I’ve seen all over social media about how people are planning to order in and binge watch this show or that show on Netflix (my viewing poison of choice) or from their bulging DVR lists. Take it from me, I love some television. I will watch Mountain Monsters, Law and Order (The Lenny Briscoe years), Finding Bigfoot (you know they’re just thisclose to finding Bigfoot, right?) River Monsters and an occasional Tosh.0.
But I don’t binge watch. It drives me nuts.
Being a detailed oriented person, I tend to notice details and the underlying structure of things. Take Law and Order for instance. The show follows a consistent pattern most times you see it. It’s comforting, knowing what’s coming next, but yet still being entertained by the writing. Most shows, however don’t stand up to that scrutiny.
One show I watched on Netflix was so fascinating to me I kept clicking “next episode”. After the third episode, however, I found myself getting annoyed with the characters. By the fourth, I was rolling my eyes and shut it off in the middle.
The problem was, each and every episode started with one character wandering off and the second character chasing after him. This is how they jumped into whatever hijinks the writers scheduled for them that week. Yawn. Wasn’t there any other way to kick off the inciting incident?
Binge-watching keeps me from absorbing the nuances of an episode, rolling the events of the story around in my head and mulling over what might happen next. Watching one episode after another doesn’t give me space or time to do that.
I like to let the characters and situations linger, allow them to breathe like a fine wine. I certainly wouldn’t pour a bottle of perfume over myself. Binge watching is like eating a whole cake in one sitting. Sure, the first two or three pieces might be pretty good, but after that, the flavor becomes dull and unsatisfying.
So I don’t binge watch. I don’t like it and sometimes it serves to turn me off a show. Plus who has the time to veg out in front of the television? There’s life outside to be lived!