Weekly release can't save a medicore/bad season of tv though.
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Sarah Z: Bingewatching is kinda bad for TV
- Thread starter Saucycarpdog
- Start date
Yes, I do. I like to know something is done. And that it is at my disposal.
I don't want to wait a week to maybe get another bite. I want the whole meal.
I will wait for the meal. I won't even complain if it takes some extra time to come out.
I just expect a full meal.
Edit: Binging isn't a sign of me just rushig through episodes at 1.75X speed. It's a sign that I am invested.
But I can only get invested if I know you didn't abandon the thing half-way through.
I don't want to wait a week to maybe get another bite. I want the whole meal.
I will wait for the meal. I won't even complain if it takes some extra time to come out.
I just expect a full meal.
Edit: Binging isn't a sign of me just rushig through episodes at 1.75X speed. It's a sign that I am invested.
But I can only get invested if I know you didn't abandon the thing half-way through.
It's strange to talk about the loss of the social aspect of weekly entertainment like we aren't talking about streaming that already so deeply abused the basis of that idea when it was first made for the theater experience. This is a 50-plus-year-old argument and I'll take convenience over the aural experience personally.
She acknowledges the benefits of the binge model and that it is natural to want more fast without waiting for each episode. She also argues that being forced to wait can enhance the experience and that the binge model has changed how a series is written and not necessarily for the better.
You should watch the video, it's much more nuanced than the bad original title makes you think.
I know that having to wait and cutting off at a point where you want to see more can build up suspense and your curiosity as a viewer. It can absolutely enhance the experience. But when the wait is more than a day, I just get annoyed. I could deal with things like that when every day I would get one episode of my show on TV.
If I'm invested in a story and your characters, I just can't wait a week. I can wait a day, but that's it.
I'd just rather wait for a series to be completed, for years, than to be hanging on to next week, or next month, or next year.
I'm a fan of Berserk, for example. That taught me. :P
i like to watch at my own pace, so even when it all drops, i usually watch how i feel like, maybe 1 episode a day etc
me and my girlfriend don't give a fuck about what nerds talk about online regarding cultural lifespan. we just want to watch when we want and at our pace
in my opinion tv shows that have "cultural lifespans" are few and far between relative to the amount of tv shows out there, and that is mostly down to the success of global syndication like Star Trek TNG, not because they released one episode a week and ran for 6-7 years
like with GoT, each season lasted 9-10 weeks? at least the earlier seasons. that's irrelevant, because you'd wait a year for the next season any way. if you dropped all 10 episodes immediately, I don't think the GoT zeigeist would be much different.
GoT is kinda a good example to use for weekly format because of anticipation for next episode because of the nature of the show, but very few shows out there need weekly format, especially nowadays when there's so much tv out there, and the fact that most tv isn't even all that good, can you imagine if it was all weekly again, fuck that
me and my girlfriend don't give a fuck about what nerds talk about online regarding cultural lifespan. we just want to watch when we want and at our pace
in my opinion tv shows that have "cultural lifespans" are few and far between relative to the amount of tv shows out there, and that is mostly down to the success of global syndication like Star Trek TNG, not because they released one episode a week and ran for 6-7 years
like with GoT, each season lasted 9-10 weeks? at least the earlier seasons. that's irrelevant, because you'd wait a year for the next season any way. if you dropped all 10 episodes immediately, I don't think the GoT zeigeist would be much different.
GoT is kinda a good example to use for weekly format because of anticipation for next episode because of the nature of the show, but very few shows out there need weekly format, especially nowadays when there's so much tv out there, and the fact that most tv isn't even all that good, can you imagine if it was all weekly again, fuck that
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The video definitely matched the thread title earlier today. I assume she changed it to be a little less clickbaity.
Online discussions are a replacement of watching the next episode, which I'd rather have.
So yeah I actually prefer having LL episodes available in one go.
So yeah I actually prefer having LL episodes available in one go.
It's the opposite to me - as an example, when an entire season drops, the fervent bingers rush to update wikis, reddit, etc. It means when I come along watching it weekly and need to Google to remind myself who a character is suddenly I'm spoiled for the whole season. It is deeply frustrating.
I don't watch many TV shows, but when I do I'll wait for it to be over and then I can set my own pace of watching. Some days it'll be one episode, others it could be 2 or 3. Maybe I have a day off or something.
I've got a terrible memory so when I watch week to week I'm always forgetting what happened since the last episode. I also forget to watch the shows altogether from week to week and I end up bringing them anyway but weeks after release lol. With binge watching, I get to enjoy the whole story at once and feel fully satisfied I understood all the side plots as I remember all the details. I do end up forgetting the whole show pretty quickly afterwards though lol.
To be honest, I think a majority of binge release content just hasn't been as good as things that have been released in the "traditional" weekly format. There are maybe a handful of exceptions, and it's always been my understanding that Ozark isn't one of them.
