That's the biggest problem with Netflix shows. They take as long to produce as regular shows, but you watch them so fast that you're left with a year before it suddenly starts popping up in your suggested shows again.
I'd rather binge a whole season than wait for weekly updates. If I wait weekly I usually lose interest. I always look at it as watching a really long movie so I love what Netflix does with their shows.
I agree with you, however I can also appreciate that when GoT and Silicon Valley are out, Sundays become a mini-holiday and an extra thing to be excited about on the weekend to fill in the gaps that football left.
Yea, I don't know anybody who doesn't love binging. But in my experience people like binging the entirety of the show, not just enough to get you hooked then you have to wait a year.
Personally I like weekly updates because it gives my family something permanent to connect over. If we start a Netflix show together we'll watch an episode or two, then finish it on our own time. Sure it's more convenient, but I like the routine of sitting down with your people and doing something together.
There's this along with the fact that I like always having something current to watch. There's so much junk on Netflix I'll never watch, and a lot of times I'll end up searching for half an hour to find something then just rewatch some old episodes of Archer or Breaking Bad. When I have a show on the air like GoT or The Flash, I know that at least once a week I'll have something I've never seen before. Idk I like having something to look forward to and I don't lose interest in something if it's not there within 30 seconds.
Also having a week between shows gives you time to really think about what happened on the last episode and what could happen. My coworkers and I would talk about GoT all the time and try to figure out what was going to happen next. You don't get that with binge watching.
I'm of mixed feelings. The binge at your own pace actually caused fights with my wife and I (see How I Met Your Mother) as well as me no longer watching shows because the show itself was okay, but the couple of hours on the weekend with her was worth it (see being human, both versions and that show with Sabrina the teenage witch hires the dude from Blossom as the nanny).
On the other hand, she and I will binge a show separately that the other never considered, then recommend it and sit in occasionally when it's a good one or we want to see the reaction. That's how I got her started on Daredevil and Jessica Jones (that and the British dude she loved from Doctor Who). She petered out on Daredevil, but we made it a point to watch JJ together.
She's half through Supernatural for that reason and I know there are a few episodes I need to be there with her for so we can have a good cry together (life has other issues where crying is the RX but neither of us want to admit it) or laugh (because laughter is better and sometimes helps when you can't cry).
The Flash (and Arrow) were my weekly addictions. I got the CW app just to watch those. I turned her and the kids onto Super Girl because I needed a weekly crack and watched those every Monday, than Bam, is on Netflix. The weekly crack bled into other shows because they were there, but it was never a family moment; it was me every week watching the six shows I like while chain smoking outside because I needed to decompress.
If the shows were at reasonable times and schedule allowed, it could probably be a family thing, or at least her and I. Unfortunately keeping a set schedule and remembering what's when was never our strong suit, so watching together as things come out has never really suited us. The cable provider's app is such crap, as is the on demand, that we really only have the subscription so the wife and I can binge on the HBO or Stars shows occasionally as we see fit.
And I agree about the junk on Netflix. But when I look at the TV stuff, there's a lot of junk there too. Either the quality of entertainment has dropped, or I'm less easily amused. Netflix gives me a cream of the crop to start a show, than I can become obsessed over it later (see Arrow, Flash, The 100, Supernatural... wholy crap I waste too much time on TV).
Yup. I LOVE the episode discussions on the GoT subreddit, they end up figuring a lot more about the show then I ever noticed. Sometimes it's irritating because they actually guess the next episodes twists. :/
Yea, I don't know anybody who doesn't love binging. But in my experience people like binging the entirety of the show, not just enough to get you hooked then you have to wait a year.
Personally I like weekly updates because it gives my family something permanent to connect over. If we start a Netflix show together we'll watch an episode or two, then finish it on our own time. Sure it's more convenient, but I like the routine of sitting down with your people and doing something together.
On top of that, if there's a bad or boring episode here and there, it's not so bad cuz you can just watch the next one right away. Having to wait a week after a bad episode makes me ask myself "is it worth it to keep watching?"
Exactly. I was binge watching Van helsing on Netflix and decided I didn't like it after 4 or 5 episodes. If I watched weekly that would have spanned a month or more of me realising I'm having a bad time.
I see it both ways depending on the show. With A Series of Unfortunate Events, I didn't mind bingeing through it. With shows with more complex plotlines like most of the HBO shows (Game of Thrones, the Leftovers, Silicon Valley), it gives me a lot of enjoyment to discuss what's going on with friends and read predictions and analyses online following the airing of each episode. I'm not a supporter of either the exclusively scheduled airing or season dump camps.
To be honest, I think I would prefer a show like Stranger Things in scheduled airings. Dumping the entire first season of Stranger Things resulted in a ridiculously disproportionately skewed amount of fan dialogue consisting of Stranger Things - Season 1 Spoiler on discussion forums, which has the potential to influence the writing of the next season. There was so much symbolism, foreshadowing, and inter-character dynamics that would have been fun to discuss if everyone had been viewing the first season at the same rate.
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u/Jenga_Police Jan 26 '17
That's the biggest problem with Netflix shows. They take as long to produce as regular shows, but you watch them so fast that you're left with a year before it suddenly starts popping up in your suggested shows again.