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Binge-watching Jed Mercurio goes beyond the line of duty | Binge-watching Jed Mercurio goes beyond the line of duty |
(5 months later) | |
According to a survey by RadioTimes.com, binge-watching is not the benign addiction that it appears to be. Almost one in five respondents said they had called in sick to work just so they could watch television, while half said they had watched more than eight hours in one go. | According to a survey by RadioTimes.com, binge-watching is not the benign addiction that it appears to be. Almost one in five respondents said they had called in sick to work just so they could watch television, while half said they had watched more than eight hours in one go. |
I blame the United States. At least Britain has decreed that six episodes is plenty for a series. When I was heavily involved with The Good Wife, its 24-episode seasons really ate into my time. And I’ve been trying to watch Gilmore Girls for years and am yet to break the season three barrier. Will Rory ever get to college? I can’t tell you. It’s so long. | I blame the United States. At least Britain has decreed that six episodes is plenty for a series. When I was heavily involved with The Good Wife, its 24-episode seasons really ate into my time. And I’ve been trying to watch Gilmore Girls for years and am yet to break the season three barrier. Will Rory ever get to college? I can’t tell you. It’s so long. |
Netflix is credited with the advent of the binge-watch and it has certainly made it easier to sleepwalk into pressing “next episode”, but DVD box sets paved the way. My binge-watching era reached its peak when I was living alone in an unfamiliar city in a new country. When the pressure to go out and meet people and take every single last bit of it in got too much, as it often did, I’d stay in and plough through whatever I could find. I came to Broad City that way and I galloped through Orange Is the New Black and Friday Night Lights. It was escapist and comforting and I still feel a particular fondness towards those shows for that time. | Netflix is credited with the advent of the binge-watch and it has certainly made it easier to sleepwalk into pressing “next episode”, but DVD box sets paved the way. My binge-watching era reached its peak when I was living alone in an unfamiliar city in a new country. When the pressure to go out and meet people and take every single last bit of it in got too much, as it often did, I’d stay in and plough through whatever I could find. I came to Broad City that way and I galloped through Orange Is the New Black and Friday Night Lights. It was escapist and comforting and I still feel a particular fondness towards those shows for that time. |
But in my experience, the dedication that binge-viewing requires waxes and wanes. There is a constant pressure to keep up, because there is so much good TV being made (you could argue, though, that there is as much overindulged, nonessential claptrap) and gorging oneself on it may seem like the only answer. There is relief to be found in acknowledging, simply, that it is impossible to see everything and it is OK not to try. That is what Gogglebox is for. | But in my experience, the dedication that binge-viewing requires waxes and wanes. There is a constant pressure to keep up, because there is so much good TV being made (you could argue, though, that there is as much overindulged, nonessential claptrap) and gorging oneself on it may seem like the only answer. There is relief to be found in acknowledging, simply, that it is impossible to see everything and it is OK not to try. That is what Gogglebox is for. |
I am in a non-gluttonous period of viewing, mostly. I now prefer frugal consumption, portioned out weekly. It takes the pressure off and tightens the suspense, particularly when it comes to thrillers. | I am in a non-gluttonous period of viewing, mostly. I now prefer frugal consumption, portioned out weekly. It takes the pressure off and tightens the suspense, particularly when it comes to thrillers. |
Let’s call it the Jed Mercurio approach. With Line of Duty and Bodyguard, Mercurio knew how to end each episode with a doozy of a cliffhanger and in making the audience wait a week for the resolution, he turned both series into hits and, more crucially, talking points. To gorge on them all at once would have ruined it. Sometimes, more is less. | Let’s call it the Jed Mercurio approach. With Line of Duty and Bodyguard, Mercurio knew how to end each episode with a doozy of a cliffhanger and in making the audience wait a week for the resolution, he turned both series into hits and, more crucially, talking points. To gorge on them all at once would have ruined it. Sometimes, more is less. |
Jonny Greenwood: turning the tables on the blackmailers | Jonny Greenwood: turning the tables on the blackmailers |
