I did a thing not long ago.
As much as I fancy myself being future-forward, tech-savvy, and all the things that would ever keep me from being labeled a Luddite, I had one legacy artifact in my household: satellite television. The only reason it wasn’t cable TV is that out in the country, they don’t run those kinds of lines. But I also have nine or ten streaming services, making me a case of Modern Man meets Cave Man.
So I did what more than 20 million other households have done since 2014: I canceled my subscription to DirecTV. It was a tough, 30-minute call as they tried every trick in the book to keep me, but in the end, I prevailed. And to be honest, I felt like I needed to shower when I was done, a symbolic cleansing of the old self. It felt great.
Of course, I still need me some regular TV. Not much, mind you, but I want my news stations, The Weather Channel, and local stations. I subbed to YouTube TV instead, which is much cheaper as well as completely portable. Compared to what I was paying, I am saving $125 a month. You could say I gave myself a $1500 a year raise.
All of which got me to thinking about how we consume media so differently these days. Increasingly, we are good with less, as well as having it when and where we want it. Everything I can watch at home, I can also watch in my van, in a hotel room, or wherever life may find me. And yeah, don’t worry. I won’t be watching TV while driving, although I can certainly pump it through my audio system and listen.
As I was tallying all of my savings, I also noticed how the programming has also changed to fit our very different lifestyles. Not only are we mobile, but we have a shrinking attention span. We are increasingly less likely to buy into the format that broadcast television has been feeding us for years, which is usually 20-24 episodes. Believe it or not, a few decades ago, it was as much as 36 episodes in a season. And since it was all linear TV by default, it meant we had to wait a week between episodes. Who has time for that now?
Thanks to streaming as well as cultural changes, we now favor far more condensed episodic series. Last year, broadcast TV series averaged only 10.2 episodes, while streaming series averaged 9.6 episodes. You can binge that in a weekend. And, there are benefits to the studios as well, because fewer episodes means they are cheaper to produce. Win-win.
This all came home to roost on my afternoon walk when I pondered my own viewing. About three weeks ago I completed Drops of God on Apple TV+, a delightful as well as cerebral eight-part series that is delivered in French, Japanese, and English, along with a little Italian toward the end. This was the Rosetta Stone of TV series.
I then dove into Bad Monkey on the same network, thanks to Oldest Daughter and her husband recommending it, but I quickly discovered the show is on a weekly release schedule, and I had to wait until the next night for Episode 4. Given the heat wave still burning us up in late August, I needed something else, and Netflix—God bless them—recommended Prison Break. I took the bait, and after a few episodes, I was sucked in.
Prison Break originally started airing in 2005 for four seasons. Netflix then picked it up in 2017 for a final season. But what I did not know until after I returned from my walk and a quick Google search, is that there are 90 episodes in total. Holy crap, this sounds like a commitment now.
As much as I like the show—and never mind the fact it was filmed not far from my childhood home in northern Illinois—I just don’t know if I can keep going. How long can you string out a prison break? I mean, the prisoners could all be dead by the time you get through 90 episodes.
My conflict increased when I remembered that Youngest Daughter was coming over for dinner that evening, and we would continue watching Season 2 of The Bear, a series I have already completed S1 and S2 before, but am enjoying rewatching with her. After this we’ll dive into S3, which came out back in June. And then there’s Only Murders In The Building Season 4 which debuted that same evening, and later in October, Shrinking Season 2.
Looks like I have some hard choices to make, because those 90 episodes, while not as bad as trying to watch the entirety of Law and Order’s 502 episodes, are bound to just become filler between all the cool condensed series. There are too many good and short series to consume.
There is a downside, too, with so many condensed series, as Oldest Daughter mentioned recently on the phone. “Dad, it has gotten so I can’t remember what I just watched last weekend,” she said. It’s the result of bingeing a few too many series in rapid order, and they fall off our memory too quickly. Heck, I had to do some thinking to recall the name of the show—Drops of God—I had just finished not long ago.
Part of me wishes I had not started Prison Break, even though it is riveting. I remember all too well laboring through far too many episodes of Criminal Minds and The Blacklist in recent years. Brand loyalty is good when we’re talking about consumer packaged goods, but I am pushing back when it comes to dramas. Just get the damn thing over with so I can move on.
Meanwhile, I’m sure my students have similar such conundrums and viewing patterns. It is part and parcel an artifact of the new culture, one that finds us chatting at the water cooler about which series we are watching at the moment.
What are you watching? And how do you consume it, all at once, or whenever and wherever you want? Be glad you are young enough (assuming you actually are) not to have endured 36 episodes, or even much of the more recent 20-24 episodes. Be glad you either cut the cord, or never had one in the first place. And be glad you don’t have to box up four DirecTV receivers and their associated cables to ship back to them. Thankfully, it will be the first—and last—time I have to do it.
Anyone want to watch an episode of Prison Break with me?
Dr “Eight Or Ten Episodes Is Just Fine” Gerlich
