Unpacking the stories that shape us

4 Great Rules to Supercharge Your Binge-watching Skills

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Let’s do a quick tally. How many shows have you binged since the beginning of the great intergalactic quarantine of 2020? Three? Seven? Twenty-seven? Go ahead. Run back the mental Rolodex for a second. There was the one with the guy. And the other one with all the stuff. Oh! There was that one. And that other one, too… and probably a few more you’re forgetting. 

 

All this hunkering at home has provided us with a wealth of time to catch up on all those shows we’ve been meaning to watch, huh? Now roll the clock back to 2012. (You know, the year that the apocalypse was supposed to happen.)  Imagine that you had been shut-up indoors for 6 months straight, just eights years ago. How many of these shows could you have watched in their entirety back then? After all, this brave new world where we can stream just about any TV show, on any device, whenever we want, is a relatively new thing.

 

For over 8 decades, broadcast channels and cable networks controlled the flow of our television content.  Sure you could pay for the Ultra-platinum Behemoth Package and get a couple hundred channels to choose from-—but you still couldn’t pick exactly when to watch your show, or how much of it you could watch in one sitting. If you wanted to watch Sydney Bristow get her Alias on, you still had to wait until 8:00 on Wednesday night. And after one hour, it was over until next week.

But thanks to the rise of subscription streaming platforms (a rise that is arguably more important than that of Skywalker) viewers are in the driver’s seat now.  We can pick what we want to watch and when we want to watch it. But most revolutionary of all, we can choose how much of one show we want to watch in a single sitting.  And thus, thanks to humanity’s famously acute predisposition for self-control, the Age of the Binge-watching has begun!

 

But like with so many things in life, anything that is worth doing… is also worth doing well. So here is a list of helpful rules to set you on the path to start binge-watching TV like a pro.

Rule 1: Always take a break between seasons of a show

At first brush this rule seems to fly in the face of the very definition of binge-watching. So let me take a quick second to define the term.

What actually qualifies as a binge-watch?

Well, in Netflix’s own 2014 survey about binge-watching behavior, most surveyed subscribers defined it as watching between 2-6 episodes of a show in a single sitting.

 

The most interesting thing about this answer is the margin. Normally, doing an activity only 2 times in a row would not be considered a binge. We generally would view someone who had two beers in one night verses someone who downed an entire 6-pack in one sitting very differently. But this margin in the Netflix survey is actually very telling, because it defines our new “binge-watching ability” simply as a contrast to what came before-—namely, one at a time, once a week. Even the ability to watch two episodes in one night, or multiple new episodes in a week, changes how we engage with the long-format narratives of television.

 

So for the sake of conversation let’s define binge-watching loosely, as watching…

  • multiple episodes in one sitting
  • multiple episodes in one week
  • with the intent to finish a full season (roughly 10 episodes) in less than 2 weeks.

Engage your Wonder

Now back to the rule—Never watch multiple seasons of the same show back to back. Or, always engage in another story before beginning the next season of a show.  If there is only one rule you take away from this list, let it be this one. Because it is the one that will allow you to fully engage with the shows you love the most.

 

In the past, when we were forced to watch shows on a weekly slow-drip, we had a full 7 days to think about what would happen next. Cliff-hangers and character reveals from the weekly episodes would open up a range of possibilities for how the future of the story world might unfold. And without an immediate answer, our imaginations were forced to take over. For a whole week, we would wonder what would happen next. We’d wonder what would become of our beloved heroes. We’d wonder if the story world would ever be the same. In short, the break from the story activates our sense of wonder.

 

I’ve written before about how screen-stories can allow us to disengage and view them passively. But giving ourselves the time to reflect, imagine, and wonder is a great tool to reengage the active parts of our minds. And this active participation actually increases our enjoyment of the show. When the University of Melbourne ran a binge-watching experiment, they found that those who watched one episode a day (or one a week) enjoyed the same show far more than those who watched the entire season in one sitting.

Television's new story structure

Part of the reason for this is likely due to the fact that the particular show used in the study was written in a traditional TV style, where episodes were initially released on a weekly basis. This means that each episode was structured to end with an open-ended cliff hanger, to entice the audience to come back the next week. These days most binge-able shows are released all at once and are written with the assumption that they will likely be consumed all at once, or over a relatively short period of time. (i.e. binged).

 

In his guest column for the Hollywood Reporter, Marc Bernardin, a writer on several recent TV shows, summed up the new writing style like this:

“We’re breaking a 10- hour movie [into episodes]…. You need to have reversals and conflicts, triumphs and pitfalls, but they don’t need to be delivered as regularly as they need to in broadcast and basic cable.”

This means that instead of weekly wonder-inducing cliff-hangers, “must-binge TV shows” are now far more likely to build continually towards one big season-ending climax, leaving you with a field of questions for what will happen next.

Don't Cheat Yourself

And this is where the rule comes in.

