Let’s say your friend just convinced you to start watching Dexter. The new season is starting soon, so you want to catch up before the season premiere. So you run out and rent the DVDs. You’re suddenly presented with many, many episodes and instead of spacing them out, you figure “Hey, I have them all, why not watch them all immediately?”
You, my friend, are a victim of the television binge.
Before the availability of television on DVD or on the Internet, these television binges weren’t really an option. Like it or not, you followed your show week to week. But my how things have changed. Thanks to websites like Hulu and to the fact that DVDs of popular shows are typically released only months after the show’s season finale, television viewers now have years worth of shows instantly at their fingertips.
I am no stranger to the TV binge. I was graced with a bizarre attention span, and I am able to happily watch six episodes of The Sopranos in a row but please don’t ask me to sit through a movie that’s over an hour and a half long. In fact, a lot of my winter and summer breaks involve choosing a show I’ve heard good things about and watching it at whatever pace I so choose (sometimes that pace involves watching all five seasons of Six Feet Under in just over a month which, in case you were wondering, is quite a bit of death and mortality to fit into four weeks).
While I am most definitely a self-proclaimed television binger, I am not entirely convinced that it’s the best way for all TV to be viewed. It clearly changes the way in which we watch and absorb shows in terms of who we watch with, what we watch for and how watching makes us feel.
There are many reasons why we binge. There are those people who want to watch TV and either don’t have cable, can’t keep track of when shows are on or simply don’t want to have to schedule television shows into their weekly agendas. It can also be a fun, relaxing and diverting activity. Also, watching TV on DVD or online doesn’t necessarily have to be done this way. Some people have the ability to space out their DVD viewing as if the show were airing each week even when it’s all instantly available.
And certain shows have a clear benefit when you watch them all at once. There are many complicated, plot-driven shows that revolve around the audience’s desire to find out what happens next. Waiting a week, or more, in between episodes can be excruciating. For Lost in particular, watching many episodes or seasons in quick succession not only eases the aggravation of long waits, but also helps the viewer to remember smaller characters and plot details that come back with little explanation. Since not everyone has the time to read commentary reminding them of these lost Lost moments within each episode after it airs (since not everyone is a giant television nerd like me), having all your Lost knowledge fresh in your mind can be helpful.
While this strategy works well for shows like Lost, it falls short for other television programs. For shows like The Sopranos, which focus on the growth and decay of relationships and include many smaller character moments, watching an entire season in a weekend can make these powerful moments less effective. There’s so much less build-up when you’ve only been with these characters for two days, as opposed to two years. The binge also tends to force the viewer to become more interested in what will happen next without stopping to consider the nuances. After binging on a season of Big Love, I could tell you the major plot of the season (what happened), but if you asked me a few weeks later about Barb’s character development as shown by certain scenes (why it happened, how people felt about it), I most likely wouldn’t be able to tell you.
One of the things that intrigues me most about television is the way in which time passing on a show mirrors time passing in the viewer’s own life. Unlike movies and books, which are finite, television allows characters to grow over time and exists in a universe where not everything is planned out from the beginning. In the span of a six-season drama, not only will the characters most likely have lived through six years of life, but the viewer has too. There’s something so satisfying and interesting about growing up along with a character. Some of this uniqueness is lost in television binges. The characters are acting and speaking and growing from episode to episode, but the viewer stays physically and emotionally static.
Not only do the ways in which we process television change when we consume it in large amounts, but our physical viewing experience is also modified. Although television usually is not live, there is a feeling of community while watching a show when it first airs, both on a small scale (inviting friends over to watch with you) or on a more national scale (knowing that people across the country are also watching what you are watching and that you’re all finding out new plot details at the same time). Watching a show on a weekly basis becomes a sort of social event and a forum for discussion. This is a definitive contrast with the isolating nature of the television binge. From my own experience, and from talking to friends about this topic, I’ve noticed that most television binging occurs while the viewer is alone. I guess it’s hard to find another human who has five hours to spare at the exact same time you do.
I’m not calling for a total renunciation of the television binge. I will most certainly continue to enjoy them. But for shows you truly care about, I urge you to watch the episodes over time. While the TV binge may provide instant gratification, in the long run moderation is best.
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