Long Form Television

For this week I chose to watch the entirety of Stranger Things, a horror mystery series on Netflix. The format of binge watching is a format that I think dampened this series. Netflix releases a whole season at once, which gives the viewer the opportunity to binge watch the entire series in a sitting or two. But despite that Stranger Things is still written to be episodic and often leaves on a cliffhanger. Episodes end with a reason for the viewer to keep watching, or if this was traditional TV, a reason to remember and come back next week. There's nothing wrong with this structure, in fact in makes for great storytelling. But Netflix gives me the ability to  immediately get answers for that cliffhanger, which in regards to Stranger Things can hurt the suspense of the story. With no waiting there's less time to stop and reflect on what is happening in the story. There's less time to let the events of that episode to sink in, and less time to discuss possible storylines or outcomes with friends. The whole experience becomes more passive. This is hindering to a storyline that is rooted in suspense, horror, and drama, as answers are just after that "continue watching" button. And a counter argument is, why not just pace yourself? But it's called "binge watching" for a reason, there's no thinking that self control is involved here in the slightest. If the opportunity to get the answers are there, it becomes to tempting to do otherwise. Netflix knows that and the stories are structured like that so I do keep watching and keep my subscription.
I remember watching a suspense oriented anime with my friends called Erased. When we started watching it there were already a couple episodes released but it was still during its original runtime. So we caught up with the series by binge watching the first few. But then we caught up, and the last episode left on a ginormous cliff hanger. The murderer was revealed and this kid was at a huge crossroad. But suddenly there were no more episodes and we had to wait for it's new release the coming week. I remember being so nervous about the events in the episode and spending a large portion of time discussing and hypothesizing with my friend about it. I guarantee you if that episode was available immediately we would have watched it then and there and reflected a lot less. The anxiety I felt for the characters would have been resolved immediately and the series would have left less of in impact.
In short, I love the immediate gratification of binge watching, but I think in some cases waiting can be good and help strengthen investment in a story.