Just an episode? Why TV bingeing has lost its appeal

Streaming during the pandemic has made watching television feel like a chore at times, but the drip feed of shows such as ‘Normal People’ reminded us of the ‘TV event’ where a series becomes a cultural phenomenon, writes Jennifer Gannon

Hybrid model: It's a Sin, starring Callum Scott Howells, was released in one go on Channel 4’s All 4 streaming service but week by week on terrestrial TV

Connell (Paul Mescal) and Marianne (Daisy Edgar-Jones) in Normal People

Vicky McClure and Kelly Macdonald in the latest series of Line of Duty

Hybrid model: It's a Sin, starring Callum Scott Howells, was released in one go on Channel 4’s All 4 streaming service but week by week on terrestrial TV

Connell (Paul Mescal) and Marianne (Daisy Edgar-Jones) in Normal People

Vicky McClure and Kelly Macdonald in the latest series of Line of Duty

Hybrid model: It's a Sin, starring Callum Scott Howells, was released in one go on Channel 4’s All 4 streaming service but week by week on terrestrial TV

Jennifer Gannon

April 16 2021 05:00 AM

The past year has been a never-ending TV binge. We’re living in a ravenous cultural landscape where everyone has watched everything. We’ve ripped through Bridgerton, gorged on The Crown, gobbled up The Queen’s Gambit, but at what expense?

The rapid way we consume television doesn’t feel pleasurable any more. Television-watching is now another task to be finished at breakneck speed before a friend decides to drop a spoiler. A formerly relaxing pastime has become an extension of gaming as viewers scramble to move on to the next level. We joke about having ‘finished’ Netflix by the time lockdown ends, but it doesn’t feel too far-fetched.

Forget shows with subtlety and subtext. Who has the time? Although we are watching more TV than ever, are we taking any of it in? Most series end up becoming fancy screensavers to gaze at in between scrolling on our phones. Binging only encourages this. We want shows that are unnecessarily long so we can zone out at our leisure and still manage to follow the plot.

Online conversations about the latest programmes move on quickly. To hear someone talk about Tiger King in 2021 feels as odd as they were asking if you had heard of an obscure Liverpudlian beat combo called the Beatles. We have turned the artfully assembled meal of television into forgettable fast food, digested in an instant then completely forgotten. Of course, TV can be disposable and not everything merits in-depth analysis, but there is something to be said for shows being parcelled out in the old-fashioned linear way.

With BBC iPlayer off-limits to Irish audiences, we were ‘forced’ to watch Normal People in weekly sittings. Like the dance of the relationship between Connell and Marianne, it quietly revealed itself, slowly unfolding over six weeks and giving audiences time to ruminate over the finer points of the plot and marvel at the nuanced acting. Normal People was ‘event’ TV because it demanded your time and presence. The weekly anticipation echoed the intoxicating infatuation between the two lovers. The series couldn’t be rushed or binged. The pacing was positively languid.

Connell (Paul Mescal) and Marianne (Daisy Edgar-Jones) in Normal People

This in turn extended the conversations around the show, delving into ideas about masculinity and mental health as well as consent and the potency of young love. With Normal People being a weekly staple, it also brought it to a wider audience, creating headlines and that unforgettable Liveline episode. It was a cultural phenomenon that crossed generations; something that a lot of online-only TV doesn’t do.

When shows are annexed online such as Luca Guadagnino’s poignant and beautifully surreal coming-of-age story We Are Who We Are, they are denied the opportunity to attract a wider audience. Complex and complicated dramas like this and Michaela Coel’s stunning genre-bending I May Destroy You are not made to be binged. With their multilayered powerful and profound themes covering everything from sexual assault to gender identity, this is TV that needs to endure.

They’re not the empty distraction of the week. Innovative shows that are ambitious and distinctive and are creating their own cultural language should have the space to be celebrated and respected.

Would something as groundbreaking as Twin Peaks have survived binge-culture? In the impatient rush to find out who killed Laura Palmer, how much of David Lynch’s hypnotic, dreamlike detours would have been appreciated or tolerated?

It’s a Sin, Russell T Davies’ intensely personal drama about the 1980s Aids pandemic, is a show that thrived in two formats. Its five episodes were released in one go on Channel 4’s All 4 streaming service but week by week on terrestrial TV. Some feared that the important, necessary conversations around the programme would be lost in flurry of excitable tweets and Instagram stories, leaving behind the audience watching the TV broadcasts. Happily, it defied expectations, not only becoming the most streamed show on All 4 (accumulating 6.5 million views within its initial release), but also became a talking point.

It initiated weeks of articles, radio shows and online conversations about the LGBTQ+ experience in the 1980s and the treatment of those who had contracted HIV.

Perhaps such dual releases on different formats might be the way to satisfy both styles of viewers; those who want or need to binge a series and those who want to space out their viewing. This model also worked well for Lena Dunham’s racy financial drama Industry, which started off in a linear fashion for two weeks on HBO before all subsequent episodes were made available online. The weekly episodes were used almost like a trial to hook viewers in, a delicate starter before the chance to explore the full tasting menu.

The only downside to dual formats is the modern tyranny of the spoiler. During the pandemic, the spoiler has infected the online discussion like never before, with some viewers developing binge-watch burnout trying to keep ahead of the blabbermouths out to ruin every plot twist.

Part of the joy of linear TV such as WandaVision and Line of Duty is in being able to discover storyline surprises together. There is no fear of anyone skipping ahead or being left behind, unless they’ve recorded the show, but that’s another issue entirely. There is also the good-natured camaraderie and community that some online communal viewing engenders.

Vicky McClure and Kelly Macdonald in the latest series of Line of Duty

Whether it’s being bewitched by Nicole Kidman’s array of coats in The Undoing, waiting for Adrian Dunbar to bang on about “bent coppers” in Line of Duty or witnessing a shock exit on RuPaul’s Drag Race UK, there’s an instantaneous pleasure in watching these moments together that is absent when everyone is bingeing in isolation.

Linear TV almost feels elegant now. To watch something at an allotted time is more calming and satisfying than cramming in several episodes at one sitting. There is a sense of delayed gratification that is appealing, especially in these times. It’s nice to have something to create a weekly ritual around.

Binging is here to stay, but in a post-pandemic future we may have PTSD when it comes to the fury with which we hoovered up so many television shows. The unrelenting gallop towards the new has altered the way we connect with TV. Will the television of the pandemic be something we want to remember once this is all over or will it exist in a cultural vacuum never to be thought of again?

Once we’re allowed to escape from the cocoon of our homes and television stops being the central diversion of our day, the thoughts of bingeing may be as off-putting as going on another neighbourhood walk or baking more banana bread.