When was the last time you binge-watched a TV show or movie series? For me, I recently watched How To Train Your Dragon (all three animated movies) over the course of three days. While I loved the series, I feel that I didn’t get the full experience from binge-watching them.
Before the advent of streaming, all TV shows were released episode by episode, with a week (or longer) between each one. Movies are still typically released with years between sequels. I believe this offers a better viewing experience, and binge-watching all episodes of a show or movies in a franchise ruins the experience.
Slowing Down Makes Great Shows Even Better
While watching an entire season in one sitting or all the movies in a series sounds fun, I believe that slowing down and watching episodes (or movies) with time between each one allows you to digest and absorb what you watched.
Take Lost in Space on Netflix. I absolutely love the series, and it’s more cinematic than many movies. However, when my wife and I first watched the series, we took our time going through it. This allowed a fantastic show to be even better.
We were able to fully digest each episode and think about what would come next. Because we left a week between each episode, we could chat about what we’d seen, ponder what might happen, talk about what we wanted to happen, and just have fun theorizing.
Our brains are way smarter than we give them credit for, and even if you’re not a very creative person normally, your brain can definitely come up with ideas, scenarios, and thoughts about movies and TV shows if you give it enough time.
However, if you just go episode to episode to episode, then you forego that ability, and it simply takes some of the fun away from the TV show or movie franchise that you’re watching.
My wife and I have also had TV shows that we’ve binge-watched in the past, enjoying several episodes in a single evening. When we do that, the episodes all run together, and it’s hard to know what was episode three verses episode six. It was only afterward that I wish we’d slowed down so that we could really decipher what we were watching.
There’s a Reason Shows Used to Release Weekly
If you look at how TV shows released pre-Netflix streaming, it was almost always weekly if there was an ongoing story. Not only that, but mid-season breaks would throw a few weeks between episode releases, and season finales would leave you hanging for several months at a time. The next season would come the following year, either in the fall or spring.
Now? Many shows drop an entire season at a time—with the same amount of time until the next season. This means that your favorite show might drop an entire season in the fall, and then you likely won’t get another season until the next fall.
We’ve actually seen a resurgence of some TV shows going back to weekly episode releases even though they’re streaming, like Ted Lasso, Severance, Ahsoka, Reacher, and more (then there’s Stranger Things, which is dropping its final season in two parts).
While some people theorize that this is to keep you coming back week after week to use the service (and I buy that theory somewhat), I’m fine with that because releasing episodes weekly forces you to have time between each episode to think on what happened.
Weekly releases also give you time to talk to others about what happened. I used to work at a computer repair shop, and I would chat with my colleagues about what happened in that month’s Marvel movie and theorize what would happen in the next one. It was a great bonding experience.
Letting a Story Breathe Makes It Stick
Heading back to my watching of How To Train Your Dragon, I feel like I missed out on so much of the story watching the franchise back-to-back. There’s already so much of the story that I don’t remember, and I wish I did.
If I watched the movies in theaters, then I’d have seen How To Train Your Dragon and had to wait four years before seeing How To Train Your Dragon 2. Then, there’d be another five years before watching How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World.
All the time between installments would have given me time to think about the last movie and wonder what would happen in the next one—and, most importantly, rewatch the previous movie several times before seeing the next installment.
That’s the key—rewatching movies. If you watch all three movies (or episodes of a TV show) back-to-back, like I did, then your brain melds everything together as if it were one. However, if you watch the first movie a handful of times in anticipation for the next installment, then that story starts to breathe in your mind, and you absorb all that there is to gather from that movie before enjoying the next one.
While I don’t think it’s necessary to wait years between watching movies after they come out, putting a few days or weeks in between installments can be beneficial.
Binge-Watching Robs You of the Full Experience
Assuming it was logistically feasible, imagine if Marvel released the entire Avengers movie series at one time instead of individually over a span of ten years. The magic would be gone, no question.
Outside the first four movies in the Infinity Saga (Iron Man, Iron Man 2, Thor, and Captain America: The First Avenger), I saw every movie in theaters on opening weekend over the span of 10 years.
I can’t imagine watching all the movies back-to-back as my first viewing experience. Nowadays I’ll binge the series because I’ve already watched the movies multiple times, but I’m so glad I watched the movies originally over a decade.
This allowed me to enjoy the experience fully. So much happened in each movie, and each one built upon the last. I truly believe that if your first experience with those movies is binge-watching them, you’ll be robbed of some of the joy.
There are so many twists and turns that came in the Infinity Saga that I didn’t see coming. I’m glad I was able to come up with scenarios in my head of what I expected to happen, only to be surprised in the end.
Binge-Watching Is Great for Series You’ve Already Seen
Binge-watching isn’t all bad. I know that I’ve painted a pretty bleak picture of binging here, but it’s still something that I do myself. I just reserve it for content that I’ve already enjoyed.
By only binging series that I’ve seen before, I’m able to absorb more in a short amount of time because I already know what comes next. I’m just going through the series to quickly enjoy it again and looking for things I might have missed on my last watch.