It's strange, I never thought I'd say it, but I miss linear TV--good old regular TV--where the programs shown follow a predetermined program schedule like in the old days. For example, The X-Files was shown on Fridays of each week on the Fox channel if I remember correctly, so you definitely had something to look forward to each week. We own a smart TV and have subscriptions to several streaming channels, among them Netflix and MAX. But lately, I'm just plain tired of being able to watch television movies or series whenever I'd like, in whatever order I'd like. It's not so much the streaming aspect that bothers me as the overwhelming content and mediocre quality of most of it. Trying to find something to watch has become a chore. Satiation--there's too much of everything leading to that overfilled feeling--too many crime series, all with the same motifs and modus operandi. Rogue policeman or -woman stumbles onto a bizarre case, usually involving a serial killer who ends up targeting said policeman. Or there are kidnapped and missing children, pedophile rings, slave rings involving the capture and torment of women, etc. All presented in a commonplace way, as though this kind of criminal activity goes on all the time. It doesn't. I've had enough of it. I don't want to watch this as entertainment, because it's simply not entertaining. As I said, there's too much of it. Satiation. Too much of a good thing, although I'm not sure I'd define much of the programming as 'good'. Most of it borders on junk.
With some few exceptions, the episodes of streaming series are usually available all at one time, to be binged if one would like to. I don't like to, nor do I want to. The exceptions are to be found on MAX--My Brilliant Friend and The Gilded Age are two that come to mind. Upon their release, each episode is shown one at a time, one per week, and that's fine because it gives us something to look forward to. I suppose the appeal of Netflix is that you can watch as many episodes as you like all at one time; apparently younger people like to binge-watch shows. I don't want to. I'll watch an hour or so of television, and then I get restless and want to do something else. Read for example. There are so many classic books just waiting to be read, and I want to read them.
Linear television created natural boundaries so that we didn't overdo television watching. Whether you liked it or not, you had to wait to see the next episode the following week. That's how we grew up, and I miss that. It prevented us from sitting in front of the television for hours at a time, mindlessly flipping through hundreds of channels, desperate to find something to watch. I remember my parents when we were teenagers; we maybe watched a show or movie together, and then the television was turned off and we read in the evenings. Or found something else to do. We had homework to do, so the television was never turned on before we had finished it. And we knew that, so we did our work and were rewarded. My parents understood that their time was limited, and they didn't fill their limited free time with useless television programs. Having said that, we did manage to watch a lot of the popular series of the day. So it's not that we didn't watch television, it's rather that television had its place in our lives. The television wasn't on 24/7 the way it is now in many people's lives. And that was a good thing. I miss those days.
