Burning Questions: Can Binge Watching Hurt a Show?
Monday, June 3, 2013 at 9:00AM Hello, dear readers. Michael C here to take a detour into TV blogging.
Is season four picking at the carcass of a once great show or just more greatness?
It has now been a full week since Netflix returned the Bluth family to us, which in Internet time means by this point I may as well writing about the final episode of MASH. By midweek the long awaited return of Arrested Development had already been watched, analyzed, celebrated, backlashed, and defended a few times over. [more...]
I told myself I was going to savor these fifteen episodes and not gorge myself on the whole season in one sitting. I am proud to say I actually stuck to my promise. I did it in two sittings. And, in total honesty, this was mostly because I had another urgent reunion with beloved characters from the mid-00’s I needed to attend.
Jeffrey Tambor & Jessica Walter reprise their Emmy-nominated roles as the Bluth parents
During my Bluth binge I couldn’t deny I heard that alarm going off in the back of my head. You know, the one that’s starts sounding quietly when you begin to suspect something you’ve greatly anticipated is failing to live up to expectations. The one which gradually increases in volume depending on how far short the thing your watching is falling, ranging in volume from, say, morning alarm clock (The Hobbit) to full-on submerging nuclear submarine alarm blasts (Matrix Revolutions).
For me, the volume of this particular alarm never rose above “distant car alarm in the night” and had mostly quieted down altogether by the last episodes of the season. But a funny thing happened over the course of the week. My opinion of the fourth season improved, and not by a small margin either. When I rewatched the first two episodes as my roommate began the season, I found the nagging disappointment was all but absent.
This could simply be attributed to the fact that, more than almost any other show, Arrested Development benefits from repeat viewings. But it left me wondering if there was more to it.
Did binge-watching hurt the response to Arrested Development?
This is not to dismiss the criticism that has been leveled at the new season of Arrested Development. A lot of it is spot on, especially the point that the one-character-per-episode focus is unforgiving to the occasional dud storyline since the show can't cut away to a stronger plot thread.
That said, I think show runner Mitchell Hurwitz was onto something with his last minute warning that an AD marathon would be detrimental to the viewing experience. Reflecting on my own reaction I picked up on five drawbacks:
1. Binge watching makes you impatient
This isn’t such a big problem in shows like Breaking Bad that are about the headlong rush of the story. But when applied to a dense structure like the circuitous, overlapping plot lines of AD it makes the viewer antsy for the show to get to the point, when in fact the show had already arrived there.
Add to this the facts that season four’s structure makes you wait a long while for quality time with beloved characters like Maeby and Buster, and that the new season short-circuits the network tradition of paying everything off with a big finale, and you have a recipe for guaranteed frustration.
2. It makes you greedy
I noticed that good jokes were having less of an impact because I was getting so many of them. Despite quality zingers I felt myself urging the show to be funnier, when really I was just becoming numb to the laughs.
3. It emphasizes flaws
If binging can dull the pleasures it does not have the reverse effect on a show’s flaws. Seeing the same weaknesses several episodes in a row exaggerates the harm they are causing. In addition, the annoyance of waiting through a rough patch is increased because you have so much more to get through. It makes work out of what should be fun.
4. Comedy benefits from brevity
There’s a reason you don’t see a lot of (any?) comedies over two hours on the AFI list of the 100 funniest movies. Dramas often benefit from extended running times. Comedies mostly need to keep it snappy and drop the curtains while the laughs are still flowing. A chunk of comedy the length of Arrested Development’s new season is going to exhaust your funny bone.
5. Challenging TV takes time
Countless times I have been unsure of the quality of a structurally daring episode of Mad Men or The Sopranos only to find that a year or two down the road it fits so perfectly into a given season that I couldn’t imagine it any other way. Season four of Arrested Development is as stylistically daring as any of those shows with its fractured chronology, its story lines that repeat from different angles, and its delight in putting in jokes that require multiple viewings to pay off. An initial, rushed viewing is only going to reveal a fraction of the overall effect.
As I said, I’m not trying to paper over the many valid criticisms to be made. But I feel that the wave of dissatisfaction that greeted the premiere missed the biggest headline, which was that the spark was still there. How often do shows and films try to go one more lap only to find that things just aren’t the same? Arrested Development may have evolved into something new but the Bluths are still the Bluths in all their never-nude, chicken-dancing, Segway-riding glory.
Besides, any show that can land a solid Terrence Malick joke deserves special consideration.
