But nobody talks about Netflix shows because there's no shared progress, so you can't even begin to discuss it with your friends until everyone is completely finished with. Then at that point, it's finished, why bother?
I'm totally done letting media companies dictate my time and letting them make me feel like I'm missing out somehow if I don't jump when they tell me to. I'll watch things on my schedule, when it's convenient for me, and I'll do it at my own pace. If a platform doesn't want to let me do that, I've got plenty of other things competing for my attention that will.
That feels somewhat naive. People don't only belong to one friendship group.
> if a streaming platform withholds episodes so that they can better manage social media and stretch out advertising I'll just wait until the whole thing is out before I even start watching.
Sounds like it works out for everyone, then: those that want to watch and discuss week-to-week can, those that don't can wait until the end of the season and watch all at once.
We did exactly that during pandemic lockdowns. We used a browser extension that let us sync our netflix viewing while we had a live chat running during the show. It meant we could all talk about the last episode during the week and people had something to look forward to. It's perfectly do-able unless you're actually trying to keep your friend groups segregated for some reason, like you've got friends that won't do anything with some of your other friends.
> Sounds like it works out for everyone, then:
It might, except that streaming companies are too stupid to take a long view on ratings. Amazon for example canceled The Tick because they didn't get enough views in the weeks immediately following release. By the time I (and many many others) got around to watching and enjoying it, they'd already made up their mind that it was a failure.
When platforms withhold episodes I'm moving on to something else and it could be a long time before I make it back around to them. If they chase me away from a show and I have to find one that respects my time and that one has got 5-6 seasons, or if instead I pick up a video game that I'll put 150+ hours into it could easily be months before I get back to whatever they are heavily promoting and tracking this instant, assuming something new doesn't catch my interest and take priority.
Release whole seasons at once, and people who want to time gate can start right away and take longer to finish, while people who binge can finish in a weekend and everyone else can go at their own pace, but in any case it's more eyeballs within the same timeframe.
I do this, and then frequently forget about the show at all. Then never watch it.
Cancelled netflix not too long ago. They should never have reminded me to check the view stats of my family.
Forcing everyone to collectively sit with a single episode per week is fun. Watching all at once makes them all sort of meld together. Having to sit with an episode for a week changes the experience of watching the show. If you can convince your friend group to watch together, that's great, but things like discussion forums and twitter (where a lot of people like to talk about shows online) will always be dominated by binge watchers.
The only thing netflix (and possibly others, i wouldn't know) have done to improve that situation is adding descriptive audio service, which brings the usefulness of good subtitles to the audio track, so that blind people can experience more of the show that they can't see.
I'm a bad anecdote for a couple of reasons, though: I haven't had a television connected to coax in any way since 2003, and i haven't liked any new television show created after about 2013 or so - furthermore, i haven't really "loved" any series that began after 2004 or 2005. A supermajority of my media (disc and disk) predates the iphone. A plurality predates America Online.
Since i'm already on an aside, i'll point out a couple of things: First, thanks to the likes of MTV's indefatigable pushing in the late 80s and through the 90s, everyone raised in that era (and after) thinks that in order to be engaging, you must change cameras every 3 seconds. Bonus points if there's no story reason to do so. Secondly, or if you prefer, as an ancillary to the first point, the constant viewpoint shifts can aggravate certain conditions; for example, new shows tend to tire me out, and a "binge" for whatever reason tends to leave me with a headache that lasts a couple of days. Third, a plurality (and majority, up to ~75%) of all television shows produced in the US are either directly or indirectly Law Enforcement related, and i'm sure a rigorous study would bear out that has a detrimental effect on both public policy and the zeitgeist feelings of law enforcement and related groups.
> Of the 69 scripted television dramas that aired on the big four US broadcast networks (CBS, NBC, Fox, and ABC) in the last year-and-a-half, 35 were about law enforcement, according to a Quartz analysis. CBS was responsible for 16 of those on its own. About 70% of the network’s dramatic programming from 2019-2020 were about cops. [0]
And that's "Dramas", i guess if you consider "all programming, including for example comedies" the ratio goes down to a peak of 28.7%. however:
> Even many of the non-cop dramas on these channels are so cop-adjacent that one could reasonably argue they are also about law enforcement. CBS’s Madam Secretary follows the fictional US secretary of state, a former CIA analyst. Evil follows a forensic psychologist investigating supernatural incidents. Blood & Treasure follows a former FBI agent teaming up with an art thief to track down a terrorist.
And now, you said: >> You also stereotyped a whole generation
I didn't, if i stereotyped anyone it was cinematographers that grew up with that as "normal", or, if they didn't grow up with that, at least consider it normal.
[0] https://qz.com/1872176/half-of-us-network-tv-dramas-are-abou...
Wikipedia: "It had fair viewership in its first three seasons, but the fourth and fifth seasons saw a moderate rise in viewership when it was made available on Netflix just before the fourth season premiere."
"Breaking Bad's viewership grew greatly as viewers binged the series on Netflix, helping to assure that a fifth season could be made. The fifth-season premiere had more than double the viewership compared to the fourth season premiere, attributed to the Netflix availability"
By comparison, the first Netflix show I remember really watching was House of Cards. Tried to have conversations with friends about it but inevitably you'd start with "oh, what episode are you on? Is that the one with the...? So you haven't seen...?".
Discussing an entire season when it's complete is definitely less fulfilling than discussing each episode. Depending on the show, of course.
I like a lot how modern series are written and done. I find it to be massive improvement over what movies and series used to be when I was young. I like the one long story aspect of it all. I just do not want to watch it in one episode a week schedule.
A typical show went like this:
last time on dragonBallZ… 12 minutes of content… next time on dragonBallZ