We’ve all done it. Saturday morning, nothing to do so we turn on Netflix and watch the first episode of a new series. Next thing we know it’s 7 P.M. we’re still in our pajamas and the only time we got out of bed was to get a new bag of Cheetos. This method of binge watching shows has become so commonplace nowadays that it’s hard to remember that just 5 years ago binge watching was fairly new. In fact, depending on how many episodes you define as binging, 61% of Netflix viewers claim they binge watch regularly. As of January 2019, more people are subscribed to Netflix than a cable streaming service. So it should come as no shock that 47% of people prefer to have all episodes of a show released at once over the traditional weekly release of episodes. This begs the question though: Is binge watching an entire season actually better?

To answer that question, let’s analyze why more and more people are ditching cable for streaming in the first place. There are plenty of reasons for this shift, but first and foremost, a $12 dollar Netflix subscription is significantly cheaper than an $80 cable package. Not to mention the fact that you can just log in for free with someone else’s login. And with the $12 billion Netflix invested in original content in 2018 on top of their expansive licensed content, no one will be running out of things to watch anytime soon. 

Another reason is the ad free experience. As the old adage goes “once you watch a TV show without commercials you can’t go back”. With 81% of Americans now owning a smartphone, knowledge is at everyone’s fingertips, which also means that patience isn’t. We want it and we want it now, especially if we’re paying for it. As someone who went 2 years with only a Netflix subscription it was definitely hard to get used to watching a show on cable while being interrupted every 15 minutes.

Lastly, the reason I mentioned earlier, not having to wait for new episodes. Like I said, people are impatient and being able to dive right into the next episode after that cliffhanger is so satisfying. No longer do we have to wait a week, or month’s if its a season finale, to get all our questions answered. We also don’t have to worry about time. They’re always available whether we want to watch at 4 AM or 1 PM, all we need is the popcorn and the remote. The only thing we have to actually worry about is how much sleep we need to function at work tomorrow. As I’ve found out on multiple occasions, not that much.

Do we miss anything with that though? Have we become so accustomed to the convenience that we forgot what it’s like to wait a week for that conclusion and how satisfying it felt once we finally got it? Have we lost the conversation around the show since no one is watching at the same time?

I remember back in my early binge watching days I watched the entire series of LOST in a span of about 3 weeks. After I had finished it I saw an interview with Daniel Dae Kim talking about Jin and Sun’s reunion after having been apart for multiple seasons. At first, I didn’t understand why the reunion was such a big deal because for me it had only been a few days, but for viewers who watched it live it was years in the making. So while I had the convenience of watching the episodes whenever I wanted and rolling right into the next one, I missed out on one of the most emotional moments on the show. Convenience comes with a price, and one of the biggest ones is the lack of the emotional connection we get from following these characters week after week.

Another thing we’re not doing much anymore is discussing shows. Now that every show can be watched in its entirety, or at least an entire season, no one is watching multiple shows at one time and no one is on the same schedule. So while I may watch all of Stranger Things the weekend it comes out, everyone I want to talk about it with is watching it on their time so by the time we’ve all watched it I’m already deep into another show and don’t care about Stranger Things anymore.

Even more so is the lack of conversations around specific episodes. When was the last time you heard anyone say “Did you see that episode last night?” With binge watching, every episode begins to blur into one and combining that with not wanting to spoil any plot elements to someone who may be on a different episode has lead to almost the elimination of discussing specific plot elements outside of the season finale. 

It seems though like streaming services aren’t ready to fully commit to releasing entire seasons just yet. With multiple new streaming shows releasing weekly episodes, Star Trek: Discovery being one of the most prominent, maybe weekly episodes aren’t done yet. I, for one, am not ready to give up on them.

