The Final Decade of the Shared TV Experience, Part 2

If you missed Part 1 of this discussion on The Final Decade of the Shared TV Experience, click here.

Sonny Giuliano: Dalton, while I understand what you’re saying about Netflix’s brand, I still feel like this is a golden opportunity that they (and other streaming services) are missing out on. And listen, I get the whole “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” mindset, but Netflix is a company that has evolved over time. They weren’t always an original programming goliath … Netflix spent 15 years as a hub for online DVD rentals and sales before one of their original programs ever received an Emmy nomination. They saw an opening to diversify and grow, and they took it.

What’s surprising to me is that you are probably right. Netflix won’t abandon the structure that has worked so well, and yet Netflix is responsible for arguably the most successful and enjoyable Shared TV Experience of this last decade. And those aren’t my words. They belong to Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan:

“I think Netflix kept us on the air. Not only are we standing up here (with the Emmy), I don’t think our show would have even lasted beyond season two.”

Thanks to an agreement between AMC and Netflix, people had the opportunity to catch up on Breaking Bad between seasons, and as a result, BrBa’s audience grew year after year, peaking at the exact right moment … right before Gilligan’s series was about to enter the eight-episode stretch that single-handedly changed the heights that we perceived a television show could reach. The amount of people who watched Breaking Bad’s series finale on September 29, 2013 had quadrupled from the number that watched the Season 5A finale on September 2, 2012.

Now just imagine this Dalton: Imagine that Breaking Bad was a Netflix Original and not an AMC production. And imagine what a damn bummer it would’ve been for fans of the show if those final eight episodes were rolled out all at once. The entire legacy of Breaking Bad changes if that’s the case. Fans wouldn’t have had the opportunity to have the anticipation build from episode to episode while they discussed theories about what was to come and praise for what they had just seen. We wouldn’t have been able to read glowing review pieces on nearly every episode of the season, with titles like ‘Blood Money’ sets the pace for what’s sure to be a thrilling end to the series, and Breaking Bad Recap, ‘To’hajiilee’: The Suspense Is Killing Me, And I Love It, and Is Breaking Bad’s Ozymandias the greatest episode of TV ever written, and Breaking Bad Series Finale: A Man Becomes a Legend in ‘Felina’.

Doesn’t it kind of suck to think about that? Are we certain that you and I both would’ve gotten into Breaking Bad had there not been a steady build of praise and anticipation that we were both aware of leading up to the final season and between each of those last eight episodes? That’s scary to think about, because if we didn’t both dive into Breaking Bad, then there’s no Breakable.

The test case for whether or not we can have a long-lasting and truly successful Shared TV Experience via Netflix or Amazon or Hulu will be with Stranger Things, and frankly, I’m not optimistic that it will resonate in the way we hope it will. I still haven’t watched Season 3 of Strangers Things because I know there’s no need to hurry. It will be there waiting for me whenever I have the time to spare on some weekend where I feel like being a lazy ass. Now whether that has more to do with Netflix’s business model or my interest in Stranger Things, I’m not sure. But I do know that each week over the Summer and into the Fall I tuned in to HBO on Sunday nights to watch Euphoria and Succession, and I would’ve done the same thing if Stranger Things was streaming one episode at a time on Netflix.

Dalton Baggett: You make some compelling points about the Netflix streaming model, and I think one of the big answers to our Shared TV Experience questions lies in what you said. I’m going to let the readers deal with a little suspense though, because I’d like to talk about Stranger Things first.

Stranger Things actually might not be quite the shared experience that we think it is, or really even as culturally important as we think it is. Undoubtedly it is a phenomenon, but not one that is ultimately going to last. Season one of Stranger Things was so successful because it came out of nowhere. There wasn’t any hype about its release, at least that I’m aware of. I just remember getting home from work late one night and seeing that this new show was on the home page. I proceeded to devour it over the next two days like it was a free continental breakfast and I hadn’t eaten in a week. The element of surprise is what allowed it to become the phenomenon that it did. Overall though? Characters, themes, and aesthetics were talked about with the season as a whole. The internet caught fire with discussions about the show, but not so much individual episodes. Therein lies the problems with the binging model. It is extremely difficult to talk about the show with your friends or colleagues because everyone is on a different viewing schedule. You can’t really find deep-dives or think pieces on your favorite episodes, only reviews of the entire season. Think about it, Sonny. We both enjoy Stranger Things a great deal, and we talk just about every day. Have we discussed season 3 yet? Nope. I watched it over the first weekend it came out, and as you said, you watched it a month later. We may never discuss the show with the type of fervor that we were with, say, Game of Thrones.

