Binge Watching

Generally speaking I am not much of a binge watcher since I rather like structure in my life which means I like to watch a show week to week rather than a ton of episodes all at once. However in the past few years there have been very few shows that keep me entertained week to week. I think the only one that I watch regularly is Law & Order SVU and of course, Dancing with the Stars (though it has been on a long sabbatical this past year).

As a result I have been buying older shows on DVD (I cannot get Netflix in the countryside without losing my mind – that’s a tale for another time) as well as buying the Game of Throne series because I was not buying HBO for just one show so I would wait patiently for the latest season to come out and then watch the show, usually one episode per night. Now having the whole collection except for the final season (not yet out) I confess, I have done some binge watching! But even that was mild compared to what Mom and I have now been doing – we are again watching Prison Break and oh my goodness, our hearts are palpitating so much that Mom came in one night and said “my heart is still beating so fast from the show”! We haven’t watched the show since it first appeared some 10 years ago so we forget a lot of the intricate details of the story and even though we know they escape we get so tense at every little twist that it is awesomely exciting!

Yes once in a while a truly great innovative story will appear on television but they are so far apart that it is really a shame. In the past decade I can think of Downton Abbey and Game of Thrones as true standouts. John also has really enjoyed Poldark but since I missed out from the beginning I can’t get into it at all which is rather a pity because I do enjoy period pieces. He also watches Victoria but I loathe historical dramas that are not accurate and the snippets I have watched portray a very different Victoria from her true self (she was really not a very nice person at all). A show I am watching now (in its final, third season) is Jamestown which is pretty good entertainment.

I really miss the great miniseries of yore, Rich Man Poor Man, Roots, Captain & the Kings, Testimony of Two Men and Centennial. Now those were really great serials!