15, 2012 6:32 pm

colinr0380 wrote:The other good thing about these adaptations getting made is that they inspire associated promotional documentaries, such as this one on Ford Maddox Ford.
Thanks for that, Colin. I really only knew the outlines of of Ford's life, so this was a nice primer.

You've sold me on the miniseries. Here's hoping it comes to DVD in North America.

User avatar
domino harvey
Dot Com Dom
Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2006 2:42 pm

Re: On Binge-Watching

#11 Post by domino harvey » Mon Dec 16, 2013 11:47 pm


Perkins Cobb
Joined: Tue Apr 29, 2008 12:49 pm

Re: On Binge-Watching

#12 Post by Perkins Cobb » Tue Dec 17, 2013 2:45 pm

domino harvey wrote:Slate's back at it again
Boy is that a classic "I couldn't think of anything to write about today" piece. I was hoping Paskin would go for some kind of generational one-upmanship that I could swat down by describing how I was binge-watching Twilight Zones on VHS in 1985, but it didn't even get that exciting.

User avatar
Gregory
Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 4:07 pm

Re: On Binge-Watching

#13 Post by Gregory » Tue Dec 17, 2013 3:15 pm

The real issue has little or nothing to do with whether someone gets through a season of a particular show in less than a week or most of a year, because even if someone takes their time watching that series they may still spend lots of time watching other things. The problem is how many hours a day on average people spend sitting and watching screens (whether it's TV, films, or other internet). Studies are constantly coming out about the effects of all this. It's gotten hard to resist logging hours per day because there's so much there that's hard to ignore, and it's so much less expensive than most other kinds of entertainment and culture that would get us out of the house.

Post Reply