In defense of binge-watching

Last year, “binge-watching” entered the popular lexicon as we all discovered that we weren’t the only ones lounging on the sofa watching one episode after another of some devilishly well-plotted TV show.

Netflix kicked off the year of binge-watching in February by releasing all 13 episodes of the first season of House of Cards simultaneously. They followed up in July by releasing Orange Is the New Black the same way. July was also the month Entertainment Weekly devoted an entire issue of the magazine to the phenomenon. (Click through the slide show here to find a series of lists of bingeworthy shows by theme: What to watch if you’re…staycationing, on the treadmill, incarcerated, etc.)

By the end of the year, analysts were crunching numbers: The Wall Street Journal, for instance, found that almost half of viewers who start watching a show for which a full season is available through streaming finish it within a week. The story also refers to issues with the term “binge-watching,” which “had long irked Netflix's leadership, due to connotations of gluttonous or antisocial behavior. But now even Netflix has surrendered to the term. ‘We've never been able to come up with a better euphemism,’ says spokesman Jonathan Friedland.”

Been there, done that

Perhaps no euphemism is needed, though. As this behavior becomes more and more common — and less and less stigmatized — we may end up referring to it as just “watching,” not “binge-watching.” After all, there is nothing inherently wrong with watching more than one episode of a TV show in one sitting, even if they were originally aired once a week; we don’t expect modern readers to consume a Victorian novel at a chapter-a-week pace, even though that’s how they originally appeared. Surely everyone who’s ever stayed up way too late reading “just one more chapter” of a great book has felt a twinge of déjà vu when clicking “play next” for just one more episode of a great TV show.

During the 19th century, storytelling through serialization was the norm. An individual novel might appear over the course of a year or more, and the author was often writing just a week or two in advance of publication, enabling him or her to respond to reader feedback. The leisurely prose and discursive plotting of Victorian fiction that resulted — love it or hate it (I personally love it) — has a lot in common with American TV dramas.

Tune in next week

These dramas, of course, have changed in format over the years, just as novels changed in format from the 19th to the 20th centuries. Prior to the 1980s, TV shows were written so that each episode was self-contained, and there was no expectation that the individual episodes add up to an overall story — they were short stories featuring the same set of characters rather than novels. That began to change with Hill Street Blues (1981 – 87) and St. Elsewhere (1982 – 88), which introduced the “story arc” and the practice of starting each episode with a recap of the previous week’s action.

The first American series to tell just a single story over a season, Murder One (1995 – 97), was created by Hill Street Blues impresario Steven Bochco, along with Charles Eglee and Channing Gibson. It was only partially successful — though the first season had many passionate fans (myself among them), the second (and final) season returned to a more traditional multi-story format. The first hit to do single-story seasons was Fox’s 24, which began a six-season run in 2001.

Single-story seasons have always been more common on British TV, which doesn’t expect a season to run 20 episodes or more. Because shows take as many episodes as they need to tell a story — no more, no fewer — the British have created a treasure house of tightly plotted series, to the delight of binge-watchers on this side of the Atlantic. Another source, of course, is American cable TV, which is also free of the expectation that a series comprise a predetermined number of episodes.

Or just stay tuned

Thus there’s plenty of quality content there — and, due to improved technology, the convenience of streaming that content directly to our oversized flat-screen TVs. Is it any wonder that we’re reveling? These days, if you’re in the mood to watch a little TV, rather than choosing the lesser of (a hundred and) two evils from among the shows that are airing at that particular moment, you can choose the well-written, well-acted show you want to see.

And watch an episode or ten.

For a review of House of Cards by fellow binge-watcher Armen Pandola, click here.