Ah OK. That's surprisingly uncharacteristic of her. She normally doesn't clickbait, not like that.
When shows come out weekly now I just wait for it all to release so I can binge. So I'm pretty positive I enjoy it quite a bit. I hate waiting for cliffhangers.
I actually think it's making TV better because there's less reliance on cliffhangers and episodes feel more fulfilling.
I actually think it's making TV better because there's less reliance on cliffhangers and episodes feel more fulfilling.
No I love binging.
What I hate is long form youtube influencers with paternalistic hot takes, did not click.
What I hate is long form youtube influencers with paternalistic hot takes, did not click.
Yeah, the title of the video was originally the title of this thread.
YES
This is the revolution of the binge-model / Video on Demand that Netflix kickstarted and that gave us the golden age of television. Not the weekly serialized format that made every episode a self contained piece of fluff and only had short two or three parter carry-ons because people forget what happened six weeks ago. Go look at the latest Star Wars series and then compare that with Stranger Things s04 and tell me weekly serialized works better for the format itself.
It's not a hot take, she also talks about the benefits of the binge model and that wanting to binge is understandable and a valid choice.
The golden age of television started long before Netflix was a thing and the majority of the great shows of this age are network or cable shows released weekly. Netflix was influential in some ways but it hardly raised the bar when it comes to quality.
I try to watch one episode for day or fewer than that lol
I do not mind watching weekly, though, as it helps watching things in a slower pace.
I do not mind watching weekly, though, as it helps watching things in a slower pace.
This
Binge model or weekly model, it doesn't matter. The internet puts way too much emotional investment into perceived zeitgeist around a show/game/film/etc. There are shows that I think benefitted from a big zeitgeist burst of a binge drop (like Squid Game) and there are shows that benefitted from the weekly format to slow burn anticipation (like Wandavision). At the end of the day if you enjoyed something who cares if most people consumed it in a week, over 8-12 weeks, or months/years later? You enjoyed it when you watched it and that's the most important thing.
Loved bingewatching at first, but I definitely did notice I quickly forgot about the stuff that we watched. Since Disney started doing the weekly stuff I realized I currently enjoy that a lot more. Mostly because I currently don't want to watch a lot a TV in general, but also because I really enjoy the anticipation of a coming episode of a show you are enjoying. Like, we'd save our most 'snacky' meal of the week for the day of the episode and we'd get some nice drinks and it'd really be something we would be looking forward to.
Aye fair, I shouldn't have used that term that broadly, but the format of TV shows changed due to video on demand (or perhaps better it catalyzed an innovation that started earlier).
Don't really care about discussing it online, if I finish an episode or a season I don't need to go immediately discuss it.
I like it when they drop all episodes at once, I can make time in my schedule to tackle the show and then be done with it. I can't believe we are moving back to one episode per week formats of linear programming, where people had to schedule around new episodes of a show
I like it when they drop all episodes at once, I can make time in my schedule to tackle the show and then be done with it. I can't believe we are moving back to one episode per week formats of linear programming, where people had to schedule around new episodes of a show
Same
I really don't care either way even if k appreciate discourse i don't need it
Either works for me
I watch shit for my entertainment, not to discuss it with people.
I lose interest with weekly shows and forget about them before their season is over. The weekly model destroyed my interest in the recent seasons of the Expanse. Power + it's spinoffs and BMF are the only shows I keep up with weekly. So No, Sarah, I do actually enjoy binge watching.
I lose interest with weekly shows and forget about them before their season is over. The weekly model destroyed my interest in the recent seasons of the Expanse. Power + it's spinoffs and BMF are the only shows I keep up with weekly. So No, Sarah, I do actually enjoy binge watching.
The discussion around 'zeitgiest' is interesting imo cause I can't help but interpret it as also implying that a show has little discussion value if people are going to visit it years down the line
This just doesn't hold up to scrutiny imo when you look at stuff like Sopranos and The Wire. Which did have weekly drops but lasted way beyond that initial drip. They have the same cultural cachet as a classic film within their own medium. The 'zeitgiest' doesn't matter much at all imo or at least not enough to demand every series follow this model
I just like being able to watch however I want. Season 6 of saul has already tuned me out with the weekly drip of glacially paced shit it's being doing. While I was 'binging' (watching an ep or 2 a night) the previous 5 seasons I was more tolerant of the bad cause something good was right around the corner. Now I have to wait a week (or weeks).
