Andrew Robinson
We all do it. We all sit down in front of the television, flip on Netflix or Amazon Prime or On Demand or any other streaming platform one can think of, and watch four or five (or twenty) consecutive episodes of our favorite shows. We’re in the binge-watching, golden era of television, after all.
Even without considering the obvious health implications of binge-watching shows on a regular basis, however, there is a legitimate case against consecutively watching numerous episodes of Stranger Things, Game of Thrones, Family Guy, or whatever you fancy.
Despite the fact that even I, the writer of this piece, will almost definitely continue the practice of binge-watching, let’s take a look at the case against watching everything immediately and consecutively.
Show/Character Fatigue
After awhile, even if it’s a show that you absolutely love, fatigue will set in. The jokes that seemed to be so hilarious six hours ago suddenly lose their comedy. You tell yourself that you “forgot” to laugh because you’re too afraid to say the real reason why you remained stone-faced: you just didn’t find the joke funny. This worries you. Do I need to find a new show? Is it just not funny anymore?
The dramatic plots seem to be a bit too far-fetched, and the characters suddenly seem to be a bit too stupid. Why would she EVER open that half-cracked door? He NEVER would have traveled out to sea alone late at night last season!
You are quick to blame the producers and directors of the show. It jumped the shark. Why did they let it get so… mediocre?
You wince as you press the ‘Play Next Episode’ button, just trying to get through the episode/season/show so you can move on to greener pastures.
I think all of us have fallen into this line of thinking, at least to a certain extent. While not all of it can be avoided by, well, not watching multiple seasons in very quick succession, the binge-watching does add a certain level of fatigue in itself that makes the little annoyances (such as a funny joke being said, only for a similar one to be uttered a few episodes later) even more noticeable and intolerable. 99% of television shows hit a breaking point where they just aren’t as good as they used to be, but binge-watching makes this even more evident than it would be otherwise.
Take Criminal Minds, for example. I watched the first 11 seasons of CM on Netflix a few years ago, before switching over to taping it off CBS weekly once I had caught up. It was a brilliant show in the beginning; the cases were interesting, the dialogue was engaging, and the writing was strong. As the show aged, however, it, as all shows tend to do, deteriorated a bit in quality. Since I was binge-watching it, I noticed this deterioration in quality a great deal, and found myself scrolling through Twitter while I “watched” some later-season episodes. By the time I had caught up and started taping the episodes, however, I found myself looking forward to watching Criminal Minds every week.
Without the promise of more episodes to come immediately after watching one, I found myself enjoying the episodes more, and actually watching them rather than just half-watching while I did something else. This is where binge-watching can really get you; shows that you used to love deteriorate in quality, but you know that you have many episodes to go before the finale, so you start to lose interest, even subconsciously, and you lose that special feeling you used to have when watching. Show and character fatigue is real, and it can be catastrophic to your enjoyment of a particular show, especially if you binge-watch.
Details Are Missed
Another possible detriment to binge-watching is your own body’s fatigue. When you do the same thing for a long period of time, no matter what it is, you’re going to get tired of it, and subsequently miss potentially important details. Whether it be performing surgery, landscaping, reffing, running, or watching television, fatigue will set in after awhile, and that will impact your ability to perform the given task at a high level. While binge-watching likely won’t lead to as big of a mistake as performing surgery for a long period of time could, it can lead to you missing some key, somewhat-obscure details. This is of particular importance if the series you are binge-watching has some sort of mystery to it, or some kind of ambiguity as to how it all may end.
No one wants to be the person who fails to figure out who the killer is, what the government is hiding, or who will hook up with who before the end of the show, but figuring these things out usually take a bit of detective work, and binge-watching can impede upon one’s ability to do that sleuthing.
It’s Over Too Quickly
Finally, binge-watching a series means one sad thing: it’s all over too quickly. For me, this point reaches its peak with the Netflix original series Stranger Things. Season one came out in July of 2016 and, after waiting a bit to watch it, I finished the eight episodes in a span of about 48 hours in August of that year. Then, season two was released in October of 2017, a whole 15 months (give or take) after season one. Again, I watched the entire series within a 48-hour period, this time finishing it up on the same weekend it was released. Now, season three isn’t set to grace our televisions screens until (likely) the summer of 2019, making for an excruciating wait period. Would the wait feel much less significant now, in August of 2018, if I had watched one episode a week, allowing the nine-episode second season to last me about two months? Probably not. However, I would still have had those extra eight weeks of Stranger Things fun, and would have had time to dissect and appreciate each episode on its own. (This, of course, is assuming that I somehow would have been able to avoid Internet spoilers for over two months, which is implausible at best).
Many of us can relate to this, as we are all so excited when our favorite Netflix series returns, whether it be Orange is the New Black, BoJack Horseman, Stranger Things, or whatever, that we just have to have it all right then, with no exception. This makes for a quick high, and a wait that is typically about a year long. Binge-watching, while great in the moment, makes the other 364-odd days rough.
Conclusion
In the age of the Internet, endless spoilers, and watch it all now mentality, binge-watching is going to occur often. Will I follow my own advice and avoid binge-watching? Nope. Do I expect any of you to follow my advice? Not in the least. However, is the logic sound, and would we be able to enjoy shows more without binge-watching them, again assuming that the show’s ending wouldn’t be spoiled for us? Probably.
