ANDRE BEGIN

This past week, I enthusiastically decided to return to a favourite program on one of our streaming services to pick up where I left off and start the latest season.

But my joy quickly turned to confusion as the “scenes from our last episode” had me wondering, “Who’s that?”, then “I think I remember that but what happened?” or even concluding with “what the hell is going on?”

The “scenes from our last episode” only seemed to remind me of what I had forgotten. Which was A LOT.

Was I paying attention to the last season at all?

A quick Google search reassured me that I was not suffering from a concerning degree of memory loss.

It had been almost three years since the last time I watched thanks in part to Covid that shut down this program’s production for quite some time and delaying the next season. Also, I had a fair bit going on in my own world in that span of time which delayed my return. .

The forgotten had been forgiven.

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy the ritual of snuggling up on the couch with a pillow, a blanket and Ivy the Wonder Cat, to park myself and binge watch a series on my list.

But the longer the span between seasons of shows, isn’t it more difficult it is to pick up where we left off, or is that just me?

If you roll the clock back 30 or 40 years, some of our popular network TV shows could play week after week for more than half of the year. For example, at their peak, Dallas and Knots Landing played for 30 weeks in a given season.

When a show launched their new season in the fall months, by the time it ended in the spring or early summer, it left only a short gap before the beginning of the next season. Sometimes the gap was even shorter if they replayed the series in summer reruns.

Remembering the events leading up to their dramatic cliff-hangers wasn’t much of an issue.

But in binge watching it’s a whole different ball game.

When watching 10 episodes in the span of a weekend or even a couple of weeks, the next season could still be 12, 18 (or because of Covid, 24 to 36) months away.

That’s a long time for the memory to try to retain the intricacies of the characters and their respective storylines to be able to pick up seamlessly where we left off.

Let’s not forget that we might also be watching other series on streaming services, trying to retain all of the intricate details of their characters and storylines as well.

Could it also be because I am busy working on the scripts of my own stories that my brain is juggling major and minor stories and characters, trying not to drop any balls in the continuity of the storytelling.

Can my poor little brain handle this much storytelling action?

When weighing my options about what to do about the show to which I was having a tough time reconnecting, I recalled enjoying the storytelling and the acting so much in the previous seasons.

Could I possibly go back to the beginning, season 1 episode 1, and start all over?

With only 10 episodes per season, at approximately 30 minutes per episode, it seemed to make sense.

That way when I get back to this specific point in time, I won’t feel nearly as lost and will truly appreciate the newest season at its full value.

Plus, given my first steps into the world of screenwriting, to study the entire series one more time would certainly benefit my learning curve, in taking note of what I enjoyed about the story that keeps me coming back for more.

But still, I wonder about the binge watching model. While it definitely brings us instant gratification in being able to watch a whole story over a short span of time, is the lengthy loss in momentum between seasons an impediment to viewer enjoyment?… or do viewers do like I did and start over, which reflects favourably on the ratings in terms of hours viewed?

At the end of the day, I don’t think it really matters how people choose to watch series on streaming services as long as they enjoy them and keep coming back for more.

And hopefully at some point, you’ll be seeing some of my own work for which you could binge watch to your hearts content, then lose track and then start over!

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Sincere thanks for reading!
Have a great day,
André