Binge — Watching: A benefit or a compulsion?
A lot of you guys like me might have binge-watched millions of shows… well that’s a bit much, say 100s of shows in this lockdown, why not as we got so much free time at once.
I know many of you might be the working ones who don’t get time to watch shows, well you can skip this article now.
But, I miss the era when episodes used to air daily, and we used to wait for an entire 24 hours or even a week for a new episode. I can’t even recollect now how it used to be. We can’t deny the fact that many of us shifted our attention from traditional channels like Starplus and Colors TV to Netflix and Amazon Prime for quality content. Well, this discussion is for another article.
I guess, the Netflix and amazon prime sensation started just 5 to 6 years back and basically, everyone started to put up their shows and movies on Netflix, from Anurag Kashyap to Karan Johar. What are Bollywood and theatres anymore?
So, as this new era started with shows like 13 reasons why, Stranger Things, Money Heist, DARK and a lot more, the audience got a knack to watch entire seasons altogether without waiting for another episode to air. Gosh! I remember completing 1 season of stranger things a day whenever a new one aired.
Slowly, there was just a slight difference between what is a movie and a show. Shows seized to become a 3 to 4-hour long entertainment. Now there are at least a thousand shows on 6 7 platforms to binge-watch, and most of them are just 4 to 5 hours long.
What will you say now, it’s a movie or an exaggerated version of a movie? Well, the major problem with such shows is that they add a bit of unnecessary content to build characters but it has no use because you are not coming for another season so why would we care for those characters? In turn, the show just happens to be boring and bad.
In this content traffic, a few of them outshine and are well — made while some of them are left unrecognized and ignored. Hell, even you and I can write a script and make a web series now!
This habit of binge-watching has led to a decrease in patience, and higher expectations from writers of different shows. With so many extraordinary shows in the market, we all want to see something unique and fresh but how many ways can you twist a story? Well, the makers are still figuring that out.
Our parents have seen such a big generation change in television. They used to watch Mahabharat and Ramayan as their single source of entertainment on weekends to bundle of shows to watch at once today. They can understand the real change in the entertainment industry.
I am a television lover since childhood, you can ask my mom how many cartoons I used to watch way back in the day, and then daily soaps. I made so many online friends because of these shows and the process is still on.
The one thing that has evolved in the making of shows is the acting, television actors jumping into these binge-able shows have given them a chance to do quality acting as these shows have a single motive, decided several episodes and a single storyline. It is good in a way because the shows Ekta Kapoor and other daily soap creators make go on for years and the main focus of the story is just lost in the wind.
A major drawback of such shows is that we stop caring about the characters and try hard to focus on the story. Some of them might or might not come for a season 2 and the creators take a chance for it. Then if a show doesn’t catch your attention in the very first 2 episodes, it is a fail. Although it has given many budding actors to give a chance to acting.
Well, things change over time, and this was a swift one. In this lockdown, it has helped a lot of us — pointing to people like me who are chilling at home and watching shows.
I miss those days when I used to watch television on a physical television set, some of them still inspire me to switch on and watch, I hope those who are going back to the sets for us, you are safe and thank you for continuing the entertainment even in these tough times.