Season 2 of Stranger Things was much less of a critical darling, but coasted on to Season 3 on the waves of fervor the first had created. The third season was great, but the conversation on social media probably didn’t even last until you got around to watching. Stranger Things is the biggest Netflix show to date, and they can’t even keep us talking about it a month later. All that is a long winded way of saying you’re right. The Netflix model is probably not conducive to keeping the shared experience alive and well.

The big answer I promised? It’s coming. You mentioned Amazon and Hulu, which is important because they have the opposite release model as Netflix. They both release their shows weekly, like a traditional television network. HBO takes this route as well. This allows us, the viewing audience, time to digest the morsels of story they feed to us, one spoonful at a time. (I’m not sure why I relate food and TV so much, leave me alone). Week to week hype building is important to keeping shows alive and in the conversation, but neither Hulu nor Amazon have anything close to their own Stranger Things or Game of Thrones. Handmaid’s Tale and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel are raking in the Emmys, but not so much the social engagement.

Ok. The Answer. There is just too much damn television, Sonny! There is almost enough content out there for every single person to have a different favorite show than everyone else. I would love nothing more than to be having daily discussions about Fleabag, because it was the best thing on television this year, but I’m one of the 2 people I know personally that have seen it. So, please save me from the never ending abyss of content. Pull me towards the light, I beg you! Tell me that we can save the Shared TV Experience!

SG: Before I attempt to save the Shared TV Experience for us and everyone else, I just wanted to let you know what a damn bummer it is that your go-to choice for a TV show that you want to talk about but can’t is Fleabag, and not Succession. Besides you, my parents are the only other two people I know who watch it, and you are the one who suggested I watch it in the first place, and then I do, and then we can’t even talk about Succession together because YOU HAVEN’T EVEN WATCHED SEASON 2 YET. Seriously man, Fuck Off.

How is it even possible that Succession, a show that got nominated for an Emmy this year for Outstanding Drama Series, didn’t crack 1 million viewers for a single episode in either of its first two seasons? More people watched Hell’s Kitchen on a weekly basis! Why are y’all giving your attention to a verbally abusive British chef? It’s disgraceful, and it also highlights a few things:

First, it lets me know that a lot of people have truly terrible taste in television. I really can’t imagine having such a relationship with TV that I’d be content to spend the time watching shitshow shit shows instead of digging a little deeper to find quality television. Seriously, an average of 8 million people watched MacGyver or Magnum P.I. on CBS each week this past year. Now in fairness, I’ve never seen a second of either of these programs, but you just know that MacGyver and Magnum P.I. on CBS are just goddamn catastrophes.

Second, it tells me that Network TV is still king, and therefore, if there is going to be a Shared TV Experience moving forward, it will probably still come from Network television. Aside from HBO’s Game Of Thrones, the next closest thing to a shared TV experience we’ve had in the last five years is probably NBC’s This Is Us. This Is Us has raked in an average of about 15 million viewers per episode over it’s first three seasons, and it’s already been renewed for another three. It’s a critical darling (for good reason — it’s absolutely terrific) and there is a massive online fanbase, in large part because of a masterful job done by NBC and This Is Us to encourage social media engagement related to the show on Twitter and Facebook.

This Is Us is actually a perfect sort of show for the now and the 2020’s. It not only appeases, but thoroughly pleases TV snobs like me, and it appeals to the older crowd who wants to feel like this show can exist in the 9 pm slot right before they tune in to ER. And for what it’s worth, I fall into that demographic as well. I really miss ER.

Third, it tells me that there is indeed too much damn television, Dalton! Too many streaming service options, too much live sports available at all hours, too much Cable TV, too much Network TV. It’s a big enough problem that we are all watching different things, or even that we’re watching the same things at different times, but the problem grows even larger when the news cycle moves exponentially faster than it used to. Significant pop culture moments just don’t stay as significant for as long as they used to.

Ready for an incredible, somewhat-related sidebar?

