Episode 4: Types of Shows Being Binge Watched
So what makes shows so likely to be binge watched? Why can't people stop after just one episode? Are certain shows more likely to be binge watched than others?
As part of the survey I conducted, I asked if people preferred to binge watch shows made by TV networks or by streaming sites. While I expected that many people, myself included, will watch both, I thought many would have a preference. I was sure to include an "other" option for people who did not wish to choose between the two. 50% of the respondents chose content created by streaming sites. In contrast, 41.4% chose content by TV networks and the last 8.6% chose other, mostly because they could not decide between the two.
I also asked what shows people enjoyed binge watching. I got a wide variety of answers, but some shows came out as more popular. In order of most to least popular, some of the most common answers were The Office, Parks and Recreation, Grey's Anatomy, How I Met Your Mother, Orange is the New Black, House of Cards, and Friends. These results didn't surprise me, as all of these are shows that I have at least heard are very popular if not watched myself. Looking at the results of all the shows mentioned, they fairly closely reflected the results of the results of the TV network shows vs. streaming site shows question, with just a few more TV networks shows than expected. Also, although the comedies/sitcoms seem as if they were some of the most popular shows, that is because there was more of a range of different dramas and other shows, while the people who watch sitcoms all seemed to watch the same ones.
I next decided to look at these different types of shows and compare them to each other. I chose to compare TV networks with Netflix shows and also comedy/sitcoms with dramas to see how those differences compared. Since The Office was the most popular show, I chose that as my TV comedy. For my TV drama, I chose the show Reign, which is something that I had recently began watching on Netflix anyway. I chose Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt as the Netflix comedy that I watched and Orange is the New Black as my Netflix drama. These are all shows that others have also binge watched (although not all top answers), not just shows that I like (although that is true too).
The Office is a fictional show modeled to look like a reality show following a regional branch of a small paper company. Like most TV comedies, you can watch the episodes in a sequence and follow a story line, but each episode could also stand alone. Each individual episode has its own, smaller story line and make sense to someone who has never watched the show before. Most episodes end with a conclusion to the story line of the episode, with mostly just the season finales ending in cliffhangers, or endings that do not finish the story line and leaves suspense until the next episode.
While all of these shows are binge watched, it seems as if some of these features lend themselves more to binge watching than others. For instance, the cliffhangers allow for greater suspense between episodes, leading people to want to know what happens next. While this is evident in all of the shows, Orange is the New Black does this very well. I personally cannot watch that show without binging the entire season all at once. I actually have not seen the latest season (no spoilers please) because I have not had time to sit down and watch the entire season at once and I know that, once I start, I will not be able to stop. This is a great model of how the industry has created a show made for binge watching.
Furthermore, the continuing storyline throughout multiple episodes and seasons keep people interested and coming back to continue getting updates to the same story. This is true of all the shows, although the storylines are more prominent in certain shows. This can also keep people interested in shows that they might otherwise stop watching. For instance, I watched the entirety of Glee even though the writing was awful because I wanted to find out what happened with Kurt and Blaine.
While some shows are clearly set up to be more apt to binge watching, it seems as if people will binge watch anything, whether it is created for that purpose or not. This seems to lend itself to the purposes behind people binge watching, which may help to explain how they are so attentive to watching the shows when they are unable to focus on reading even for shorter amount of times.
Orange is the New Black is a drama created by Netflix that is based around the true story of Piper Chapman, who goes to prison for a crime she committed 10 years prior. It looks at life in a women's prison and follows the stories of the women in the prison, showing their backstories as well as their current dramas. The plot is very much intertwined between all of the episodes, meaning audiences could not tune in for just one episode and understand the plot. Each episode ends with a large cliffhanger, with the season finales ending with the biggest cliffhangers out of all of the shows previously mentioned.
Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt is a Netflix original based on a girl who lived in a bunker for years after being convinced by a reverend that the world had ended. She was taken into the bunker as a child and is now an adult who missed out on growing up and watching the world develop. Kimmy still has much of the mentality of a child and does not know how to use the new technological developments, which makes for a good comedy. While each individual episode is funny and has some of its own plot, there is a bit more of a cross-episode storyline than The Office. There are also more cliffhangers than The Office, although not as many of them or as suspenseful endings as there are in Reign.
Reign follows Mary, Queen of Scotland, as she tries to form an alliance with France through marriage. There are many twists and turns as character's lives are threatened and ended, romances bloom and fade, and about a million other story lines take place (that's only a small exaggeration). The plot gets very complicated, and, while there is a recap at the beginning of each episode, the episodes pretty much need to be watched fully and in sequential order to keep up with all of the complexities. Every episode ends in some sort of cliffhanger, leaving the audience hanging until the next episode (which, in theory, does not come out until the next week). The season finales end in the biggest, most suspenseful cliffhangers.