 

The temptation to click on Season 2, Episode 1 can be very strong. We want to get the answers to all the questions just asked. And the answers are right there. They are literally one click away. But this eliminates our ability to imagine and engage. It encourages us to take the characters for granted, instead of giving ourselves the kind of distance that makes the heart grow fonder.

 

It is somewhat telling that though on most platforms the button prompting us to click right into the next season appears after finishing the season finale, this is the one time when the auto-play feature does not click in. It’s almost as if even the streaming companies want us to take a break so that we come back with renewed, heightened interest.

 

So between seasons of Stranger Things, go on an adventure with Aang and Katara or let lost in The Expanse. And all the while, let your mind wonder and imagine all the fun your friends in Hawkins might get into next.

 

You’ll savor your favorite shows even more this way. I promise.

Rule 2: Don't check out the show's IMDb

Most of us know the feeling of falling down an internet rabbit hole, due to the insidious “suggested links” sidebar on every site from CNN to YouTube.

 

But I suspect there is no stronger addiction for film nerds than the infinite web of interconnected movies, shows, actors and creatives provided by IMDb. It can be a strangely rewarding rush to look up that actor you just watched and answer the question, “What did I see her in before?”

 

But when it comes to TV shows, especially ones that already span multiple seasons—Don’t do it!

Because, here’s the thing. Cast members of TV shows are listed in order of how many episodes they appear in. And important characters on TV shows can die. Sometimes they move to Colorado with Holly, but usually they die.

 

And nothing will ruin this surprise for you faster than pulling up the IMDb page and NOT seeing that character who you are most invested in listed in the top 5. And as soon as you know a character is going to disappear, you begin to distance yourself emotionally from them because you know that they won’t be with you until the end of the story. Don’t rob yourself of your own emotional investment.

 

Some of the most impactful story moments stick with us because of how they subvert our expectations, either triumphantly or tragically. But in order for this to occur, you must have unconfirmed expectations to begin with. So do your self a huge favor and leave that sense of wonder intact.

 

Best to give your show’s IMDb page a wide berth.

Rule 3: Limit the number of shows you are watching

While I’m obviously an avid supporter of taking breaks between seasons of a binge, I also believe it is important to commit to the binge while you’re in it. With so many new shows coming out all the time, and even more vintage series being released from the archives, we have an over abundance of material vying for our attention. The temptation is to keep trying out each shiny new object that catches our eye. But this too can lead to a disappointing, disjointed experience.

 

With the structure of television seasons evolving to resemble novel-like stories that are meant to be consumed over a short period of time, writers are becoming much less concerned with including story elements that remind you of what has come before. You’ll notice that shows native to a streaming platform never begin with the iconic “Previously On” recap segment. Because the assumption is that you’ve watched the previous episodes very recently. Binging has become to expectation.

 

Additionally, with stories now spanning full seasons, complicated plot lines rarely begin and collude within a single episode. Studios are more consistently giving writers the freedom to craft more complex character arcs, subtle mounting tension and layered twisting plot lines, without fear of losing viewer interest over the traditional weeklong hiatus. Many of these wonderful nuances will be lost to us, though, if we let too much time pass between episodes. We can lose the thread of the story and miss the rich subtleties built into these long-form stories.

 

To really mine all those riches from these 10-hour tales, try to limit the shows you’re actively watching to 2 or 3. And then commit.

Rule 4: Watch “with” someone else

The most magnificent story is not worth much if it doesn’t travel with us back into the real world. The simplest way to do this is to share the experience with someone else. 

 

This doesn’t necessarily mean sitting down and watching a whole show with someone else in the room (though it certainly can). A television show is a prepackaged experience. So if you watch an episode on your lunch break on Wednesday and your buddy Brian watches the same episode Thursday night, you’ll both have almost identical experiences. And this means that you now have a shared experience together, which is how real relationships are built. 

 

Dr. Renee Carr, Psy.D, a clinical psychologist, talks about how the experience of watching a brilliant show will literally trigger a dopamine response in your brain, making you happy, and telling you to keep going back for more. This is similar to what happens when we hangout with real fiends and have a great time. The pleasure centers in our brains are engaged and we, in turn, want more of it.

 

The deeper we connect with a TV character the stronger this dopamine response will be. So when the show and this relationship (albeit a very one-sided one) comes to an end, this source of joy is suddenly gone. We can feel depressed and isolated. It feels natural to jump right into a new show, to replace what has been lost, but this actually just loops the cycle of isolation. 

 

Instead, if you share the show with someone, then the connection you both have to those characters actually contributes to a real life relationship. The adventure that brought you both joy privately becomes a common thread that can propel you into further life experience together. Moral dilemmas from a fake world inform moral decisions in your real world. Different interpretations of a fake event, provide color and dimension to your real life perspective.

 

The binge watch adds real joy to your world, but only when it extends beyond your private viewing.