Binge release vs. weekly release: Why neither is inherently better

The New York Times

WandaVision recently received a slew of praise for its weekly schedule release that allowed for a week's worth of discussion between episodes. But while the old-school weekly release is great, the Netflix-style binge-release has advantages, too, as James Poniewozik explains. "Mystery, in particular, lends itself well to the waiting game," says Poniewozik. "In WandaVision, part of the mystery was the show itself: What were these weekly 'sitcoms,' really, and who was in charge? The effect wasn’t ruined by bingeing (I recently rewatched it with my wife, who caught up on it over a couple of days), but it really benefited from giving it a long-term lease in your head. Disney+’s Star Wars western, The Mandalorian, was a different sort of mystery. Each episode arrived with little information about what it was or where it was going. (The existence of its pint-size breakout star, Grogu, a.k.a. Baby Yoda, wasn’t even revealed until the end of the first episode.) Every installment dropped you into a new world, on a new adventure, without warning; it felt like watching a serial short before the main feature at an old-timey movie parlor. But 'mystery' here doesn’t have to mean genre mystery. This was the case with Mad Men, whose creator, Matthew Weiner, has said, with justification, that it wouldn’t work released a full season at a time. Its artfully withholding storytelling and its willingness to drop the viewer in unexplained circumstances made watching feel like allowing yourself to be blindfolded and kidnapped once a week. (Of course, that hasn’t stopped bingers from mainlining it during the pandemic.) Bingeing, on the other hand, benefits certain kinds of immersive long-form TV that Netflix has gotten adept at: more straightforward mini-series, like The Queen’s Gambit, and the visual equivalent of page-turner novels, like Bridgerton. In some cases, a binge also helps gloss over weaknesses or repetitions that you might linger on with more time to dwell on them. (In general, I’m thinking of serial stories here; sitcoms, anthologies or procedurals with self-contained episodes feel less affected by the choice.)"