My slow but inevitable transition from the appointment model of TV watching to the anytime a-la-carte model just hit a milestone. I've finished an entire season of "Babylon 5" through Netflix's streaming Instant Watch service. This is big for me because I've never picked up a new show solely through online viewing before, a few obscure anime series not withstanding. With Netflix, it was almost frightening how easy it was. All the episodes were available, commercial free, and despite a few mislabeling errors they were all in order. And at forty minutes apiece, watching two or three or more in one sitting was a breeze. I didn't have to be mindful of when the episodes were about to expire online. I didn't have to jump through hoops or sit through repetitive ads to get to the next one. And if I was interrupted, I didn't even have to spend time backtracking to where I had been in the middle of an episode. Netflix kept track for me.
In a way, this is all the Bravo Channel's fault, as they provided a crucial stepping stone to the a-la-carte model for me. As any fan of "Project Runway," "Top Chef," or any of their other reality competitions knows, Bravo runs all the previous episodes of a current season in the timeslots before the premieres of their latest installments. If you miss a week, just tune in an hour earlier for a double dose of "Top Chef." If you miss three, start watching in the early evening and have a mini-marathon to catch up. The channel's schedule is flexible enough that it can accommodate this tactic, and viewers reap the benefits by having multiple chances to watch episodes. You could even wait until right before the season finale and watch a whole season in one go. I haven't ever tried this, but it's nice to know that I could. One of the downsides of "Project Runway" moving to Lifetime was that the scheduling format didn't go with it. If you missed a week, you had to brave their gaudy website for past episodes.
Bravo's not the only channel that does this, of course. They're just the one I'm most familiar with and thus have singled out as being the most responsible for my current change in viewing habits. Most cable channels rely on marathons and repeats to pad out their schedules. Blocks of "Law & Order" and "CSI" episodes are common on the weekends. I became a fan of several procedurals like "Criminal Minds" and "Law & Order: SVU" thanks to marathons because I burned through multiple episodes at a time. I still watched premieres in their regular timeslots, hewing to the standard model of appointment television, but increasingly I found myself getting into older shows like "Firefly" and "Avatar: The Last Airbender" through borrowed DVD sets. It was nice not to have to schedule my life around the shows I wanted to watch - I'm one of those poor schmucks without a DVR and my VCR refuses to cooperate when I try to record anything. Then streaming TV on the internet came along, and it was a great help for certain shows like "Chuck" and "Dollhouse," though older programs I had an interest in were difficult to find.
It all changed when I got Netflix. Now I'm paging through the listings of other Instant Watch shows, trying to decide what I want to see next. "Arrested Development"? "Damages"? "Weeds"? "Veronica Mars"? "Lost"? "Nip/Tuck"? "Black Adder"? "The State"? The Tom Baker era "Doctor Who" serials? The second season of "Dexter" that I skipped? There aren't many newer shows, but I've missed so many of these older ones, it doesn't make much difference to me. And the benefit of watching an already finished series is obvious. I don't have to worry about cancellations or scheduling changes. Sure, I miss out on the excitement and drama of following a current television show from week to week, but there are plenty of other viewers who are in the same boat as I am. I've already found several active discussion groups for "Babylon 5," including the Usenet forums that were with the show from the beginning. And I find it much easier to follow a serialized mytharc if I watch more than one episode at a time.
I can't see myself abandoning my television set entirely anytime soon for a media diet of only online content, but as far as scripted series goes, Netflix beats network and cable hands down. There's no question anymore. Last night I missed a new episode of "House" because I'd gotten caught up in the shadowy maneuverings of the Vorlons and the Minbari on "Babylon 5." And I didn't care. That episode of "House" will be on the FOX website and Hulu in two weeks. An encore should show up on the USA cable network shortly after that. And sooner or later, the entire series will be on Netflix or one of the other upcoming television streaming sites being developed by Amazon or Blockbuster or Comcast. I felt a little irritation that I'd missed the episode, but there wasn't the annoyance or frustration that there'd been in the past. There's no rush and I can catch up easily enough. And right now, in the middle of September premieres, I don't feel any need to chase down all the new shows right away because I've come to expect that I'll still have access to them in a week or three - almost certainly with less commercials too.
Maybe I'll just wait and see which of the new TV shows can fend for themselves and win over audiences before I invest my attention. In the meantime, I think I might rewatch "The X-Files" on Netflix and stop after Season 6 this time. Just because I can.
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