Netflix revolutionized binge-watch television, ‘WandaVision’ is poised to challenge that
Netflix revolutionized binge-watch television, ‘WandaVision’ is poised to challenge that
WandaVision is Disney’s latest hit show.
Surprise! Using a weekly release cycle for your multi-million dollar television show might actually still have its merits. With the launch of Disney’s own streaming service aptly named ‘Disney+’, the media giant is hoping to bring their success from the big screen into the small screen through shows like The Mandalorian and more recently, WandaVision. This shouldn’t come as a surprise as Disney has shown that audiences can be trusted to follow a meticulously crafted decades-long narrative. After all, this is the same big media conglomerate that has embraced the traditional television-like format for their own big franchises. Look no further to their billion dollar money-making machine called the Marvel Cinematic Universe that essentially functions like a cinematic television show with so-called “phases” substituting for seasons. Their rebooted Star Wars franchise—a film series that literally uses the word “episode” to demarcate themselves—also exemplifies this model by showing that they can earn a lot of money through simply exploring and expanding upon untold stories spanning multiple generations in a galaxy far, far away. Basically, Disney is practically a pro when it comes to telling incredibly dense and long-form stories.
However, in a digital space not so far away, Netflix has been slowly, but surely, dominating the television landscape. After the ultimately disappointing end to HBO’s Game of Thrones, it seemed like the final vestiges of the old and tired week-by-week television model have finally been snapped out of existence. People have flocked to streaming services that had with them the unique privilege of releasing all of their episodes at once. This created the cultural phenomenon that we now know of as “binge-watching.” A new and revolutionary media strategy, one that identifies audiences who are more than comfortable to sit down and follow-along an 8 to 10 hour show and gives them exactly that. Shows like Stranger Things, The Crown, Money Heist, The Queen’s Gambit, and more have become undeniable cultural sensations. They have generated trending discussions on social media platforms and this drives even more viewership and subscription numbers. Case in point, just look at the outrageous numbers generated by the latest season of Netflix’s darling sci-fi show Stranger Things. On its first four days of release, it attracted 40.7 million accounts that viewed the entire season to its completion. Take note that those are just accounts, who knows if one account meant a family of four or more watching together. Compare that to the series finale of Game of Thrones which only attracted about 19.3 million viewers. It’s clear that Netflix has stepped forward as the clear first choice for most households when it comes to television.
So why is it that despite the quantitative and empirical success of Netflix and other streaming services that have come after it, Disney still believes that weekly release cycles are the way to go? I think Marvel’s president Kevin Feige said it best:
There’s something fun to be able to follow along, to try to guess what happens next, to have a week speculating or rewatching and building that anticipation. Part of the fun, to me, of movies, is the anticipation leading up to it, so it’s fun to get to have a ‘mini-version’ of that every week.
This press statement was given in the days leading up to the release of WandaVision, but something peculiar happened when the first two episodes dropped. A large portion of people became infuriated with the weekly release schedule, effectively demanding that all episodes of WandaVision be released instead. This got me thinking, how did we reach this point? How come, in the span of just 8 years since House of Cards released on Netflix, the idea of having episodes being released all at once has become so normalized to the point that if an anticipated show associated with a popular intellectual property doesn’t do that, it suddenly becomes a controversy?
Elizabeth Olsen and Paul Bettany reprise their respective roles as Wanda Maximoff and Vision.
It brings me back to what Kevin Feige said about the beauty of cultivating a culture of speculation and community discussions that was always tied to weekly episodes as if it was the bread to the show’s butter. Our relationship with television shows has changed ever since the whole binge-watching model took on the mainstream stage. When it comes to recently released shows, the priority is no longer to have discussions about each episode and consume it as a singular piece of media, but rather, to consume the whole thing at whatever pace we want and then call it a day. You can’t take a break or pause to contemplate on what the hell just happened in this particular episode because there’s a 5 second interval in between the credits wherein Netflix forces you to switch over to the next episode against your own will.
Of course, you can always have self-induced breaks and pauses, but we all know that you can’t just finish episode 1, take a break, and talk about it in social media because there will be people out there already in episode 3, or 5, or even those that have completed the whole show already. This only further incentivizes you to finish the show in order to fully join in the discussion. Simply put, you can’t take a break because you know that everyone else, or at least the vocal majority of people on social media and your social circles, probably haven’t taken the same break as you have. In a week-by-week schedule, you know that everyone is on the same page, everyone has the same level of information, and everyone is anticipating the same thing. This delays and extends conversations regarding the show that would’ve been otherwise saturated if all the answers and conclusions have already been made public. You can have those water-cooler discussions that highlight moments in an inconsequential episode without having them be engulfed by the major consequential moments of the finale because it hasn’t been released yet.
Let’s go back to that Stranger Things season 3 example. After it was released on the 4th of July last 2019, the vast majority of the general populace had already completed it in four days or so, and what happened was that people just moved on after that. Despite the huge showing of audiences flocking to watch the show in its early days, the window for discussions virtually closed way too soon. In a report made by the Los Angeles Times in the same year, they said that while the latest season netted 8.2 million Twitter mentions in the first week of its release; by its fifth week, there was a subsequent drop in mentions of more than 90%. There were then also little to no conversations regarding the show come August to September; a time period that would’ve had its finale released by then if it followed the weekly schedule. It was now dwarfed by the latest mediocre Netflix film or television show; it was just no longer the coolest new thing on the platform anymore.
