When it comes to box sets, it’s better to binge once than get hooked for weeks
The wonders of modern capitalism have produced no shortage of addictive temptations and one of the most ubiquitous must be the television box set. Humans have long appreciated a good story, but only in our era has it become possible to devote whole days or weeks to the passive enjoyment of a good tale.
Rather than slumping in front of whatever mediocre drama the BBC or ITV deigns to screen, we can now enter nightly into our own little bubbles of entertainment, episodes playing automatically one after the other in an orgy of wasted time and sleep deprivation.
In recent years, to feed our addiction, online television streaming sites have taken to releasing new shows all at once in 12 or 20-hour bonanzas, doing away with the week-long wait that fans used to endure.
The start of a new series of Game of Thrones this week instead harks back to the days of rationed telly.
‘Most television isn’t profound or morally challenging. It’s just pleasure’
Because it’s produced by a television channel, HBO, it’s being dripped out one episode per week and even that will last for only six weeks. On the face of it, it’s a much healthier way to consume entertainment. But I, for one, would actually rather the whole thing was made available now for bingeing.
Most television, especially that like Game of Thrones, is made for instant gratification. It isn’t profound, morally challenging or educational. It’s just pleasure. Far better then, surely, to indulge the urge all at once and get it over with than trickle it out delicately, as if it were a philosophical tract to be carefully digested over weeks and months.
It seems to me that the key to managing a television addiction isn’t to spread it over an endlessly longer period. It’s to pick and choose one’s indulgences with great care. If I’m going to commit to watching six hours of zombies, dragons and zombie dragons, then I want to get it all over and done with right now. That way, next week, I can be a better person.