h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

There seems to be a pastime that's become very popular in recent years: "back-to-backism". You take a day or two off work, get plenty of food, and watch non-stop series of TV shows - usually the sorta cool dramas like Breaking Bad, Lost, Walking Dead, etc.

I've a few friends who love this and have invited me round for these marathons before. But to tell you the truth, I just don't have the ability to take part.

It doesn't matter what the show is, or how much I like it. I can watch one episode, maybe two at a pinch, but by the time it comes to a third I'm climbing the walls with boredom and agitation and start getting restless. Something like cabin fever sets in and I start fidgeting with the bookshelves, wandering into the kitchen, rummaging in the fridge, and pacing the hall...

Watching TV isn't always as easy as it looks, I've found.

The only time I really, truly enjoyed such a marathon was a New Years Day (and maybe the day after as well) about 20 years ago following a party on Lake Shore Drive, so to speak.

The marathon show was Monty Python's Flying Circus including the two German episodes that had never previously aired in the US.

maybe we're really just too used to having short bursts of any one 'series'.... watch half an hour of program A, then it changes to something else, or we flip channells.... guess that's changed somewhat though, as a 'viewing method', now its all online streaming, etc Closest I ever got to anything like it, was auditry... I went on a rediculusly long back to back of Zappa albums, when in a particularly bad patch of just not sleeping... AFter about 20 albums, I could feel my mind slowely leaving the building... its just too much concentration, to try watch, or listen, to something for such an extended time, and retain the same level of concentration/interest/involvement...

In this US that's being referred to as "binge-watching", lol. I like it - really not sure why, but I do.

It might be conditioning from renting DVDs at a store, and needing to get it back before it's due? Usually I'm catching up on a show that's still on, but I also watch whole series that are over. Considering that US shows have nearly a billion episodes a season (or series), that can be a lot of watching.

Well I didn't know it was possible to post an empty message?!

Anyhoo, that happened to me with House when it was taken off C5 and I never saw it again. I rented the box sets from Blockbusters (a fiver a week, not bad!) and just couldn't sit and watch so many episodes. To be fair, House was very repetative anyway, and then it went all weird so maybe that's why.

Sometimes I save new series up on my PVR, but even then I'll watch 2 or 3 then have to get up and do something else for a bit.

it depends for me. With Game of Thrones rationed it to one ep per week (but sometimes I managed to persuade him that a week starts on a Sunday so i could watch 2 over a weekend - and then suffered by only getting one the following weekend) even though I'd have watched the whole thing in a day, and then again the following week.

With the Walking Dead he rationed the Gruesome Twosome in a similar way, but then he got really caught up in it and I'd often get home on a Wednesday to find them indulging in their guilty secret.

OTOH I can watch endless Battlestar Galactica.

I was off work ill when True Blood came out, and spent the entire day watching the first series of that.

I've done it with Battlestar Galactica too.

I think we're able to do it because of the stupid stuff like different release dates in different countries, and sometimes the dvd's of the series are out before it's been shown on the telly. And then it's generally only on the telly if you've paid for satellite, which I haven't. There's not that much telly I watch, so it'd probably cost me more to get satellite than it does to get the box sets of what I do watch. Although I've not tried adding it up

It's definitely a practice intimately associated with the rise of the boxed set.

Which came first, I wonder? Did the availability of the boxed sets lead to the binge-watching, or are the boxed sets produced to meet the binge-watching demand?

You used to get box sets of videos, so I'm guessing they came first

I have several box sets and we do tend to watch up to three of one at a time. Mostly at night before bed. It was really difficult to stop watching Battlestar after only 3, mind.

I don't think I could back to back a whole series at once, though because I like the variety.

Currently we're rewatching Sliders, Babylon 5, Numbers and Quantum Leap but we tend to mix it up a bit with the new ones as well, Person of Interest, Revolution, Sleepy Hollow etc...

I usually start to drift after about three episodes, too - and we have several box sets. The only one I really do a complete marathon with is Twin Peaks, because of the serial format. With that, I like to keep watching as many as I can at one time until I've gotten all the way through. I can also do movie marathons for an entire day (like all three Lord of the Rings, etc.).

I wish I'd called this journal something else, now. Every time it pops up on my PS it's earworming me with Amy Winehouse, "Back to Black".

I think the only thing I've ever watched back-to-back is all three Lord of the Rings films, at a cinema, with themed food and drink laid on which made it an event rather than just a binge-watch, and that's the only way I'd ever do something like that.

I like looking forward to another episode of a programme, and the excitement of its approach throughout the week. Cliffhanger endings seem a bit pointless if you can watch the next episode straight away. You can do that if you have the next episode on a DVD, but the chances are you might have watched the series when it was originally broadcast and had to wait a week for the next episode to come along (or as little as a day in the case of Batman when it was originally shown on British TV in the 60s, and there were few shows more famous for cliffhangers than Batman - how will Batman and Robin escape certain death this time? ).

And I will only ever watch Doctor Who on a Saturday, late afternoon/early evening. To do otherwise would destroy the time vortex

Probably.

I admit it, I've done an 'Asterix cartoon' weekend - but that was spaced over a weekend with breaks between. I don't think I could watch a film immediately after another film, unless they were both under 90 minutes. Otherwise it'd be too like the school trip to see Kenneth Branagh's 'Hamlet'...

<BB<

I could do an Asterix weekend, I think. Even then though I'd rather read the comics...

While the binge session viewing did start with box sets, it's really become widespread with streaming video. Although, I don't think watching entire seasons of a series is as common as the streaming companies like Hulu and Netflix would like to have folks think it is. I think many people might watch a couple of episodes of a show at one sitting, and might get through a whole series in one week or even in a weekend. But most people do break it up a bit.

One thing I wish Netflix would do is change their default when watching a series. As it is now, when an episode ends a 15 second timer counts down until the next episode automatically starts. This is just dumb. It's not a convenience for the viewer, it just artificially increases the viewing numbers for Netflix. I can't count how many times I've come home from a drinking session, pulled up a show on Netflix and watched the whole series... in my sleep.

Then, when I wake up the next morning (OK, around noon that same morning), I don't know where I left off and probably will start back on episode one. I think I've "viewed" all of Peep Show and Snuff Box several times so far, but I'm probably only half way through each series of actually seeing the shows.

Huh--our Netflix goes back to the episode menu after each episode. Then again, we watch the majority of our Netflix through the blueray player--I do seem to remember that going through the computer is different (I know the suggestions and even what's available by searching is different--"our" Netflix is actually an account that a friend shares with us).

I'm also (mostly) using my BluRay players as well. It does go back to the episode menu, but it will autoplay the following episode if I don't make a selection or return to the main browse menu in 15 seconds.

It just seems like a silly feature. Surely they realize that if someone doesn't make a selection in such a short time period, they've either dozed off or left the room. Either way, they probably DON'T want to continue on to the next episode right away.

Hm. Maybe R changed settings or something, since it's her account. Or maybe you've more than the cheapest, most basic account--or, at one point, you turned on/added stuff to Instant Queue (which I won't touch with a 10-foot pole--too afraid I'll mess something up, and that it's not reversible).