By Nick Marini, social media manager
Frank Underwood is fooling all of us – the claim may be sheepishly meta, but the Netflix delivery system of high profile shows like “House of Cards” and “Orange Is the New Black” is changing the way we watch television.
That part comes as no surprise – we watch at our own pace, and “binge-watching” has unofficially become a part of our everyday cultural lexicon. But what about the shows themselves? We interact with them as an audience much differently.
From the moment David Chase unleashed his paragonical vision in “The Sopranos,” nothing would be the same for TV. HBO had been taking the types of risks in the 90s that made network execs shudder in their sleep, and with “The Sopranos,” they struck an artistic and financial goldmine. It was challenging, entertaining, thought-provoking, lauded. With the gabagool-hounding, goomah-squeezing, violent, meatball-obsessed, murdering family-manchild known as Tony Soprano, we got our first real darkly dramatic male antihero with idiosyncratic, but deep, supporting characters in unique, violent and provocative situations.
Vince Gilligan (“Breaking Bad”), David Simon (“The Wire”), Matthew Weiner (“Mad Men”), Lena Dunham (“Girls”) and Shawn Ryan (“The Shield”) would all benefit from similar risks both at HBO and beyond. TV was no longer the stupid-little-brother-that-never-left-mom’s-basement of the movies. Laugh tracks, tropey bad guys, hold-it-til-the-end crime solving, formulaic plots…But it remains today as maybe the only canvas for an auteur’s vision to resonate within their work. Movies are too hard to make, with too many people to please and too many steps between a creator’s vision and the big screen, so they go directly to the small screen – it’s cheaper, mostly character-driven, and until now, serial.
As the golden age matured and prevailed throughout the aughts, we saw the quality modern shows we know and love, from “Arrested Development” to “Scandal” and “Game of Thrones,” and the Internet sat in the thick of the trenches. It was no coincidence. Conversations exploded. Bloggers, Redditors and commenters contributed to the weekly conversation. Virtual discussions elevated many shows to mythic proportions. We thought about these shows more than ever.
Each week a flurry of Twitter activity before, during and after heightened the viewing experience. Sure, some dinosaurs still spoke in person by the water cooler, but the real fans took to the virtual conversation. Memes, group texts, viewing parties, imgur, threads – it all erupted. Audiences were thirsty for more and more content with density, darkness, meaning – television with a vision, a nuance, something of a complete and cohesive universe.
I found that, when diving into these shows, they’d stick with me between viewings. I’d take on the context of Don Draper’s mysterious indifference (I was so bad at it), or the nihilistic quips of Louis to real social interactions. Particularly, it was when I binge-watched these shows. Netflix, DVR and on-demand put consumption at our own desired cadence. Until we caught up. Then, like the toils of the viewers of yesteryear, we were back on the weekly basis. This allowed the analyzing to fester; with six nights off, we could dive in, dissect, interpret, theorize.
Look at the “True Detective” phenomenon. People theorized enough plots that we could have spun Rust Cohle off into three more series alone. Alas, each week, fresh cement was layered and the slate began anew.
However, with something like “House of Cards,” there is no weekly option. It takes the recipe of television and heaps on the Internet as the primary ingredient. Many times, quality content takes the backseat. The show is actually structured for binge-watching: heavy plot beats early at first, then scattered throughout the ends of later episodes, with specific intent to entice clicking “Watch the Next Episode.” The story is structured in a more general fashion, maybe simpler, less challenging, less complicated, more suited for binge consumption. The “big events” become the only real hook in the show, the only memorable afterthought, not compelling character interactions.
Here’s an experiment: think of a show you binge-watched in just a few lethargic days, and think about a show you watch in the traditional serial fashion. Try to recall specific moments and character points from each. Almost guaranteed, the serial show is fresher in your mind. Each episode sits with you, individually, with it’s own context. It’s more like you’re watching 13 short films, with a beginning, middle and end, each week as opposed to one 13-hour movie. With a binge, subplots seem less important, subtle character events blur together and what you end up with is one giant arc. The main story is the only real story going on here. You end up taking the general direction of the show for what it is.
This struck me with “House of Cards.” I binge-watched the first season. I chugged a bottle of “House of Cards.” Then, I went back to serial-watching “True Detective.” I sipped from the bottle each week, let the taste settle in my palette, and moved on. In both cases, sure, I ended up drunk. I finished the story. But I know how “True Detective” tasted, I remember each sip, while I opened the hatch and dumped all 13 gallons of “House of Cards” down my throat. I couldn’t tell you what it was really like.
“House of Cards” seemed to actually suffer from this – I wasn’t realizing the nuances of the show, the little perks that created a unifying fictional world. Individual moments didn’t matter. In “True Detective,” individual shots stick in my mind, little events seem more purposeful. But when I binged, I didn’t care. I barreled through it, and ended up being underwhelmed, because I was chugging through it just to see what happened. The form, the craft of filmmaking, was lost on me and as a result I was less connected the to characters and the show as a whole. After all, it’s a character-driven medium, and I didn’t give myself a chance to have that essential conversation. Even at the archaic watercooler, even if I met on common ground with a colleague, we were at different places in the show, on our own pace. The conversation was over before it could even start.
Watching a Netflix show, or more generally, the entirety of almost any show on Netflix, changes our consumption habits and what we take away from TV. As the Golden Age passes, don’t just consider what you want to watch in the glorious mindfield of the small screen. Consider how you want to watch it.
Photo courtesy Zennie Abraham, Creative Commons.