Tbh online discussion around shows also just sort of fatigues my general interest. Game of Thrones had years and years of theorycrafting which just kind of revealed the whole thing to be a bit of a sham by the end. LOST as well. I think almost no show stands to this kind of surgical analysis. Maybe Twin Peaks The Return? But that annoyed me for entirely different reasons
This just doesn't hold up to scrutiny imo when you look at stuff like Sopranos and The Wire. Which did have weekly drops but lasted way beyond that initial drip. They have the same cultural cachet as a classic film within their own medium. The 'zeitgiest' doesn't matter much at all imo or at least not enough to demand every series follow this model
I just like being able to watch however I want. Season 6 of saul has already tuned me out with the weekly drip of glacially paced shit it's being doing. While I was 'binging' (watching an ep or 2 a night) the previous 5 seasons I was more tolerant of the bad cause something good was right around the corner. Now I have to wait a week (or weeks).
Tbh online discussion around shows also just sort of fatigues my general interest. Game of Thrones had years and years of theorycrafting which just kind of revealed the whole thing to be a bit of a sham by the end. LOST as well. I think almost no show stands to this kind of surgical analysis. Maybe Twin Peaks The Return? But that annoyed me for entirely different reasons
This is something I actually think weekly streaming needs to move to, honestly. If you wanna act like weekly TV go all the way with it and release eps in prime time.
My "binge" is incredibly lite. I do not watch entire seasons in a day as I lose information and don't enjoy what I'm watching as much. 2-3 hours max and I take a much needed break.
Multi episode drops, especially for a part 1 and part 2 (Obi-Wan, Wandavision) are more than fine, because they're just one big episode cut in two.
Multi episode drops, especially for a part 1 and part 2 (Obi-Wan, Wandavision) are more than fine, because they're just one big episode cut in two.
On a personal consumer level, none of that matters to me.
And if that were true, that shows could only really grow over sustained release periods, we wouldn't have Stranger Things and The Witcher, Bridgerton and Squid Game. All some of the most discussed and viral shows of the last few years.
And let's take an even broader perspective here, are films unable to be culturally relevant cause you can see the entire story all at once? What about novels, or plays, the primary way humans have shared creative stories for most of recorded civilization, were/are they unable to become culturally relevant without cutting the stories up into 10, 1 hour chunks over ten weeks?
I think much of what people post or argue on this topic is people seeking arguments to justify their preferences here.
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Video has been retitled to "Bingewatching is kinda bad for TV" so hopefully people can stop knee jerking now.
But great for streaming services and people who make many weekly videos about these shows that drop once a week. All that sub and ad rev to the max.
This is similar to my feelings. It actually reminds me of all these analysts and filmmakers talking about the sanctity of the theatrical experience (which I have nothing against) as though 99.8% of people who will ever watch a movie won't watch it at home long after the initial buzz has died down.
Edit: wait, did the title change?
"Bingewatching is kinda bad for TV"
well, I don't have any strong opinions against that if so
Thank god we have YouTubers to tell us what we actually like ¬¬
I like to talk and theorize about what is next for Star Trek Strange New Worlds or Better Call Saul, but I watched The Next Generation seasons 1, 2, 3, and 4 in less than a month (26 episodes of 50 minutes each), Better Call Sall 2 to 6 (first 3 episodes) in 3 weeks) and it was great.
"Bingewatching is kinda bad for TV"
well, I don't have any strong opinions against that if so
Thank god we have YouTubers to tell us what we actually like ¬¬
+1
I like to talk and theorize about what is next for Star Trek Strange New Worlds or Better Call Saul, but I watched The Next Generation seasons 1, 2, 3, and 4 in less than a month (26 episodes of 50 minutes each), Better Call Sall 2 to 6 (first 3 episodes) in 3 weeks) and it was great.
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That's the thing though, like someone else pointed out earlier, we aren't necessarily going back as Netflix is the only service that has been all in on the binge model.
Other services are doing a combination of both with some shows all at once or the method of 2-3 episodes drops at once and then weekly from there or just two episodes a week until the finale.
HBO has pretty much always been weekly.
But Netflix WAS streaming for a number of years now, so it definitely feels like these other services are trying to claw back the full content drop model. I get why they do it, you reduce subscriber churn. More often than not, I'll just wait for the show to finish and then watch it all at once anyway.
I want to have full control over when I watch a series, only a full release really lets me do that. With every other model, I'm forced to accomodate to their schedule instead of my own.
I constantly have to remind my 4 year old of this lack of control whenever we watch regular-ass TV (in a hotel or smth) or listen to the radio. :lol He always looks at me as if I'm a dinosaur if I start with the "this used to be the norm, you couldn't decide when to watch something, someone else decided for you what was playing when and you could only decide to watch it or miss it".
With everything that's going on in my life and the limited free time I have, control over my own experience trumps everything else.
I constantly have to remind my 4 year old of this lack of control whenever we watch regular-ass TV (in a hotel or smth) or listen to the radio. :lol He always looks at me as if I'm a dinosaur if I start with the "this used to be the norm, you couldn't decide when to watch something, someone else decided for you what was playing when and you could only decide to watch it or miss it".
With everything that's going on in my life and the limited free time I have, control over my own experience trumps everything else.