Remember when Charlie Sheen was “winning”? It felt like that story stayed relevant in the news for months. Was it actually months? I don’t remember, but it seems like it lasted longer than the hype for Game of Thrones did earlier this year. It was a totally different time for social media and the media in general, but it wasn’t even 9 years ago when this happened. It was 2011 when Sheen told us about how he was bangin’ seven-gram rocks and finishin’ em because that’s how he rolls, and enlightened us with the wisdom that “dying is for fools.” If that’s a story that takes place in 2019, it trends on Twitter for about 12-to-18 hours and results in a few memes and gifs that last as long as the Don’t Say It, Don’t Say It, Don’t Say It meme.

My point here is that the culture at-large might move too fast for there to be a shared TV experience into the next decade … with one exception. Now as anxious as I am to tell you what this exception is, I want to take a page out of your playbook and build the suspense. So rather than tell you right now, I’ll give you an opportunity to reply and venture a guess if you’d like.

DB: Oh god. Its Fox News isn’t it? Sean Hannity, the racist gremlin with the most popular show on the network gets an average of 4.3 million viewers every night. We can call that the Dystopian Shared Experience. But actually it’s not dystopian because it’s real and happening every night. 4.3 MILLION people tune in to watch him ejaculate into a MAGA hat and use it for hair gel, all while he uses his platform to usher in his own dystopian utopia.

I hope it’s not Fox News.

SG: Yuck. No. And once again, I’m so very disappointed at your lack of appreciation for Succession in this piece. You make a splooge joke and it didn’t relate to Tom Wambsgans swallowing his own load? Seriously man, Fuck Off.

Anyway, the entire idea of the Shared TV Experience is nothing but a nostalgia trip. At this point in time, it can’t truly exist like it did in the past, but people are so reluctant to move past this much simpler era of television viewership, they can’t let the concept go. We still crave the workplace water cooler conversations about last night’s episode of TV Program X, even though A. Nobody watches TV shows at the same pace anymore, B. The population of people who work from home has grown by 140% since 2005, and C. Have you seen the size of water bottles these days? Even if people are working in an office, they never have to leave their desks because their water bottle is the size of a goddamn blender. Seriously, you can buy a 64-ounce water bottle on Amazon. That’s four pounds of liquid. What the fuck?

Even still, people won’t let go of this phenomenon, so here’s my theory: Breaking Bad was only able to quintuple its audience between the first half of Season 5 and the second half of Season 5 because there was a year-long layoff and people binged the episodes that already existed on Netflix before those final episodes aired. Netflix paid $100 million to keep Friends on the service in 2018 because it was so popular. And then of course, there’s The Office, which was the most popular show on Netflix in 2018 by roughly 20 billion minutes streamed. There’s no question it’s significantly more popular now than it was when it aired from 2005 to 2013, and I would even argue it’s the most universally appreciated show of the entire decade.

So why are we overthinking this? They say that history predicts the future, and in this case I believe that to be true. Rather than looking forward at how our shared TV experiences will change or potentially even disappear, we should be looking backward at what shows we’ll eventually be watching (or re-watching) the way we’re watching (or re-watching) them right now. Because in the end, the easiest way to ensure that we’re all on the same metaphorical page is to make sure that we’ve all already read the same metaphorical book. Ya feel?

DB: I would quickly like to mention that we’ve managed to completely ignore the financial aspect of all this. We are privileged enough to be able to afford a few of the 100+ (!!!) streaming services available right now. For those who might not be able to dabble in such luxuries, they can go to the store and buy an HD antenna for $30. That one-time payment gives them access to all of the major networks. The MacGyver reboot probably seems pretty dope when it’s one of the few things you can sit down and watch with your family. (Yeesh). That accessibility is why you’re right about This is Us and why shows like it will continue to get the most viewers.

About your nostalgia theory though.

I really love the work you put into it. It was well thought out and it made a ton of sense. So let me tell you why it’s wrong.

We’re getting to a point where there isn’t even going to be a place where everyone can go to watch comfort shows like Friends or The Office. Every company is quickly jumping on the streaming service bandwagon, and that will significantly reduce the amount of water cooler conversation that can happen, even about old shows we all love.

Actually, what is the modern equivalent of water cooler conversation, anyway? Discord? Slack? (I don’t know, but the world is becoming much less about in person interaction and honestly I’m thriving).

Friends is leaving Netflix for HBOMax in 2020 and The Office is leaving in 2021 for a yet to be announced NBC streaming service. The golden era of the Shared Experience is dead. It’s alright though, because to paraphrase Rick Blaine: We’ll always have Scranton.