Musings: Whole in one

I can’t remember when I was first reminded of this quandary, I think it might have been someone mentioned on The Talk Show (Episode 16 I think) with the ever miserable John Gruber and Dan Benjamin. Here’s the quandary, do you ever hear about a TV show through a friend, but it’s already either finished or halfway through? Do you watch the old ones to catch up, or do you wait until it’s finished and watch the whole lot at once?

The obvious thing to do would be download the first episode and see how it is and then watch the others if it’s good. Catch up with the TV show and then start watching it on TV regularly, as this is the way we’re used to watching a TV show. But what if the first season is already finished and it’s really good? Do you ration yourself? Or gorge yourself in the episodes but miss out on the suspense? and of course no one will be in the same episode as you are unless you’re watching with a friend.

If you watch it all in a short period of time, if it’s something like Lost or Heroes which rely very much on suspense, then you’re surely missing out on something?

I think this option has been more apparently with things like Bit-torrent around where you can download an entire season or if it’s a few years old you can buy it cheap. If like me you tend to forget when things are on and just download it to catch up anyway it might be a good choice.

I’ve been watching some old Chinese TV shows this way (Legend of the Condor Heroes) and they don’t really have the same concept of cliffhangers. Some episodes are left hanging, others just stop! It’s frustrating and takes self control when you know the next episode is right in front of you. Can you really stop yourself from watching it?

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