While Binge-Watching Will Die

Over the past few weeks, Marvel Studios has emerged from its Covid-driven hiatus and dropped its first original series on Disney+: WandaVision. While there were no new billion-dollar blockbusters from Marvel last year, the studio plans to debut a total of six series on their resident streaming service over the course of 2021. In addition, Marvel has another six in development for 2022 and beyond, and that is not even including follow-up seasons to anything from this year’s slate. Essentially, if you are a Marvel fan, you are excited – it does not look like we will be going more than a week or two without an MCU episode of something for the foreseeable future. Anyway, WandaVision has been getting plenty of praise from critics and audiences alike, but I am here today not to talk about that but to discuss the nature of this new release method for premium streaming shows.

For years, Netflix has dominated our television sets with its original programming, dropping countless hit series all at once. Six episodes, eight episodes, thirteen episodes – it does not matter. Netflix drops the entire season at 3 AM on a Friday, and the world watches. However, WandaVision is the latest example of popular streaming shows dropping on non-Netflix services, and has proved to be wildly successful with an entirely different kind of release model. Disney+ series such as  The Mandalorian and The Boys, have been dropping an extra episode or two for their season premieres, and then releasing weekly installments of episodes until their conclusions. This directly relates to something I have been pondering since the release of Stranger Things’ third season back in the before times (2019). Stranger Things is the perfect example of a popular streaming show, consisting of a bunch of great episodes, that drops all at once on Netflix and receives plenty of praise and acclaim. But I, like most people, binge-watched the last season over the weekend and had moved on by the next week. The issue with dropping these popular shows all at once is that it robs people – particularly on social media – of the possibility for discussion and speculation when all the answers are out there already. That is the boon of the weekly release schedule: the time between episodes creates more buzz for the studio and more opportunities for discussion within the online community. So not only will it be trending across the interwebs, boosting numbers for giddy executives, but it makes the show’s fanbase happy, too. Everyone wins. 

So is that why Disney+ is dropping WandaVision over a two-month period instead of all at once – out of the kindness in their heart to create more theorizing and speculation around the show? Of course not; they are doing it because it stops you from being able to use a free trial to watch all the episodes. It is the same thing with HBO Max and its catalog of upcoming feature films in 2021, originally slated for release in theaters and now destined for simultaneous drops in both the cinemas and on digital. Warner Bros. removed the free trial from HBO Max when they made Wonder Woman 1984 available for streaming. If a hit new series or movie is fully out somewhere that offers a free trial, then people can take advantage. Not only does Netflix’s release model lose them the increased time in the spotlight, but it also potentially robs them of money that customers are not paying by simply using a free trial to get around the paywall. Of course, Netflix is a very well-established brand, and if this were a huge issue for them, they would have switched their business model long ago. For fledgling services like Disney+ and HBO Max, however, it is not a risk they are taking.

My argument is that these corporate politics may cause all new streaming services to end up going this route, leaving the binge-watching method behind. Is that a bad thing? I do not think so. There is a place for everything, and while I think a lot of people enjoy the occasional binge of a new Netflix show, the advantages that come from increased discussion around a show outweigh the extra money you might have to put into a streaming service. Especially for these popular shows that play around with brands like Marvel or Star Wars, a staggered release schedule creates more processing time for audiences and gives the shows more longevity in the pop culture spotlight. I think the tradeoff is worth it, even though it may take some getting used to for some.