HEY, YOU KNOW WHAT YOU SHOULD DO?

STOP BINGE WATCHING

 

We all have one rule in this ever-changing world of media consumption: no rules. Give us what we want, when we want it, and shut the hell up about it. The debate regarding the best way to watch television rages on, particularly with Netflix giving us halfway decent shows, all at the same time. Some people think that this is bad, that Netflix should slowly release the shows all at once. This is a hopeless argument; entertainment is like your life after dating a black man: you never go back. This is what we’ve always wanted. We have complete control of not just what we view, but when and how much. We are the Kings of Television. Now that people have had a taste, there’s no going back. But is this the best way to watch television?

 

This is a complicated question that covers a lot of factors, most of which nobody cares about. Television wasn’t designed to watch like this. When you buy a TV show on DVD and watch it for 13 hours straight, you are not watching it like the creators intended, or at least you’re not watching it in the way they assumed you were going to. But as the viewing habits and abilities changed, is this still the case? House of Cards, Arrested Development, andOrange is the New Black all knew the “network” they were going to premiere on. Did this make them change the way they wrote the show? I, for one, have no idea if watching a single episode of these shows, and then waiting a week for the next episode, was a weird experience, because I didn’t have the patience or willpower to do that a single time.

 

But who cares? Watch it whatever way you want, right? I mean, it’s up to the creators to make it wonderful whether I watch an entire season in a day or one episode a year, right? I suppose, but what if binge watching is inherently bad, or at least not as satisfying? I’m not talking about delayed gratification. That is not how my gender, generation, or country works. Delayed gratification essentially nullifies the awesomeness that is Instant Viewing. Now that the networks no longer have control of when and what we watch, we’re supposed to police ourselves? That’s idiotic. And I’ll never say that you should watch less than 13 hours of television in a 2 day period. If you tell me that you watched 13 hours of television in a 2 day period, the only thing I will wonder is why it wasn’t 14. Pussy. But no matter what, we are talking about something that is episodic. It’s not something that is episodic like soap operas, where half the fun is waiting until the next episode, but episodic in the way that each episode has a beginning, middle, and end. It has its own arcs that may or may not be settled throughout the course of that one particular episode. It has its own themes, themes that will be explored only in that episode. Did episode X of series Y do a good job of exploring its themes? How the fuck would we know. It’s just 1/13 of this giant movie that we’re watching — a movie that, more and more inexplicably, has a theme song awkwardly plopped in every hour or so.

 

In my three day Orange is the New Black mainlining, an episode really stood out to me. It’s a pretty famous one at this point; I’ll call it the one where there is a mysterious chicken. Throughout the course of the episode, it started occurring to me that it was exploring some pretty interesting stuff as far as religion in prisons, and how religion can change for different prisoners based on their situation before they got to the prison, and their situation inside. I wondered how the messages of this episode gelled or conflicted from the rest of the series as a whole. Then the episode was over, and I had no idea which thoughts were from the chicken episode, or episodes previously. My solution? Shrug my shoulders and hit “Play Next Episode,” because who has the fucking time to wait the FUCKING 18 seconds it takes for Netflix to play the next episode. What the fuck are we doing, Netflix? You really want me to spend 18 seconds every hour screaming and cursing at you for making me sit (lay) there and wait for the next fucking episode? Or do you want to just play it now and we’ll remain cool. Asshole.

 

Maybe you don’t care. Maybe you think TV should be like popcorn, constantly shoved down your throat, with the only thing keeping you from shoving in more popcorn is the popcorn that’s already in there. I want to stop that, though. TV is the best it’s ever been ever. We are in the middle of the Golden Age of Television, an age that started with The Sopranos. If you haven’t seen anything before 1999, you’re probably OK, and that’s not something you can say about any other medium. It’s time that we step up and start talking about TV as douchily and pretentiously as we do music and film. The fact that it’s the more entertaining than it’s ever been doesn’t mean it’s not more artful than it’s ever been. And these changes, primarily with Netflix and Hulu, are forcing us to ignore it.

 

I’ve thought long and hard about this — mostly because I poop a lot and don’t know how to read — and although I don’t think I’ve fixed the problem, I might be close to coming up with a solution. Regardless of what it says at the top of this article, don’t stop binge watching. You don’t want to stop, so don’t. The only thing that could make you stop is if television, in an attempt to get things “back to normal,” stopped putting their TV shows on DVD and Netflix, and that’s not going to happen. But what if you were to switch things up a little bit by going back to basics?

 

I’m my own network executive now, so if I want, I can “program” four episodes of Orange is the New Black tonight from 8 PM to midnight. Since I’m a billionaire, I don’t even need to sell commercial time. But if I can do that for one show, why can’t I do that for four? Check it:

 

TONIGHT ON RYTV, THE TV STATION ONLY FOR RYAN AND NO ONE ELSE

 

8:00 PM: Buffy the Vampire Slayer

 

It’s time. The longer blind spots remain blind, the more fucking annoying it gets when people talk about them. It doesn’t excite me at all, but I trust all the people I know that love it. So here we go.

 

9:00 PM: The Kids in the Hall

 

I know I’ve seen every skit of every episode, but what if that’s not the case? And even if it is, it’s so impressively re-watchable, and nowhere near as dated as you think.

 

9:30 PM: Spaced/The IT Crowd

 

I’m alternating these two in the same time slot because those fucking Brits quit making episodes just before the show is out of juice, instead of years after . Plus, I’m almost done with Spaced. The IT Crowd isn’t the greatest thing, but I think it’s important to try and remember that at some point in time, every once in awhile, three camera sitcoms weren’t the worst garbage ever. Also, you can’t have enough Chris O’Dowd in your life.

 

10:00 PM: The West Wing

 

Here’s another one that’s like Buffy: it doesn’t seem like it would be that good, but I trust a lot of the people who love it. The big concern here is that at some point I will also fall in love with it, and start scheduling four episodes a night instead of just the one. Stay strong, people.

 

11:00 PM: The X-Files

 

Unlike The Kids in the Hall, I’m not sure how many of these I’ve seen. I’m also not sure that it won’t be dated. But I really liked it as a kid, even though my phase was fairly short-lived. I guess we’ll see.

 

There you go. Seems like a pretty sweet night of TV, right? The best part about being your own network exec is that nothing you like is going to get canceled just because the ratings aren’t great. They can only get canceled if I complete the series, or if I get bored and want to switch it out with something else.

 

This is not a total fix. It’s still cramming four hours of TV into four hours, without a lot of time to reflect or analyze. But, it’s a lot easier to get confused about when Piper did what than it is to be confused about why President Buffy assigned agents Fox Mulder and Bruce McCulloch to fix some British office worker’s computer. It may be a distracting roller coaster of tones and genres, but, with a little work, I will be able to appreciate an episode of television for being an episode. I’m envious of someone who just got Netflix today, as I think it would be a lot more fun to alternate episodes of House of Cards, Arrested Development, and Orange is the New Black each night. It just take a little willpower.-RH