When House of Cards landed on Netflix with an almighty thump just under a decade ago, it felt like a paradigm-shifting moment for television: not only because it heralded the arrival of Netflix as a major player, able to coax A-list actors and creators to the world of streaming, but also because of what it meant for how we watched TV itself. An entire series released at once, able to be gobbled up in one go? Who could possibly argue with that! Soon Netflix was dumping a preposterous number of shows on to their platform in the same manner. Other streamers soon followed suit, and then even traditional broadcasters. The era of binge-watching had arrived. There was no going back.
Well, err, about that … Fast-forward nine years later (skipping the intro on the way, naturally), and the binge-watching model is in retreat. We have returned to a place where the must-watch shows of 2022 – the likes of Yellowjackets, Severance, The Dropout, Moon Knight, Winning Time – are adopting the good old-fashioned weekly model. Most streamers have either abandoned the all-at-once approach (Amazon), only periodically dabble in it (BBC iPlayer, who occasionally drop full series, depending on the show, and never for their massive series that rely on overnight ratings), or have never embraced it in the first place (Disney+, Apple TV+ and of course networks like HBO). Only Netflix, originators of the binge-watch model are holding firm, and as you might of heard, they’re in a bit of a pickle right now.
So why have we gone cold on binge-watching? Arguably the model’s fatal flaw, as many have pointed out, is its inability to replicate the ‘water-cooler’ feel of weekly appointment TV. I first noticed this when Netflix released the much-maligned fourth season of Arrested Development way back in 2013, and my friends were watching the show at completely different speeds. Any proper discussion about the show had to wait until the slowest of our group had finally gotten to the end of the season, weeks after the rest of us. It all felt anti-climactic (a bit like the season itself). That’s a sharp contrast with, say, Severance, whose weekly release schedule allowed viewer excitement to build in unison towards that sensational season finale (sorry, but I will not stop banging on about that finale).
Of course the flip side to that is that, when it comes to avoiding spoilers, you have to be as fast as the fastest viewer. Chris Ryan, host of excellent pop culture podcast The Watch, was bemoaning that fact on a recent episode of the pod. He had burned through the final episodes of Ozark in one weekend in order to avoid the inevitable spoilery thinkpiece headlines and social media chatter that would be inevitably churning around the internet, but by doing so had robbed himself of some of the enjoyment that comes with watching a show’s climax. Compare that to something like Breaking Bad, whose heart-stopping final episodes were delivered in anticipation-building weekly doses, and I know which model I’d opt for.
But the main reason I think binge-watching is such a turn-off in 2022 is due to the sheer amount of TV on TV right now. I can’t remember a moment like this, when so many high-profile shows are airing at the same time. It’s overwhelming enough, and the idea of all of them arriving in full at once is more intimidating still. In that context, the weekly drip drip of shows feels like a blessing. When it comes to the age of peak TV, sometimes less is more.
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