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Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

Watching episodes out of order...

23:54 / 25.02.06

With the rise of the sequential narrative in American drama we are increasingly coming to a point where one is expected to watch from the beginning of a season onwards... But things are seldom ideal in the world of man... and some people can get really anal about spoilers, so how much worse it must be to spoil yourself by watching eipsodes out of the intended sequence?

So I'm asking what do people here watch any sequentual shows so irregularly and/ in rerun so tthat the are viewed out of sequence?

Do people feel that a good narrative should hold up regardless of whether or not one has already read the last page, or can one only fully experience a narrative fully on initial viewing from the beginning to end...

How do you watch TV series?

00:14 / 26.02.06

I think it's the anal-retentive comics fan in me that likes to have things in the right order that makes me pretty strict about watching sequential narratives in the right order. Although, I do know a lot of 'normal' people that haven't ever watched Lost, because they missed the first few episodes.

Most shows like this have a recap at the start anyway, with the relevant backstory for that week's episode, so there's obviously an attemp to fill in possible new comers.

One time I missed an episode of Lost, but didn't notice the gap in the narrative until I caught the missing show in reruns and I was like 'aahhhh, that's what happened there'. it was like getting a cool flashback. So, sometimes, maybe it can be more rewarding to fracture your viewing? Some things you spoil for yourself, but there would be lots of retro-active backstory being filled in and dramatic ironies if you stumbled on a cool sequence...

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

01:48 / 26.02.06

I don't think there's anything anal about wanting to watch episodes in order if there's a sequential narrative- I mean, would you read the chapters in a book in the wrong order?

02:23 / 26.02.06

I'm almost sure sleaze is strictly speaking of LOST, and LOST-like shows. Television is nothing like books, but some episodes are becoming more like chapters lately. Comedies can be picked up, enjoyed, and dropped like issues of Johnny DC comics. But LOST is taking television to a place where viewers are (heh) lost if they miss the developments that occur in any given episode.

How do I watch that kind of episodic television? Every Wednesday is LOST night in my house. I pretty much have designed my schedule around that block of time. I get delivery; and my brother and I watch it and trade ideas over commercial breaks. We've managed to watch it consistently for two seasons, and I consider myself immensely lucky that I'd been one of the first on the bandwagon.

The only other shows I'd been religious about include West Wing, Arrested Development, and to a rapidly decreasing amount, Desperate Housewives. West Wing is thankfully in syndication through BRAVO, and luckily are often shown in marathons. I think I've caught them all now, but as I see them over and over, I wish I'd watched from the beginning to follow the fictional international developments, instead of watching the team deal with random attacks from abroad in various ways.

Arrested died when FOX fucked with scheduling this season. Last season I'd managed to get everyone at work to watch consistently, but as hiatuses grew extraordinarily long, interest waned.

DH, though I love Bree and Alfre Woodard, is getting stupid now that the major mystery is solved.

Disco is My Class War

13:17 / 26.02.06

I started watching Lost late, because the insane marketing fanfare when it screened here originally convinced me it was crap. When I realised it wasn't (due to obsessive posting on Barbelith), I started watching repeats, half way through the season. To catch up, I downloaded the first ten episodes and we watched them in between the weekly later ones. It was really confusing, but it didn't make that much difference to my enjoyment of the show. Things gradually fell into place. With BSG I'm quite obsessive about downloading, encoding and watching each episode in order -- but usually I can download them each week. Also because I like to keep up with the relevant forum threads. Me = nerd.

I reckon the advent of downloading/DIY DVD means that people probably view episodes of series like Lost and BSG several times in the allotted screening time, out of order, instead of just once, each week. So you simultaneously watch new episodes and refresh your memory of the old. (To keep track, as well.) But that's for people who have the technology -- which I'm glad to say, is pretty accessible now if you have a decent PC, a DVD burner and the right guides. It's changed one really big thing about television watching, though -- I used to watch stuff like Buffy with friends, relatively often. Now I just lend them the DVDs. It's not quite the same.

15:32 / 27.02.06

I find I watch more television shows on tape or disc than I do as they're actually being broadcast, mainly because I like watching the eps in some semblance of order (especially if (a) I have not seen them before and/or (b) there's an actual narrative order to things where reveals might be ruined by watching later episodes first). I'm really bad for re-watching or re-reading whole sequences of stuff, anyway, however, when all I really want to re-go is one small element of that whole. Comics are probably to blame for this, but maybe I'm just compulsively completist or something.