My Binge-Watching Nightmare
A whole new way to watch televisions shows has entered the scene in the last few years. I'm talking about binge-watching. Thanks to DVD releases of television seasons and websites like Netflix and Hulu, we can watch entire seasons of shows in a matter of a day or two. And people do it--I've been guilty of it. I watched the entire series of Archer in what added together equaled less than two days. You just click to watch the next episode and you can...it's like a super power. And it's great with shows like Doctor Who or Game of Thrones, and it's even better when you have just discovered a show that has already been on the air for several years. Like two summers ago, when I binge-watched seven seasons of Supernatural.
But my most recent binges have been relatively small, and they have been necessary. Last year, we were introduced to perhaps the most terrifying television show to ever be broadcasted...and no, I'm not talking about American Horror Story. I'm talking about The Following.
The Following tells the story of Joe Carroll, a college professor who is being transferred to a different prison for the murder of several young women. He disappears, and his son is kidnapped. By his cult. Bring in Ryan Hardy, the officer in charge who originally put Joe away. Thus begins a harrowing season of television. Because everyone...everyone is in the cult. You think you can trust someone, and then small-town police sheriff turns and shoots one of the other FBI officers because she is in the cult. I spent an entire season in pure agony because every episode ended with a crazy cliffhanger. We, the audience, knew who Ryan and his partners, Mike Weston and Debra Parker, could and couldn't trust, and it didn't matter how much we yelled at the television screen, they couldn't hear us. And nothing was off limits. We had people buried alive, people willingly killing themselves for the sake of Joe's cult, people murdering random strangers in rather brutal ways...and all because of their crazy loyalty to Joe Carroll.
Entertainment Weekly had it right: 2013 showed us that there is nothing more terrifying than a cult. The one-mindedness, the blind loyalty and devotion, the unpredictable way they act...cults are pretty darn scary.
Which brings me back to my binge-watching. Watching the first season as it was aired, one episode a week, was terrible, because each episode wrecked you emotionally. I mean, I'm watching Agent Parker get buried alive, and I have to wait a week to find out if she makes it????? What kind of nonsense is that? But I thoroughly enjoyed the show (which sounds crazy, but I really did like it), so I planned to keep watching it this season. However, I knew I would have to go about it a different way. Thus enters binge-watching. Thanks to all the snow days we have had, I was able to watch the first five episodes of the show (which aired Martin Luther King weekend) all in one day. Then I used my spring break to watch the next four episodes. I've watched every episode so far, and there are only five or six episodes left. And the best part is that I can immediately watch the next episode (except for when I'm watching the most recently aired episode), so no crazy cliffhangers to keep me awake. No surprises.
So basically, I know what I'm doing Easter Weekend. And if you haven't watched The Following and you don't mind a little suspense (or a lot of suspense) in your life, I highly recommend it. Just don't start watching it at night.
I'm serious. Don't.
Stay gold!
But my most recent binges have been relatively small, and they have been necessary. Last year, we were introduced to perhaps the most terrifying television show to ever be broadcasted...and no, I'm not talking about American Horror Story. I'm talking about The Following.
The Following tells the story of Joe Carroll, a college professor who is being transferred to a different prison for the murder of several young women. He disappears, and his son is kidnapped. By his cult. Bring in Ryan Hardy, the officer in charge who originally put Joe away. Thus begins a harrowing season of television. Because everyone...everyone is in the cult. You think you can trust someone, and then small-town police sheriff turns and shoots one of the other FBI officers because she is in the cult. I spent an entire season in pure agony because every episode ended with a crazy cliffhanger. We, the audience, knew who Ryan and his partners, Mike Weston and Debra Parker, could and couldn't trust, and it didn't matter how much we yelled at the television screen, they couldn't hear us. And nothing was off limits. We had people buried alive, people willingly killing themselves for the sake of Joe's cult, people murdering random strangers in rather brutal ways...and all because of their crazy loyalty to Joe Carroll.
Entertainment Weekly had it right: 2013 showed us that there is nothing more terrifying than a cult. The one-mindedness, the blind loyalty and devotion, the unpredictable way they act...cults are pretty darn scary.
Which brings me back to my binge-watching. Watching the first season as it was aired, one episode a week, was terrible, because each episode wrecked you emotionally. I mean, I'm watching Agent Parker get buried alive, and I have to wait a week to find out if she makes it????? What kind of nonsense is that? But I thoroughly enjoyed the show (which sounds crazy, but I really did like it), so I planned to keep watching it this season. However, I knew I would have to go about it a different way. Thus enters binge-watching. Thanks to all the snow days we have had, I was able to watch the first five episodes of the show (which aired Martin Luther King weekend) all in one day. Then I used my spring break to watch the next four episodes. I've watched every episode so far, and there are only five or six episodes left. And the best part is that I can immediately watch the next episode (except for when I'm watching the most recently aired episode), so no crazy cliffhangers to keep me awake. No surprises.
So basically, I know what I'm doing Easter Weekend. And if you haven't watched The Following and you don't mind a little suspense (or a lot of suspense) in your life, I highly recommend it. Just don't start watching it at night.
I'm serious. Don't.
Stay gold!
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