Jonny Greenwood, guitarist of Radiohead, composer of film scores and the man whose working relationship with the film-maker Paul Thomas Anderson ticks every one of my favourite nerd boxes, found himself in the unlikely position of navigating the public shame playbook with perfect ease. When hackers stole a MiniDisc archive of Radiohead material from the OK Computer era, demanding a ransom of $150,000, the band decided to release all 18 hours of it on Bandcamp as MiniDiscs (Hacked) – which does not sound unlike a Radiohead album title – for 18 days, asking people to pay £18 to download 1.8gb of it. “Never intended for public consumption (though some clips did reach the cassette in the OK Computer reissue), it’s only tangentially interesting. And very, very long,” said Greenwood, in a statement. The money will go to Extinction Rebellion. | Jonny Greenwood, guitarist of Radiohead, composer of film scores and the man whose working relationship with the film-maker Paul Thomas Anderson ticks every one of my favourite nerd boxes, found himself in the unlikely position of navigating the public shame playbook with perfect ease. When hackers stole a MiniDisc archive of Radiohead material from the OK Computer era, demanding a ransom of $150,000, the band decided to release all 18 hours of it on Bandcamp as MiniDiscs (Hacked) – which does not sound unlike a Radiohead album title – for 18 days, asking people to pay £18 to download 1.8gb of it. “Never intended for public consumption (though some clips did reach the cassette in the OK Computer reissue), it’s only tangentially interesting. And very, very long,” said Greenwood, in a statement. The money will go to Extinction Rebellion. |
It is the musical equivalent of being blackmailed over stolen nudes and deciding to leak them yourself. It takes away the power of theft and it is a very 2019 post-shame kind of move. However, as one of those hacked Radiohead demos played on BBC Radio 6 Music, I thought about Jai Paul and the flipside of that kind of stealing. The singer-producer’s work has been hugely influential, even though official releases were scarce, but in 2013 demos for his debut album were stolen and leaked online. He has only now released new, excellent music and spoken about that experience. | It is the musical equivalent of being blackmailed over stolen nudes and deciding to leak them yourself. It takes away the power of theft and it is a very 2019 post-shame kind of move. However, as one of those hacked Radiohead demos played on BBC Radio 6 Music, I thought about Jai Paul and the flipside of that kind of stealing. The singer-producer’s work has been hugely influential, even though official releases were scarce, but in 2013 demos for his debut album were stolen and leaked online. He has only now released new, excellent music and spoken about that experience. |
“I understand that it might have seemed like a positive thing to a lot of people – the music they had been waiting to hear was finally out there – but for me, it was very difficult to deal with,” he said. “I was in quite a bad place for some time.” | “I understand that it might have seemed like a positive thing to a lot of people – the music they had been waiting to hear was finally out there – but for me, it was very difficult to deal with,” he said. “I was in quite a bad place for some time.” |
Radiohead could turn it into a positive, but for others the violation is clearly far more damaging. | Radiohead could turn it into a positive, but for others the violation is clearly far more damaging. |
Kylie Jenner: one woman’s bad taste... | Kylie Jenner: one woman’s bad taste... |
Kylie Jenner threw a themed birthday party for one of her best friends and that theme was The Handmaid’s Tale. Quicker than you could say: “It’s what Margaret Atwood would have wanted”, Jenner found herself on the receiving end of lots of people furiously suggesting that reenacting an authoritarian hell-vision in which women have no rights and are legally raped is somehow unsuitable as a backdrop for cakes and candles. | Kylie Jenner threw a themed birthday party for one of her best friends and that theme was The Handmaid’s Tale. Quicker than you could say: “It’s what Margaret Atwood would have wanted”, Jenner found herself on the receiving end of lots of people furiously suggesting that reenacting an authoritarian hell-vision in which women have no rights and are legally raped is somehow unsuitable as a backdrop for cakes and candles. |
This is an era of poor-taste festivities. After the success of his brilliant series Chernobyl, Craig Mazin was forced to ask tourists to the region to “comport yourselves with respect for all who suffered and sacrificed”, as he posted on Twitter, owing to a wave of new visitors perfecting the art of the nuclear disaster selfie. But two years ago, Vice reported that people were holding their hen and stag dos in the exclusion zone, so an ill-thought-out pout really is the least of it when it comes to what should be considered appropriate behaviour. | This is an era of poor-taste festivities. After the success of his brilliant series Chernobyl, Craig Mazin was forced to ask tourists to the region to “comport yourselves with respect for all who suffered and sacrificed”, as he posted on Twitter, owing to a wave of new visitors perfecting the art of the nuclear disaster selfie. But two years ago, Vice reported that people were holding their hen and stag dos in the exclusion zone, so an ill-thought-out pout really is the least of it when it comes to what should be considered appropriate behaviour. |
In the spirit of if you can’t beat them, I’ve decided to join in and ride the bad-taste wave. For my own birthday, I will be throwing a Kylie Jenner’s Handmaid’s Tale-themed party theme party. Bonnets and lip kits are mandatory. | In the spirit of if you can’t beat them, I’ve decided to join in and ride the bad-taste wave. For my own birthday, I will be throwing a Kylie Jenner’s Handmaid’s Tale-themed party theme party. Bonnets and lip kits are mandatory. |
• Rebecca Nicholson is an Observer columnist | • Rebecca Nicholson is an Observer columnist |
Jed Mercurio | Jed Mercurio |
Names in the news | Names in the news |
Television | Television |
Radiohead | Radiohead |
Kylie Jenner | Kylie Jenner |
Jonny Greenwood | |
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