So that’s my experience with the return of Arrested Developmpent. What’s yours? I should add that it took real effort to stop this post from turning into a list of favorite jokes and lines from the new season but there’s nothing to stop you doing that in the comments (Maeby’s award acceptance speech!)
Previous Burning Questions
You can follow Michael C. on Twitter at @SeriousFilm. Or read his blog Serious Film
Reader Comments (20)
i bluthed myself in three sittings (just finished half an hour ago)
after the first two episodes i feared they'd made a huge mistake but by the end i was just happy to have had them all back, even though it never felt quite right and i have an uneasy feeling there were many storylines left unresolved
biggest flaw: too much george snr, too little lucille
favourite joke: george michael thinking block block was a chicken noise and almost seeing his impersonation
I don't have netflix, so I've not binged on that. But I have binged on box-sets. If you're into a show it's so hard to not to watch whole seasons in one sitting. But there is something to be said for waiting a week, 'cause time passes on the shows, from episode to episode, and so if you wait a week you feel like the characters have gone about their business, when suddenly you catch up with them again to see what they're up to THIS week or whatever. You feel the spanning of time better if you wait a week.
The only show that would really make sense to binge watch is 24-...other shows...not so much.
But it's just so difficult to wait that week or those days.
It takes willpower...(and don't have it)
i think some shows do not benefit from binge watching, but it's a pretty short list - maybe mad men, the sopranos, a few others, where there really is a great deal of reward to be had from reflecting on the episode for a while before diving into the next one. but i've binge watched a lot of shows - friday night lights first season, the first two seasons of veronica mars, the first two season of Homeland, all five seasons of the wire. with serialized programs binge watching is a great asset, and in some cases it improves the experience of watching: when i saw game of thrones season 2 live, i thought it was too rambling and disgressive and rather poorly structured. when i watched the second season again over a few nights earlier this year, i didn't have any of those problems, and that's only because i didn't have to wait a week between episodes!
I think Netflix’s model, which encourages binge-watching, can also put people off if they miss the boat. I watched the first three episodes of House of Cards, which I enjoyed a fair amount, but it got lost in the shuffle with all the other shows I watch. I’m not going to put off watching a show I like and am invested in for something new unless I’m really excited by it, whereas had it been released an episode a week, I probably would have found time. Now that it’s summer and I have a bit more spare time, the conversation has well and truly moved on: the initial excitement about House of Cards has died down, and I’m far more likely to catch up on something I’ve been meaning to for some time than something that’s only received warm-ish praise, whereas under the traditional model of TV viewership I might have given it more of a shot.
I think binge watching is the way of the future, living in the UK when for a while a lot of American shows were on the cable channels that not everyone had it was normal to buy the dvds for a series that just finished and watch it all in a few days. That's how I watched BSG for example and it's a much more rewarding experience than having to wait a week to watch where the story goes.
I don't think binge watching (I sort of hate the name because it implies so much unsavoury qualities) hurts the show being binged in any way but what it does do - and this may be somewhat as significant - is significantly dull conversation on a show.
Nathaniel has complained of the quality in even film blogging where after a month it's gauche to talk about a not so new release anymore and the issue is even more pressing in TV blogging where after one week critical conversation on an episode of a show seems to be dulling. When binge watching happens, as you point out in your opening paragraphs, after the rush of everyone watching it in three days anyone NOT binging on the show isn't experiencing it collectively and ends up being late on quality discussion. Binging a show after it's done a season (I've done this with many shows from BUNHEADS to BOARDWALK EMPIRE to JUSTIFIED) is one thing, but the release model of Netflix which vaguely suggests binge watching is what I think is potentially more troubling than the act of binge-watching in itself.
I like binge watching sometimes - i do it with Golden Girls all the time when I embark on my yearly rewatch of every episode - but with Arrested Development is curious. It was always a show that you could watch and then a day later remember a joke that may have passed you by. That's not really possible with this method. And I think there's irony in the fact that AD's reputation built over time (it wasn't highly rated, that's why it was axed) and its jokes had time to weasel their way into pop culture. Here it's just being chucked at people and they're complaining it's too tiring or something? No kidding.
Glenn -- every Golden Girls every year? That's A LOT of times through the joke about how Blanche is a slut or the gag about Rose being dumb
Though I often do it because there are very few shows that I like, I feel binge-watching does lessen the impact of each episode. I started binging on "House of Cards", but found that when I slowed down and watched an episode every 4 or 5 days, I enjoyed the series much more. When I binged on DVDs of "The Wire", I felt overwhelmed and depressed, despite the high quality of that show. Too much of a good thing for my brain and emotions to handle.
