Binge Watching

I haven't been a big television person in years. When I was a kids we lived for the weekend TV shows. The two I remember plopping in front of the TV set for - the ones I really liked - were the Wonderful World of Disney and Emergency!  Most TV that I watched were either cartoons or reruns of The Brady Bunch.  In the '80s there were plenty of shows that I watched that I'd consider stupid now.  Miami Vice comes to mind.  I watched sitcoms and some dramas but I was never dedicated to a series (with the exception of Star Trek: The Next Generation, Deep Space 9, and Voyager because I am a geek). 

I can say that the only show I ever watched from start to finish was, Lost. However, I am now on my sixth (seventh?) season of The Walking Dead; but even that is getting a little repetitive. 

We cut our cable years ago and I cannot notice a difference thanks to Netflix, Hulu, and HBO Go.  I don't think I will ever set aside time for watching a show at a specific time and date ever again.  Television has changed forever.  However, the bigger issues is just sitting down without other distractions and actually getting through a show. At home I struggle to get through more than an hour of sitting in front of the screen unless it is movie night or Lisa and I are cuddled in bed - with an iPad. 

So imagine my surprise when I decided to re-watch Game of Thrones.  I borrowed the seasons from the movie library and watched 20 hours of TV in a little over two days.  I am now 7 hours into the next season for a grand total of 27 hours in four days. In all fairness to me, I had the time off, it is in the hundred-teens outside, and the wind is blowing at 21mph.  In other words I had a good reason to stay inside.

GOT is great show, probably one of the greatest ever made insofar as grand sweeping stories, characters to love and hate, and exotic locations. However, watching the shows back to back to back takes away some of the emotional build up that watching over several years can bring. It lacks the social aspect of "water cooler" talk about the last episode and trying to figure out what is going to happen next. As story arcs get picked up every other episode, and thus weeks in real time, these events are only one disc away when you binge watch.

Lisa likes to find a show and watch multiple seasons in a short time.  I just can't do that.  I will finish up all six seasons in the next week and a half and then wait with the rest of the world for the last thirteen episodes over two years.  Ugh - the waiting!