I have been watching TV shows and movies since the 90s. At first, it was churning through my sister’s old VHS recordings. doctor who And x files, then had to collect and watch full ranges of anime piecemeal from places like Sam Goody and Suncoast. By the early 2000s, companies began releasing series by season rather than by episode (for really cheap prices) and this made it much easier to binge shows. just coming to the library to pick up the season of the Sopranos That was a heck of a lot easier than asking to borrow someone’s VHS recording. Now, it’s easier than ever to binge-watch a show, but the biggest complaint is that people binge for fear of being spoiled and wish they could taste a show delivered episodic.
I do not care it. Spoilers are hardly a deterrent to enjoyment for me and I learned a long time ago how to watch a really good show to maximize episodic thrills. No, my problem with the current binge-watching model is that it doesn’t account for shared universes and all the weird viewing orders that might be needed. Nor does it account for older shows, which often aired in a different order from which they were produced, leading to strange story discrepancies as characters are introduced long after the characters are actually shown on the show. . And it seems like it should be an easy problem to solve.
Netflix, Disney+, Peacock, Paramount+, and whatever else HBO Max and Discovery eventually wage war with each other to become the top streaming service in the US are focusing on content. That was not how the streaming wars were supposed to be waged. The idea was that streaming would give us more choices, not only in content but in the way we watch that content. Yet instead of finding new ways to engage with shows, we’d rather look at streaming services, focused on acquiring new franchises or pumping millions into their established franchises. It seems that concern for the real experience has taken a seat in the third row of the car.
This has led to strange situations such as the lack of support for 4K and HDR in a lot of the content in these streamers, franchises seeming to migrate from platform to platform without much fanfare, or HBO Max being the worst app around. One of the continues to ship. Churn, where people are constantly subscribing to services and then abandoning them when they’ve seen content they want to watch, seems to have become such an expected part of business for streamers that it’s really important to keep people engaged. There is little emphasis on platforms for longer than the duration of the show they wanted to watch.
But there are so many useful little changes that streaming services refuse to use that I sometimes wonder if any of the people running these platforms actually use them. This brings me back to how hard it is to binge old material. if you want to see Star Trek: The Original Series You can either buy it from something like Apple TV or Amazon Prime, or stream it on Paramount+. In both cases, you’ll be looking in air date order as opposed to production order or in-universe chronological order.
look something like this vampire slayer or CW’s flamboyant Even more difficult. Those shows often include major crossovers with their sibling shows, and unless you pull up a guide somewhere to trace the viewing order of those crossovers, you’ll find that you can find important parts of the characters’ story. Remembering the parts.
,[P]Julia Alexander and former Director of Strategy at Parrot Analytics ledge The reporter told me. “People watch TV series in different ways, chronological, release order, or thematic — but services don’t allow for this personalization, and it’s counter-intuitive to make streaming so great.”
This kind of personalization shouldn’t be a hassle. This is a very solvable problem for streaming companies as it only requires custom playlists – a technology that has been available for a very long time!
“Creating a more personal, intimate viewing experience increases satisfaction, and further illustrates the underlying value of a platform, which can help increase retention,” Alexander said. “As companies compete to capture customer attention every month, allowing for more personalized curation goes a long way – and with so little effort.”
Yet despite having relatively little lift, streamers haven’t really done that. It feels so weird that you can’t choose to watch Star Trek: The Original Series In a fan-favorite sequence instead of the air date order that front-loads some of the most manly and sexist episodes of the series, rather than the more cerebral ones that make the show so enduring. That order was chosen some 60 years ago by a group of execs who feared science fiction shows and wanted to woo people with alien women in bikinis and gods who liked to join fistfights.
The Star Wars universe is another one that could benefit from playlists that allow you to watch content in a set order across the universe, rather than in the order it was filmed. should you watch Solo before or after Mandalorian, where Obi-Wan Kenobic fall vs. bad batch either rebels or next Feeling? Wouldn’t it be great if Disney+ could help you find that out instead of a Google search? Franchises like the arrogant Marvel Cinematic Universe, the little Snyder-verse, and even Grey’s Anatomy, And 9-1-1 Customizable playlists would also benefit greatly.
Considering some streamers, like Paramount+, already have playlists designed to mimic linear channels, playlists that queue up shows in your preferred order shouldn’t be difficult. But it requires streamers to stop trying to see how much prestige they show from established franchises and start thinking about what makes streaming so appealing to begin with: the likes.