LinkTV has a great system that allows to you see a few episodes at a time, while releasing others slowly over a few weeks, and they provide the dates when new episodes will be available. I semi-binged on "Borgen" that way and found that I stayed very engaged with the series; still waiting for Season 3 to be released in the U.S.
I think the big downside to binge watching is the lack of conversation and week-to-week anticipation around new shows. As Ben said, if you don't watch straight away, it's really easy to miss the boat on a show. I was away when House of Cards was released and by the time I got back, only a few weeks after, no-one was talking about it. I haven't watched it yet!
I know Netflix is trying to move away from the old model but you'd think it would be in a subscription service's best interest not to release things in one go. Surely it would make more sense to get people hooked on a steady stream of content rather than making it easy for people to watch all their original content on their free month's trial.
par3182: George Sr. was always a MASSIVE part of the original show (so I don't mind them cutting together two eps). But Tobias gets two instead of Lucille or Maeby? That's the oddest choice, in my view.
I think it was very solid overall. Some of the best characters got very little coverage, but it was an interesting way to handle things.
I just cannot binge-watch, no matter how much I love a TV show. More than three hours and I start to get delusional. I don't know how you guys do it. LOL
glad i'm not alone in this. I really don't enjoy binge watching. i feel the same way when i;m done as i do when i overeat or overdo anything. sorta ill and undersatisfied (thus still wanting more) and grumpy. So I have trained myself to stop at two episodes at a time for dramas and 3 for comedies.
I find that the shows that I've watched from start to finish I've never crossed the line into "love" for the show. Even shows that were before my time I had to wait each night for another episode (The Twilight Zone, for example). Otherwise, at some point in the runs of shows like Game of Thrones, Lost, Mad Men, Ally McBeal, Friends, Desperate Housewives, The Office, SATC, and How I Met Your Mother, I was watching it live or every week, so that I had time to sit back and obsess about it.
Nathan, I hear ya. I just cannot physically be in front of the TV that long. I start to get tremors. What's more, I have this irrational fear that my ass will become embedded in the couch. That wouldn't be good.
I binge watch most series. I hate commercials so often wait for the DVDs so I can watch the story line without diapers or toilet paper inserted. I also pick up series that aren't available in my area. What I like about it is that I can go back and rewatch a moment if I feel I missed something, sometimes an entire episode.
For me, watching television is partially about the illusion of real time. Things are playing out gradually over time, both in the diegesis of the show and the week-to-week basis you're watching it in. I haven't personally binge watched a series yet or recently, unless you count 'Top of the Lake' as a TV show, which I don't. I think the difference is that many television episodes are crafted as singular narrative films. Seasons and series do work as one extended narrative, but it's better not to experience them that way the first time.
I binge watch but that is because mostly during school semesters I don't have the time to keep up with my shows (I.e. Mad Men, Girls, etc.) so once my summer break began I caught up with the latest season of 'Mad Men' and "Girls.' With a half hour show like 'Girls' I love it because I can finish a season in a day or two, whereas with an hour series like 'Mad Men' it pisses me off because it becomes a chore, as hour long episodes take a lot out of the day! (After a while, Mark Cousins' 'The Story of Film' felt like homework.)
I will say, though, that this is going to be the way people watch anything in the future. What we consider to be film and television has begun to blur and the two traditionally distinct mediums are only going to merge closer together. There may be resistance now but in a few years all shows will be on demand and all shows will be available to stream, probably all episodes at once. The ones that don't, I predict, will not be as successful, or will find ways to get by with their small niche audience. Films will probably follow in that path too, where they will be released to VOD and online streaming services while they are in theaters. Whether we like it or not, everything is digital, which means that everything is accessible immediately.
We're in the early stages of this shift, but I see it happening. We live in an age now where we don't want to wait, and if technology tells us that we don't have to, then television and film will come to terms with that.
While I still love going to the theater and the thrill of waiting for a show each week, our instant gratification culture is going to change the way we watch moving images, for better or worse.
I fully support binge-watching. With so many good shows and so little time (this working for a living thing is overrated!), it's the only way to get through some shows. It works with some of the better programming, like Mad Man and Boardwalk Empire (am I the only person watching this show ... it's awesome). But it doesn't work for others, like, well, Modern Family (where it really is the same joke over and over).
VOD works for movies too. I love going to the movies. But I don't love the people who go to the movies. I don't love the long lines, the slow staff, etc. And if it is a movie that looks questionable (sorry, but The English Teacher is one of them ... love you Julianne!), it is so much easier to watch it at home for a few dollars on VOD thank to pay the $15 in the theater.