Can you remember when television shows aired once a week on a particular day? If you were a fan, you would count down the days to the next episode, and cancel everything so you could watch the new episode as it aired. Rewatching was done by waiting for reruns or if you taped the show. Sometimes I would wait until the videotape or DVD came out and buy a boxed set.
Nowadays with streaming services, a whole series is usually released at once. If you are a big fan, you can watch an entire series in a day or over a weekend. And then if you really like it, you can watch it again.
Recently, I have binge-watched Grace and Frankie, Downton Abbey, The Queen’s Gambit, Orange is the New Black. You do get tired and some characters are a bit much. But overall I think series these days are designed to be watched all at once.
If, on the other hand, I binge-watch old series such as Friends, Gilmore Girls, Sex and the City, Seinfeld – they drive me crazy. The characters are too annoying and too over-the-top to watch many episodes at once. I wonder if this is because the characters had to be stronger and louder in those days in order to pique the audience interest for the week until the next episode? I can’t even watch too many episodes of Murder She Wrote – which I loved – because they are too samey to watch several in a row.
What do you think?
