Unless you’ve been living under a rock that doesn’t have wifi access for the past few years, you would know that nostalgia has been having a moment. As we get older and the world becomes harder to live in, we turn to things that used to bring us comfort.
I have felt it the last few weeks through the common nostalgia platform of TV, not because of the show I’m watching – but because of how I’m watching it. The show is Presumed Innocent, an Apple TV+ legal thriller starring Jake Gyllenhaal as a prosecutor who becomes a suspect in his mistress/colleague’s death. Cheery! It’s perfectly good, the cast is excellent, and they always end the episodes with a development that leaves me champing at the bit for the next one. The nostalgic part is that, unlike many shows I’ve gotten into in recent years, Presumed Innocent is being released one single episode at a time. Once a week, on Wednesdays. Which is a mere five sleeps away, no time at all, I’m barely even thinking about it.
Obviously it’s not the first show of late to do weekly drops but it is the first one with cliffhanger endings in the binge-drop era that I have allowed myself to get onboard with completely. This means I’m prioritising it, carving out space midweek, reading recaps, thinking about it, and letting myself fully experience the torturous pleasure of … waiting.
Don’t get me wrong, I have enjoyed the streamer-driven cultural shift towards being able to know everything that is going to happen as soon as possible. It can be a wonderful feeling to know that all the episodes of a show are lined up in front of you, only you and your remote in control of how quickly you find out if the Baby Reindeer makes it home for Christmas or whatever. I love coming back to my brain in a daze after I’ve binged a new season of something, my eyes blearily readjusting to the light in the room, wondering how much time has passed, seeing Sandra Sully there to fill me in on all the news that happened while I was out.
But I also know I can’t help myself. If Presumed Innocent had dropped all at once, I would have finished it within a day and immediately returned to the modern struggle of searching for a new decent show to binge. Instead, I’ve been thinking about what might happen next, counting down the sleeps each week like a child waiting for Christmas Day, unwrapping their gift of an adult legal drama. Rather than feeling annoyed, I’m finding this delayed gratification fun and satisfying.
It is bringing me back to the old days (of the 90s and 00s), when you’d arrive at school and everyone would be talking about the same thing. We discussed Felicity’s hair. We speculated that Dawson might die in the finale of Dawson’s Creek and have his ashes scattered in the creek, hence the name (false). For a wonderful period in the 00s I gathered with a group of friends once a week to watch The OC, making predictions about what was going to happen, eating ice-cream that someone’s mum had taken from her factory job (shout out, also what is the statute of limitations on ice-cream pilfering?), and then hanging out afterwards to dissect what we’d just watched. It was a dream.
Having one episode of a show drop at a time builds anticipation, and each becomes its own little event. An intense mystery show like Presumed Innocent, especially, is designed for this. It’s built for wild speculation between episodes. It’s ripe for fan theories. Who murdered the woman? How is Peter Sarsgaard not related to the Skarsgård family? Did we know Gyllenhaal looks so handsome in glasses?
There are other reasons as well. The time in between episodes gives you time to process, to put things together, to connect the dots, to reflect on how you feel about what you just watched. Bingeing episodes one after the other can blur everything together, leaving you no time to guess or wonder. The carefully planned structure of each episode and the overall arc by the TV makers loses impact. It also means less sustained conversation about the show. The best part of a show like Breaking Bad was the feeling of community as we all held hands and waited for the next episode.
I don’t mean to imply that I won’t binge watch shows in the future, or that I want all shows to go to weekly release. I don’t. Some shows are suited to it, and some don’t require the building of tension. Some life events are also very well-suited to bingeing, like when you are sick on the couch, or when you are just in bed for a long time because it’s nice in there. I am just trying something new for me and my poor self (remote) control. I’m being brave. I’ve even challenged myself to a higher level of difficulty – Presumed Innocent is based on a book. I know the story is out there. I could, at any time, read what is going to happen at the end. But I’m going on this journey, and enjoying it. Now I just have to make it to Wednesday.
Rebecca Shaw is a writer based in Sydney
