I’ve been watching this show called Revolution on NBC. I did something I don’t usually do anymore, and that’s to start watching a show with season 1. Wait. What?!?
That’s right, you heard me. I don’t watch shows that don’t have at least 3 seasons and here is why.
Remember back in the old days of television, and I’m talking way back to the late 90’s when you had to dedicate yourself to a show, and if you missed an episode, hopefully you had a very thorough friend who watched the show to fill you in on every salacious detail. Why? Because back then there was no Netflix, no Hulu, no “get the entire season on DVD”. There might be a re-run, and maybe you recorded it on VHS as long as the clock wasn’t too fast and stopped recording 5 minutes before the end of the show.
No, back then, if you wanted to watch a show YOU WATCHED THE SHOW, as it was broadcast.
So why does that matter today? Well, because you have people like me. I’ve been watching Revolution now for 2 seasons. I like the show, and I think J.J. Abrams is a good story teller. But I invested time into this show, and now it is cancelled, and we didn’t even get a good ending to it. Meaning my time was wasted.
Now let’s take a look at Breaking Bad. I let my friends watch it for 3 seasons telling me it was great before I started. By then it was already decided there would only be 5 seasons, so I KNEW I was going to get an ending. Same with Dexter, even if that ending sucked, you at least got closure. (I can also not bother watching Dexter, or I can watch it knowing the ending will be disappointing.)
What I believe is now happening is that people aren’t going to invest their time in a show, until they know it will have a good ending or at least closure of the storylines. Once they know it has a solid plot, steady characters, they will go back to their Hulu and Netflix and binge watch the heck out of that show, and get caught up.
Or like me, I just started watching The Wire. I know it is good, the ratings are solid, and it didn’t end like Revolution did.
Oh are you wondering how Revolution will end? It ended just like this blog post with a……??? ?
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