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Binge watching and focusing on the end
Dec. 14th, 2018 09:54 pmSo, I just watched all of Season 8 of Voltron Legendary Defender. I'm not going to talk about any spoilers here, just ramble vaguely about why I've been reacting to media the way I have, in general. All I will say is that, after I mainlined this season within 18 hours of it's release I considered posting (to tumblr, because I'm not sure if I should be posting one line vagueblogs here) "Ugh, why do I even consume media?"
And then I stopped myself, because what the hell? Here's a show I willingly watched 8 seasons of, without so much as the pressure of friends to watch it with for the past few seasons. Obviously, I got something out of it. I was held in suspense, I laughed out loud, I find the animation aesthetically pleasing, and yet I wanted to cast out my entire viewing experience because I wasn't wild about the ending. In fact, I think I spent half of, to possibly all of, the episodes just counting how much left until the end, worrying about what that was going to be and ignoring the journey.
For me, I'm wondering if this is connected to watching things all in one go. I don't know that I'll be curbing that behavior any time soon; marathoning new things goes back to my childhood of M.A.S.H. all day on syndicated television, or reading almost every book I have ever managed to finish in a single day.
But I definitely interacted differently with TV that was forcibly metered out to me in single episodes (Yes, I am aware these still exist but I haven't gotten to use my TV for broadcast TV since baseball roommate and it has been six years now). I used to gorge myself, reading and writing fics elaborating on and "fixing "individual episodes. Even though they were inevitably nerfed, I enjoyed the ride. I spent time thinking about each episode individually and in the context of what had come before.
I hope I can get back to that more, despite my general lack of impulse control. Voltron had a lot of material in just two and a half years, and maybe if I can go back even knowing how it ended, I can get into the last few seasons more. If not, maybe I'll remember to be more careful in the future about chewing through the things I enjoy without actually paying attention.
And then I stopped myself, because what the hell? Here's a show I willingly watched 8 seasons of, without so much as the pressure of friends to watch it with for the past few seasons. Obviously, I got something out of it. I was held in suspense, I laughed out loud, I find the animation aesthetically pleasing, and yet I wanted to cast out my entire viewing experience because I wasn't wild about the ending. In fact, I think I spent half of, to possibly all of, the episodes just counting how much left until the end, worrying about what that was going to be and ignoring the journey.
For me, I'm wondering if this is connected to watching things all in one go. I don't know that I'll be curbing that behavior any time soon; marathoning new things goes back to my childhood of M.A.S.H. all day on syndicated television, or reading almost every book I have ever managed to finish in a single day.
But I definitely interacted differently with TV that was forcibly metered out to me in single episodes (Yes, I am aware these still exist but I haven't gotten to use my TV for broadcast TV since baseball roommate and it has been six years now). I used to gorge myself, reading and writing fics elaborating on and "fixing "individual episodes. Even though they were inevitably nerfed, I enjoyed the ride. I spent time thinking about each episode individually and in the context of what had come before.
I hope I can get back to that more, despite my general lack of impulse control. Voltron had a lot of material in just two and a half years, and maybe if I can go back even knowing how it ended, I can get into the last few seasons more. If not, maybe I'll remember to be more careful in the future about chewing through the things I enjoy without actually paying attention.
