Dare to Stream
One of my favorite things to do is binge watch series on the streaming services that I subscribe to. Even in the days before streaming, my favorite Christmas gifts each year were full-season DVDs of TV shows like Boston Legal, Castle, Sex and the City, or The Sopranos. This is a shortlist, of course, there were many, many more. An old favorite was The Andy Griffith Show but there was no specific genre of program. I might latch on to Dexter then move on to Seinfeld or Dragnet.
For years we spent hundreds of dollars per month on satellite TV subscriptions, premium movie channels, and even pay-for-view. Yet my favorite entertainment was to watch these DVDs over and over again. Then one day after months of trying, DSL became available to us. At this point, we added to our monthly “entertainment” budget. Every so often, I would call the satellite vendor and attempt to drop some channels to save money, and you guessed it, they would throw some package changes at me and I would end up with more to watch and more monthly cash outlay.
I make mention of our house fire often and I don’t necessarily mean to, but if you have ever experienced it, well, you know that essentially, there remains life before the fire and life after the fire. At any rate, after the fire, I elected to minimalize things in my life, expenses especially and satellite TV was one of the first things to go. I admit it was a little scary “cutting the cord” as it were, but while I might have given up some sports stuff, really it has only served to fuel my love for binge-watching.
After a couple of years of one series after another, I have these thoughts and observations. I am not saying that there is a good or a bad here, nor is there a right or a wrong. Admittedly, some of my conclusions may be a result of my stage in life and have nothing to do with television proclivities, but none-the-less, I mention them here.
I guess the first thing that comes to mind is the fact that I now seem to live my life in 50 – 55-minute increments. I can no longer invest emotionally in a 2-3 hour movies. I just cannot make that kind of commitment. I like to address it, feel it, experience it, and move on to the next episode and start again. When watching a full-length movie, the viewer often loses aesthetic distance and becomes emotionally involved to a point in the movie. I don’t want that to be me. Secondly, I have learned to appreciate the writers of these programs because they have to take an initial character sketch, then build on it and through a weekly progression, building, and building, while not knowing if the season in which they are developing will be the last. I assume that the task gets increasingly difficult as the actor begins to interject their interpretation of the character into each performance.
I have found that there is a difference in watching a series with a full seven-day reprieve before the next episode, and watching three or four or maybe five or six episodes in one sitting. In defense of the writers, regardless of how many people are involved in the creation of an episode, they cannot see things as we see them when we watch them back-to-back.
For my fourth observation of binge-watching TV series, I submit to you that it is difficult to continue to root for the main character or theme that the series is following, because of personal bias, yet one may continue to watch primarily because of the strength of a secondary character. For example, the character of Jerry Seinfeld to me was less a part of the success of the series than was Kramer, George, and Elaine.
My final observation concerning binge-watching TV series is the realization that the actions of a character are so foreign to what would happen in real life that the character becomes unbelievable and the viewer loses interest and simply cannot continue to watch, regardless of previous investment or number of remaining episodes. I guess the best example would be that character who refuses to adapt or back off, despite warnings from superiors. We know from our own work experience that rubbing our superiors the wrong way because of our principles might put our very livelihood at risk and therefore, unlike some of the characters we watch, we walk the line. By-the-way, it is VERY unbelievable Hollywood, when, for example, the main character, the medical examiner, shows up at a crime scene wearing $800 shoes and packing a purse. It is unbelievable when a cop commandeers a car, motorcycle, bicycle or horse to chase after a fugitive. It’s unbelievable when the private eye doesn’t get beat up by the real cops and charged with “failure to comply with the commands of a law enforcement officer.” Finally, albeit very suspenseful, it was always unbelievable when one of Charlie’s Angels decided to snoop around in someone’s office. And for a bonus, wasn’t it amazing that one of the “Angels” always had experience in a particular endeavor or a talent that was “just what was needed to solve a case?” They could race cars, race motorcycles, scuba dive, roller derby, do martial arts, work in massage parlors, work in hospitals, and ride horses, you name it and they did it.
These are a few of my observations about streaming TV. My wife has accused me of ruining a series for her because I point out things that I don’t like. Will I continue to binge? Yes, yes indeed. Simply because I fully believe that we have opened Pandora’s proverbial box and we will never close it permanently. Temporarily, maybe, if we take a vacation, go for a walk in the woods, or in my case, go for a ride on a motorcycle, but for the long term, well, I am afraid that just will not be possible. We want our entertainment. We want choices, many choices. We want it all right now. So if I have some time to kill, I’m tuning in and I’m watching. If I’m not feeling it, I’m moving on because I have all the options at my fingertips.