TV Rewatches the Old Fashioned Way

One of the other things that inspired my post on taking things a little slower was that I’ve taken to watching and rewatching streamed shows at a much slower pace than I’m used to, or most people do, altogether. Especially in my peer group and younger, there’s this almost unspoken understanding that when you rewatch something, or discover something several seasons in, you devour it in as short a time as possible. I remember doing that when I got the first three or four seasons of Stargate SG-1, years and years ago, sitting in my wife’s apartment, years before we were married, on Spring Break and just cycling through DVD after DVD.

And that was neat, and fun, because I had the time and I had an appetite for more of the story, more of the excitement.

Times being what they are, though, as a dad and husband and part-time writer and such, it’s a) nearly impossible to do that and b) by necessity, I’m discovering that I enjoy taking my time, even my first time through shows. Right now I’m working on watching Dr. Who (Nu Who, starting with Eccleston) and Farscape for the first time, and rewatching MacGyver, Stargate SG-1, and Burn Notice (though at some point all of those will turn into catch-ups as I lost the thread on all of them during their original runs). And I’m contemplating rolling on into Star Trek, X-Files, and a few others, eventually, at the same leisurely pace. (My one crushing disappointment, currently, is that I can’t seem to find Magnum PI streaming online, in its entirety anywhere.)

Obviously, this will take me a long time. Probably four years for Stargate SG-1 if I keep a steady once a week pace. But, honestly, that’s okay. I don’t get too torqued about spoilers (I know a TON about what happens in Who in the most recent seasons, so there’s not a lot of surprises there), and I don’t mind learning to savor some things again, giving me an opportunity to dwell on the episode I just watched for a while, without them all running together because I never watched them on their own. It will also, I hope, keep me from getting fatigued or exhausted with one show or another, which was a problem when I did watch a ton all at once, and I’ll be less likely to skip episodes that I have other-than-favorable memories of.

At any rate, this isn’t a manifesto or anything, but I would encourage you, gentle reader, to think about the way we interact with culture and consider whether a long-term thing might be ultimately more satisfying than a binge.

Mirrored from Bum Scoop.