Is "binge watching" killing TV?

[The Curmudgeon]

There was a TV show in the UK, "Doctor Foster", that was one of those word-of-mouth TV shows that quickly grew into a Big Deal. I didn't watch it myself, but it was quickly everywhere. Like Broadchurch before it, a drama that seemed to catch the attention of the majority of the country.

Anyway, the star of it was asked about the popularity of the show, and she put it down to one thing; it was a weekly show that wasn't available as a "watch it all in one day" boxset. This is lifted from the interview.

Suranne Jones, who won a Bafta for her role as vengeful Gemma Foster, said: “I’m really proud of the show and people’s reaction to it.

“Everyone feels a connection to it because it’s not binge-watched. It’s on once a week and you have a week to talk about it.
I think that created a community and I loved that. I think it’s important that we watch television in an old-fashioned way. She says TV thrives on old-style collective viewing not lone box-set streaming.”

How do we feel about that? I mean, in a way I see her point; Game of Thrones was a "avoid spoilers, see it, talk about it" phenom, but I don't feel it would be any different if it was a binge-watched show either. Hell, it might be easier to follow. Stranger Things was another word-of-mouth smash hit, and that wasn't a weekly show. In fact, Breaking Bad only really became a cultural icon after it became available on Netflix.

So what do you think? Is a show somehow less because it's not given time to be fully "appreciated" every week or have we evolved with TV?

[Ben]

Nah, Suranne's full of it. I've yet to encounter a show that's better when it isn't binge-watched. I loved Sons of Anarchy, blew through the first six seasons on Netflix in a month. Then season 7 arrived, I watched it weekly on TV, and I realized that every episode was fundamentally the same, and it had become way too drawn out. Maybe season 7 was just the point where the show became too redundant for me, but I think it only felt that way because I had to wait so long in between episodes.

GoT is an interesting one. I did the same thing with it that I did with Sons of Anarchy (binged the first 6 seasons, watched weekly on the 7th) and I can't say one way was preferable to the other. It's enjoyable either way, and I actually found it MORE difficult to keep track of everyone by taking the binge approach. Go figure.

I just caught up with the latest season of The Americans. Not one of my favorite shows ever, but definitely entertaining. I had the thought during the latest season that I probably wouldn't watch it weekly.

The Walking Dead is another one that I'd prefer to binge, especially the last season since over half of it was straight filler. Haven't tuned into the current one yet.

I'm trying to think of other shows that I love and the only ones I might prefer to watch slowly are some of the single-season HBO shows, like The Pacific. If anything, binge-watching has gotten me into TV shows I'd never otherwise turn on.

So, binge on, I say.

[trashcanman]

Same here. There are a lot of amazing little artistic details that you may forget and miss out fully appreciating if you spend months and years watching and waiting for yearly seasons and weekly episodes. Breaking Bad is a perfect example of this. It makes sense to the writers to put all of these things in as they craft it, but by the time everyone has waited for weekly episodes and the season finale comes out, a lot of people may have forgotten the artistic foreshadowing and thematic touches at the start that bring an arc full circle. Comics has the same problem. I definitely prefer to binge.