The latest water cooler show: Fallout (2024) has been a smash hit amongst gamers and TV watchers. And the whole show was released on April 10th.
Typically a drama sci-fi series would run on a network week to week if it were on television but with the advent of streaming sites like Netflix, Max, Peacock and Apple TV+ there is a trend to release all the episodes all at once. Streaming binges have become a new weekend pastime, vegging out of the coach and doing seasons or series' long watch-a-thons akin to buying a DVD box set but is it the best way of watching shows?
With my corporate hat on, I'd say no. Having a steady trickle of episodes controls the discussion on the internet. Every week when your show is airing, you can see a spike in engagement online as people talk and discuss the show every week, rather than a peak slow decline as people move onto other shows. In the latter case, you could have one-hit wonder that is easily forgotten by the end of the year. I also grew up in a time where water cooler shows were really fun to discuss and dissect with colleagues week to week. There is a reason why it is called a water cooler show as it dominates discussion during break time. Speculation was also really fun in the fanbase as each episodes reveals a little more and theories could be crafted to guess where the finale was heading. Game of Thrones was particularly fun as my office had a sweepstakes based on who lives or dies, who will be on the Iron Throne etc. Lastly a point against binge releases - it can kill the hype of a show or stop it midway. Examples include JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Part 5 and Invincible season 2 with extended mid-season breaks which kills a lot of the momentum built up throughout the story and fandom
To keep it fair there are points for bingeing series too.
If you want the week by week episodes you can set self limitations to make it so.
It does cater to the audience as it allows them more freedom to watch it when they want (sometimes you're not always free Friday nights at 7pm).
If you just want to experience the story once and then move on with your life (god knows this has happened to me and Lost..)
It's better for those background TV shows for when you're doing chores or busywork
I've put a poll up below but I also love to hear your thoughts on which one your prefer or whether streaming sites should go back to weekly episodes (and for which shows?)
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