Funcharted
I did the Arrested Development binge and I’m not sure how I feel about it — the binge, I mean. I loved the show (if you didn’t, then you just weren’t going to be happy to begin with), but I never quite felt comfortable with my intake. I wanted to watch it all immediately, but life sorta kept me from doing so. I only got to watch the first two or three episodes right when it went live. It really bothered me that there were episodes of AD available that I was not watching. (During the original run, I watched every episode live and then immediately rewatched on DVR to catch anything I missed.)
I still managed to plow through all 15 episodes faster than most casual fans. I had finished by the end of the weekend. There was a feeling of satisfaction afterwards, but at the same time I felt like I wasn’t even close to having digested everything. Arrested Development is probably the worst show you can binge watch. Each episode requires undivided attention, rewatching and added context from viewing other episodes.
When I wasn’t binging, I felt like I was missing out. When I binged, I felt like I couldn’t process it all. The decision is kind of a no-win. I hope that Netflix learns from this and breaks up the release of episodes for season 5, if only to spare my sanity.
Binge, Not Purge
I wrote a column last week for the newspaper about this very subject and then a follow-up blog post with more thoughts on how our TV habits are changing, so you might say I’ve been giving it a lot of thought.
My wife and I were big AD fans when it aired, but when we knew the end was coming, we parceled out the last episodes over a long period of time, savoring them. Then again, watching that show with long gaps in between can be a little tough to do as well. By the end of Season Three, we had trouble remembering how all the convoluted plotting fit together.
With Season Four, we’re five episodes in and in no rush to blaze through them all.
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