For the last eight weeks, much like many of my peers, I’ve been looking forward to every Sunday when a new episode of Euphoria releases on HBOMax. I switch between Twitter and TikTok almost immediately after watching to see what people thought, and throughout the week, I theorize and talk almost incessantly about the last episode to my friends.
I know that weekly releases of TV shows aren’t uncommon, they’ve been around since before Netflix and these new streaming platforms. Right now though, it seems like all I can hear people talk about right now is Euphoria, in exchange for the new season of Ozark on Netflix that you can sit and watch all in a row instead of waiting a week for the next episode. Why is weekly TV becoming more popular, and how long will it last?
Personally, it seems to me that streaming platforms and the very existence of them are propelling this new generation of weekly television. It used to be that you had to record the new episode on your DVR if you weren’t able to watch it live and DVR is expensive anyways. Streaming platforms are relatively cheap, and as long as you can avoid spoilers, you can watch the new episode at whatever time is convenient for you.
Honestly, now that we don’t have as many quarantines as we did in the beginning of the pandemic, people don’t have time to binge watch a whole season or two of a TV show. I think that a weekly release keeps people engaged and is so much more palatable than a whole season at once that you have to watch faster than everyone else so that you can talk about it. It’s honestly really overwhelming for me to know how much I have left to watch of a show and there are a lot of times where I wish I could’ve caught it when it was airing on TV, like Breaking Bad.
Every week people are talking about what happened in Euphoria and how they’re excited to see what happens next, and the conversation isn’t ended by someone saying they aren’t caught up and to let them finish before discussing it further.
I honestly believe that shows like Euphoria have shown people the value of weekly television shows. Yes, binging is fun (sometimes), but it makes me feel so gross and like I haven’t done anything for the past 8 hours because I probably haven’t. I love having something to talk about every Monday in my classes and I love anticipating the next episode-that’s the whole social aspect of television, and with binging you just don’t get that. I just hope that more shows continue to release in this format and that people continue to appreciate the value in weekly releases rather than binge watching.