OG Game of Thrones was excellent source material for water cooler chit chat. House of the Dragon, a little less so, probably because no one is particularly likeable. (Just my opinion, we can fight it out at the water cooler 😉)
It was a compelling show, just not near the narional audience the endless reviews and attention would have suggested. Not a cultural phenomenon in the way you think of “Seinfeld”, but it was treated as such by a certain cache of so-called consumers of sophisticated TV.
I was in on Breaking Bad on the first episode as it aired and it was excruciating to wait between seasons. There was almost a year between each season and they broke the last season into two parts with a year in between. My hub and kid however were late to the party and watched most of it on Netflix. We did watch the last season together and had a big watch party for the finale. In my opinion it was the best tv show ever. The second season of ATLA is really good, we get Toph and she is amazing, but yeah, its going to be hard waiting for the next season. I don't mind the binging and waiting as long as it's good.
I have thought for a while now that part of the slow-moving implosion of our shared reality is that we don’t experience cultural events as a community or nation anymore. I’m young enough to remember almost everyone wondering who shot JR, or crying at the M*A*S*H finale, or even excited over the upcoming nuptials of Luke & Laura. We now experience this in much smaller groups in reddit threads or on Twitter/X. It also doesn’t help that elite TV watchers are obsessed with niche programming like “Game of Thrones” when orders of magnitude more are tuned into “The Big Bang Theory” (or similar). The closest thing I can think of that we as a nation still experience and discuss collectively is the Super Bowl (no, not the stupid World Cup, the “Game of Thrones” of sports). I’m not sure how that changes, but adding yet another $8-10/month streaming service doesn’t help.
Going back even further - wondering what became of Chuck Cunningham on "Happy Days," and to Tiger on "The Brady Bunch." Continuity on TV shows wasn't a thing in the 1960s and 1970s, but somehow that was part of the charm.
And everyone knew what your reference was when you said, “Sit on it!” 😅
Now, I’m aware that type of cultural homogeneity has it’s harsh critics, and it certainly had it’s drawbacks. But it’s also hard to argue our 30 year advocacy for individualism (from both a right and left perspective) and cultural siloing has made our society demonstrably better or more cohesive.
I tell kids today (when I’m not chasing them off my lawn) that you had to be alive in the early ‘80s to understand just how much everyone wanted to know what Willis was talkin’ ‘bout and no one, I mean no one, wanted to be the fool that Mr. T pitied.
I haven't had Netflix for many years, and don't miss it. Releasing an entire season of a series at once seems odd to me, and for the reasons that you and BrandoG state. Is the era of binge watching over? Perhaps, but people will still like being able to catch up on shows that they like, but weren't able to watch when they first dropped. And waiting YEARS between seasons is dumb. With all of the platforms available, shows, and movies available, waiting so long between seasons ensures that people forget a series, or get interested in other ones.
Agree with these points. Binging is still possible when you air episodes weekly (you can binge the old ones you missed) but a weekly drop at least ensures people go on the app over a period of months so they see promos for other shows or movies they might be interested in. Netflix would also benefit from having a better browsing function—it seems much more limited than their giant library would suggest. They could also likely pick up a bunch of interesting indie content on the cheap.
The other things I wonder about (depending on rights issues) is adding local news broadcasts, nightly talk shows (like a Conan style show, airing each night or weekly to keep it topical) and live sports broadcasts. These would pull in regular viewers who’d have more opportunity to find other content on the app, and many of these features just don’t exist with rival streamers. Plus, being able to get such content on a mobile device is way more convenient than using traditional TV.
OG Game of Thrones was excellent source material for water cooler chit chat. House of the Dragon, a little less so, probably because no one is particularly likeable. (Just my opinion, we can fight it out at the water cooler 😉)
It was a compelling show, just not near the narional audience the endless reviews and attention would have suggested. Not a cultural phenomenon in the way you think of “Seinfeld”, but it was treated as such by a certain cache of so-called consumers of sophisticated TV.
I was in on Breaking Bad on the first episode as it aired and it was excruciating to wait between seasons. There was almost a year between each season and they broke the last season into two parts with a year in between. My hub and kid however were late to the party and watched most of it on Netflix. We did watch the last season together and had a big watch party for the finale. In my opinion it was the best tv show ever. The second season of ATLA is really good, we get Toph and she is amazing, but yeah, its going to be hard waiting for the next season. I don't mind the binging and waiting as long as it's good.
I have thought for a while now that part of the slow-moving implosion of our shared reality is that we don’t experience cultural events as a community or nation anymore. I’m young enough to remember almost everyone wondering who shot JR, or crying at the M*A*S*H finale, or even excited over the upcoming nuptials of Luke & Laura. We now experience this in much smaller groups in reddit threads or on Twitter/X. It also doesn’t help that elite TV watchers are obsessed with niche programming like “Game of Thrones” when orders of magnitude more are tuned into “The Big Bang Theory” (or similar). The closest thing I can think of that we as a nation still experience and discuss collectively is the Super Bowl (no, not the stupid World Cup, the “Game of Thrones” of sports). I’m not sure how that changes, but adding yet another $8-10/month streaming service doesn’t help.
Going back even further - wondering what became of Chuck Cunningham on "Happy Days," and to Tiger on "The Brady Bunch." Continuity on TV shows wasn't a thing in the 1960s and 1970s, but somehow that was part of the charm.
And everyone knew what your reference was when you said, “Sit on it!” 😅
Now, I’m aware that type of cultural homogeneity has it’s harsh critics, and it certainly had it’s drawbacks. But it’s also hard to argue our 30 year advocacy for individualism (from both a right and left perspective) and cultural siloing has made our society demonstrably better or more cohesive.
I tell kids today (when I’m not chasing them off my lawn) that you had to be alive in the early ‘80s to understand just how much everyone wanted to know what Willis was talkin’ ‘bout and no one, I mean no one, wanted to be the fool that Mr. T pitied.
Right? Or asking if you were still the “Master of Your Domain” in the mid-90s.
I haven't had Netflix for many years, and don't miss it. Releasing an entire season of a series at once seems odd to me, and for the reasons that you and BrandoG state. Is the era of binge watching over? Perhaps, but people will still like being able to catch up on shows that they like, but weren't able to watch when they first dropped. And waiting YEARS between seasons is dumb. With all of the platforms available, shows, and movies available, waiting so long between seasons ensures that people forget a series, or get interested in other ones.
Agree with these points. Binging is still possible when you air episodes weekly (you can binge the old ones you missed) but a weekly drop at least ensures people go on the app over a period of months so they see promos for other shows or movies they might be interested in. Netflix would also benefit from having a better browsing function—it seems much more limited than their giant library would suggest. They could also likely pick up a bunch of interesting indie content on the cheap.
The other things I wonder about (depending on rights issues) is adding local news broadcasts, nightly talk shows (like a Conan style show, airing each night or weekly to keep it topical) and live sports broadcasts. These would pull in regular viewers who’d have more opportunity to find other content on the app, and many of these features just don’t exist with rival streamers. Plus, being able to get such content on a mobile device is way more convenient than using traditional TV.