As Amazon becomes the latest platform to push an ad-supported tier, TV writers greet this retro model with frustration and, in some cases, disdain: “I thought 'Nine Perfect Strangers' with commercials was horrible,” says David E. Kelley of his Hulu show with breaks.
Don’t forget that on-demand is being reduced as well now that many platforms are trickling out episodes for their marquee shows at a weekly rate. Looking at you Apple.
I much prefer the trickle of releases to a lump season dump.
It allows time to digest, discuss and catch up throughout the release schedule if you’re invested in the story. You can convince your friends to watch a few episodes to catch up and then watch the end of the season together. You can read fan theories online, formulate your own, and overall each weekly episode can result in a lot of engaging fun interactions.
With a series dump you have to binge it and wait for others to do the same in order to talk about it. The whole time you’re actively avoiding spoilers from friends/coworkers and avoiding reading about it online. The end result is you disengage from the fandoms/communities while you are getting through the show, which to me takes a lot of the fun out of a big show.
I compare the difference between Stranger Things and GoT. To me these are probably two of the most significant pop-culture releases in the last decade or so.
Game of Thrones resulted in hundreds of thousands of theories every week online and in public. T-Shirts were made based on popular online theories that never panned out in season. You would rag on friends who guessed the plot twist wrong and deify those who got their predictions spot on. Especially in my demographic the two months GoT was on was all about GoT.
Stranger Things on the other hand, while still wildly popular hits differently. It’s much more of a build up to release, a week or two of “man that was awesome” followed by “I hope they make the next season soon.” Retroactive discussions happen for a while, but the discussions and the hype fizzles much more quickly.
If I want to watch a trickle release show in one dump, I still can, I just wait until the whole season out, reactivate the subscription. Then I binge it.
For me it’s much more fun to have an episode or two a week and build momentum through a season than it is to set off a one time firework.