Therein lies the pitfalls of the binge-watching format. You finish the show on Friday, and then by Monday you’ve already moved on from it. The model relies on the principle that people watch shows only to consume it, to finish it, and to be over with it by the next week or so. For a lot of people, that’s enough and it gives them full control over how they want to consume media. People have busy schedules, and they need that degree of closure so they can move on to other things. The ability to determine how, when, and where you want to watch the show is such a tantalizing and alluring benefit seemingly exclusive to binge-watching, but that’s just patently false.
You can always just wait for a week-by-week show to finish and then watch at your own pace. I’ve known a lot of people throughout the years who’ve done this and it did not diminish their viewing experience in any way. I jumped into Game of Thrones during the end of Season 3 and it did not undermine the impact that the Red Wedding had on me just because I did not follow it week by week. Binge-watching will always be an endemic facet of our media-crazed culture, it’s used to catch up on a show, to watch a show that’s been off the air for years, or to just kill some time on a laid-back and relaxing weekend. But, to say that binge-watching is the best way and should be the only way to consume television is just haphazardly taking it way too far.
Imagine if we applied the weekly release schedule for Stranger Things, we’d probably have whole weeks filled with social media threads trying to unravel the mysteries underneath the surface. We could’ve had theories being passed around that we can simmer in our heads as we wait for the next episode to drop. The thrill of waiting and working with what we have been given so far becomes equally exciting and it crafts an indelible part in the show’s culture that can sustain it in the long run. It’s why old classic shows like Star Trek and more recent classics like Breaking Bad and The Sopranos have stood the test of time, you don’t just remember their stories, you remember the experiences you’ve had with them. Generations of households have allowed these shows to ruminate in their minds for months. It also then becomes all the more significant when the season finale arrives and your questions get answered and your theories get vindicated.
This brings me to the strengths of the big Disney+ shows. The Mandalorian proxies as being akin to those old Flash Gordon serials that Star Wars was originally inspired from. The show provides us with short 30 minute episodes that essentially serve as self-contained anthologies. It breeds flexibility and a way for filmmakers to create strategic cliffhangers, it also doesn’t hurt to have a large budget and jaw-dropping visual effects. The weekly release schedule makes each episode of The Mandalorian feel like an event, and such an event deserves to remain in the cultural zeitgeist for more than just a week, the weekly release model will most definitely assure that.
WandaVision’s season finale arrives on March 5.
WandaVision, on the other hand, arrives at the brink of the complete and total domination of Marvel Studios in the blockbuster film landscape. Suffice to say, Marvel clearly took a huge swing in starting off their new post-Endgame phase with, of all things, a domestic sitcom! What’s even crazier is that they start off the first week by releasing two episodes set in the 50s and 60s, an era of sitcoms that most followers of the Marvel Universe probably haven’t even been introduced to, let alone relate to. It also probably didn’t help that a huge chunk of those two episodes were dedicated to setting up confusing mysteries and generated even more questions as they went on. Unlike The Mandalorian that usually has its episodes conclude the conflicts with a neat and tidy bow while still pushing forward the main narrative, WandaVision opts for a slow-burner and banks on the patience of audience members. This directly clashes with the whole Netflix binge-watching culture that has been ingrained into our minds. We’ve been comfortable with the practice that even if we get confused in the first few episodes, at least we know that as we go along, we will get rewarded by our continued viewing because the answers are already there.
Despite all of this though, what’s astounding is that as of February, halfway through WandaVision, it is now the most popular and in-demand show in the world. Every time an episode drops, the entire show becomes a worldwide trend on Twitter. By the fifth week of WandaVision, the discussion surrounding it has only increased as more and more viewers jump in out of the fear of missing out. While this success can definitely be attributed to the undeniable quality of each episode, I think the weekly release schedule also plays a huge role in the perception of the show. I’ve watched and read countless breakdowns and theories every after each new episode in order to get a grasp of what happened. I was motivated to make groups among my friend circles who also watch the show, joined discord servers to talk to absolute strangers about my theories, and contributed to a very substantial spectrum of WandaVision memes, all on a weekly basis. Having this sense of community brought together every week to meet, discuss and have fun with any episode thrown at us is such a privilege. It’s especially helpful given that most viewers are still isolated from each other due to the pandemic and are in need of some sort of a fun routine.
These virtual spaces, existing and lasting for as long as the show is on air, are only made possible through such a weekly release cycle. I’ve lost count of all the Netflix show groups that I created or joined with my friends that I’ve abandoned simply because I’ve just forgotten about the show or because all of the possible conversations to be had have already been exhausted. Because Netflix banks on shoving you with as much new content as possible, the discussion spaces can often be overwhelming. There’s a sense of urgency to move on to the next new thing, to finish a show or a film and switch to the next one instead of sitting down for a while with what you just saw. With WandaVision, each episode doesn’t feel overwhelming, it feels meticulous. You don’t know the answers yet because it’s meant to be that way. It forces us to ask questions, to fill in the blanks, to actually engage with others. If entertainment was only meant to be consumed and finished as a whole in one sitting, then Netflix is for you, but we all know that entertainment is more than that. Entertainment, in its form, structure, and most especially in the way that it is presented, can bring wonders to its audience; it’s best that we utilize that to our advantage.
To be fair, Netflix is here to stay for the future. I’m not challenging that. But, Disney is making a case for bringing back weekly television release cycles, which is not as much of a bad strategy as it may have seemed. Only time will tell how far this strategy will go, and given the huge slate of future Marvel and Star Wars shows coming up, it seems like we’re all about to have to be a bit more patient.