While I’m normally an unapologetic fan of teen rom coms and will defend even the most mediocre of the genre, there’s very little about The Perfect Date that I found myself really enjoying. It wasn’t necessarily a bad movie, it just never broke away from the cookie cutter mold to stand out in any original way. It hit all the major beats:

• Boy and girl don’t like each other
• Boy and girl become friends while making very clear they’re not dating
• Boy and girl use each other to date someone else
• Boy starts ignoring his friend who gets upset
• Boy and girl fight
• Boy feels all alone
• The people they end up dating turn out to not be so great
• Boy and girl make up and start dating

Now, just because a movie is formulaic doesn’t mean it’s always bad. There are 100 ways to connect the dots from point A to B. Set It Up, which premiered last year on Netflix is the perfect example. We know their scheme will backfire and they’ll end up dating at the end, but it’s such an enjoyable ride that we don’t care. Unfortunately, The Perfect Date takes the shortest route possible between each plot point leaving no room to really develop any significant depth to the characters. There’s a point in the movie where the main character Brooks gets into a fight with his best friend Murph because Brooks is spending too much time with his side business, an app they created for girls to hire him for dates. The reason Brooks is doing it though is to save up money for college which seems like a pretty good reason to hang out less, but it doesn’t really matter because they make up so fast it seems like the only reason it was included was because the writers thought its a rom com so friends have to fight.

There were some good points however. Noah Centinio and Laura Marano had great chemistry as the two leads, which is the most important aspect of any rom com. The fact she declined Brooks’ offer to dance at the end was a nice touch as well. I was expecting a nice, quick perfect ending so that was a pleasant surprise.

Overall, if you’re not doing anything on a Saturday afternoon it’s not a bad movie to have on in the background as you scroll through your phone, but I’d save your Friday night ice cream sessions for something else.

What happened?

When Fox rebooted the X-Men series with First Class they almost (almost) made up for the atrocity that was X-Men Origins: Wolverine. After years of sub par sequels never coming close to the height of X2, they had finally corrected course and delivered one of the best movies in the entire series. It brought new life into the series, something Sony tried and failed to do with The Amazing Spiderman. The best part was Fox was able to use this new momentum and make an even better movie with Days of Future Past, perfectly combining the original and new actors across multiple timelines. We got to see old characters in a new light with versions of themselves we’ve never seen before. As superhero movies go, they did the practically impossible and revived the series which had essentially become a huge train wreck.

To my disappointment (although I blame this partly on myself for not expecting it) it couldn’t last. X-Men Apocalypse introduced even more versions of beloved X-Men characters (Jean Grey, Storm, Cyclops!) with in demand up and coming actors (Oscar Isaac coming off Star Wars, Sophie Turner at the height of GOT fame) yet the film fell completely flat. The movie wasn’t technically bad, it was just…boring (which some might say is even worse). Going in to Dark Phoenix, however, I still had hope. Fox completely botched the Phoenix saga the first time around so I figured there was no way they would let it happen again. Assuming you’ve read the previous two paragraphs, I think you know where I’m going with this.

Similar to Apocalypse, this movie wasn’t bad. The dialogue wasn’t too cheesy, the acting was good, the fight scenes were intricate. I just didn’t care about what was happening. The villains (if you can really call them that) were a random alien race that we knew nothing about. They weren’t even given a name, or if they were it was subtle enough that I completely missed it. We knew next to nothing about them and the things we did find out were revealed so late that I didn’t even care.

The biggest misstep of all was how Jean’s story was told. After consuming the Phoenix force, she seems fine but then loses control of her powers at a party that night and blacks out. Through this one incident she falls into the “I can’t be here, I’ll just hurt everyone” clice that could hold up a lot better if she did more than slightly bruise Scott. Then the X-Men find her at her supposedly dead father’s house where as we all know from the trailers… kills Mystique. Then she has the “I need to leave because I hurt everyone” cliche but as this is the second time they’ve pulled that in 15 minutes it doesn’t really have much of an impact. From there on the story is the tried and true villain convinces Jean (way too easily) they can help her, her friends turning on her way too quickly, and the in-team blame game that doesn’t really make too much sense.

After 5 hours (the official run time is 1hr 54m but after sitting through this movie I can confirm that is not an accurate representation of what it felt like) we finally get to the final battle which actually had a ton of cool moments. Each character’s powers were on full display with Nighcrawler especially getting some good moments. After some gruesome kills from Magneto, Jean who is apparently consumed by the force that created the universe is let loose and she… evaporates? Seriously, that’s it. That’s how it ends.

With the superhero craze still in full swing and Avengers:Endgame inching closer to Avatar’s all time box office record there’s no reason this movie should be on track to lose $100 million dollars. They had everything going for it and for some reason couldn’t make it work. It’s actually impressive that Fox was able to ruin this franchise not once but twice. Now that Disney has all the rights back maybe Marvel can resurrect this franchise for a third time. Until then, I’ll still be asking myself: what happened?