This may be nothing more than a
demonstration that I am hopelessly out of touch with the generation of Youtube
and the Internet and getting next weeks episode a day in advance.. Nevertheless,
I'm going to give my best effort.
Recently, I became aware of the
phenomena known as 'binge watching' a series all at once thanks to Netflix, Amazon and Hulu. I have learned that
people get caught up on series like Mad Men and The Wire over a period
of days. I've actually known about it for quite some time, but was too appalled
by the idea to write anything about it.
I have always felt the desire when
I was hopelessly behind in a TV series that premiered to critical acclaim, but
for one reason or another, I didn't watch the first season. Then time passed,
and given the nature of the series, one was hopelessly behind. (I never did get caught up on the first few
seasons of The Shield.) With the age of DVD box sets and Netflix, things
became easier. But even with this easy access, I always portioned out how I
watched the series: one episode a week, like if I was a regular viewer. This
rule would even serve me for series that were cancelled, such as Deadwood.
I've held to this pattern even with
the deluge of new media making it easier for anybody to get caught up on a
series. After Bryan Cranston won his third consecutive Emmy, I realized that I
had to get caught up on Breaking Bad. Like millions before me, I turned
to Netflix. Unlike those millions, I staggered my viewing to one episode a week.
As I savored the brilliant writings and Cranston 's
descent into a criminal underworld, I became as addicted to it as Jesse was to
heroin in Season 2. But even as my mind demanded more episodes, I steadfastly kept
the pace at a deliberate feed. And I believe that this deliberate parceling out
of the episode made me savor the glorious moments more than somebody who
streamlined through them in a matter of weeks. I actually took a month between
the last two episodes of Season 4. And even though I knew what was coming (you
can't avoid spoilers) I was blindsided by the spectacular 'Face Off'. I may
know what's coming in Season 5, but I'm still waiting cautiously to see how it
comes out. I'll finish it in time for the final eight episodes, but I'm in no
hurry to get it done
I've held firm to these principles
even with series I've already seen. When I decided to develop my episode guide
for Lost (much of which has been published at this site) I naturally
decided to rewatch the entire series. I didn't do it all at once (like it was
satirized in the recent hit comedy This is 40) , but took a full two
years to go through every episode week by week. And I believe this restraint
helped me discover what worked so well about the show. I still have great
dismay about the shows final season and the last few episodes, but by
rewatching it an episode at a time from start to finish made me remember how
fresh the characters seemed, how good the acting was, and how well developed
the relationships on the show came to be over time. Maybe you'll get the same
feeling if you go through the series in a month, but I highly doubt it.
I know that in the age of instant
gratification and revelation where every detail of the story is revealed weeks
in advance, it is passe to apply to these rules, but maybe there's a lesson to
be learned from it. When Netflix developed the fourth season of Arrested
Development, a lot of the people who
viewed it were dramatically disappointed by it, and I can't help but think
maybe that's because they tried to take it all in at once. Arrested
Development was a series that needed to be watched slowly to appreciate the
layers of the humor and comedy. It is like ice cream, and maybe the people who
watched it all at once got the equivalent of brain freeze.
Maybe I'm wrong to take TV like
this. All I know is that there are great series out there that I have never
watched. Someday soon, I'm going to see Friday Night Lights. And when I
do, I'm going to watch it as the networks intended: one episode at a time.
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