Stress And Choice: take your pick … an article by, GF Willmetts.
I’ve never wanted to use the paid digital channels or even the likes of Netflix. If anything, when there’s too much choice, then you’re never going to pick anything. You might surf and try something but unless it really sticks or you have a dud episodes, you might just move on or, just as likely, forget to look back.
With whole seasons available, it’s not surprising people binge watch but too much of a good thing all at one go doesn’t always allow the brain to absorb anything but in a blur. They are episodes for a very good reason, to give variety across the course of a week. A good meal, even a visual or intellectual delight, should be savoured not eaten in one gulp.
The human instinct is to stay with the tried and tested than to experiment or if not, then something pretty close and hope it matches your taste. The studios, TV channels and even book publishers realise that or we’d never have a genre system to wade through the choices out there.
Of course, that doesn’t mean I can pull everything I want to watch on terrestrial or freeview channels, but I do have good instincts when it comes to pulling a boxset or three and it works out much cheaper. More so when you work out how little you really watch on each channel. Many of these boxsets have beaten my expectation and not all in our genre because I sensibly need a little variety.
In these coronavirus days, I’ve pulled a selection to work through and, more likely, going to rotate some seasons than work my way straight through them, especially with multiple seasons. I did wonder if I was going to watch more than two different series at a time but my instincts reared their head and kept me to two. Even so, it looks like it’s going to be an interesting few months if supply or delivery people cuts back.
Even so, that doesn’t really help you people out there with digital channel contracts. Presuming you have a geek attitude, decide what you want to watch, whether a golden oldie as a comfort blanket or something new and spread it out. After all, they claim the series will be there for a long time so the only one who is rushing to see it all is you. If you do belong to any social grouping who are ahead of you, then stall until you’ve seen them at a regular speed.
Chances are you’ll remember more what you watched than the binge viewers and which is more important? After all, they’ll have to re-watch when they miss some important detail that you picked up on. Who do you think will have the detail edge? It’s better to be geek.
© GF Willmetts
April 2020
