Soooooo…. I know this is yet another trend I am woefully behind on but recently I have become a partaker (victim) of….”Binge Watching”. I had never really heard the term until fairly recently. Certainly 2013 at the earliest, not before that though. I am certain some trend setting Millennials with their oodles of free time and total lack of Protestant Work Ethic (no offense intended to my Catholic and Jewish friends and sadly, to the best of my knowledge I have no Muslim friends or even acquaintances although FOX News assures me that “America” is being inundated by them AND THEY MEAN ME HARM!). But I digress… Binge Watching.
Wikipedia, the preeminent source for all information on the planet traces the term back to the 90’s but it’s entry also credits the internet and of course NetFlix for making this…. a thing. They also cite “Breaking Bad” as a frequently binge watched show.
Anyway, for an old man but a veteran TV watcher it is kind of an odd experience. You get to see the story arc unfold so quickly and there is no waiting till next week or forgetting what characters were doing what to whom. I have experimented a little with this bingwatching thing when my wife insisted (and I turned in the shredded piece of cardboard that was once my man card and acquiesced) and we caught up on two previous seasons of “Downton Abbey”. Go ahead, make fun of me. I can live with it. I also had ignored “Breaking Bad” and then spent several days tuning in and out of the AMC Marathon leading up to the series finale. We had also had minor experiences with DVR and having three shows stacked up all at once to watch of “Modern Family” but nothing like this particularly addictive adventure.
For the past Month and a half, I been watching “The Wire”. Everyone raved about it when it was on HBO but there really is not time to set aside to watch and keep track of these great dramas on Cable. HBO really started this whole genre of quality programming with “The Sopranos” but “The Wire” started shortly thereafter and ran for five seasons. My evil friend Mogerman told me I needed to watch them after he had consumed them all over some period on the treadmill. This was St. Louis columnist Bill Mcclellan's favorite show because they “got it right” whether it was city police or city government or the newspapers. The show is set in Baltimore and season one focuses on a special unit of cops set up to investigate and prosecute a string of murders by one particularly successful and vicious gang. They develop 8-9 characters on the police side and do the same on the gang side throughout the season until they wrap up season one putting the bad guys in jail… but not all the bad guys...and for not all that long… and at a pretty great personal price to a lot of the cops.
It was just fascinating because it was so well done. Well paced, well written and well filmed and in season one the great alt country rocker Steve Earle makes an appearance as an AA mentor and recovering junkie (which arguably was easier for him to play, since he is). Then he comes back in the later seasons and that is one of the brilliant things about the series. Everyone comes back and they keep building season on season until you have a whole city. A whole well constructed world. A well written world. A brilliantly written world.
They do kill off the characters though and it get’s heartbreaking as the series progresses. In Season 4 they knock of my favorite character Proposition Joe. Joe was “The Good Drug Dealer” with good connections, the good dope and a good head on his shoulders. He was always around to ask for a deal or to suggest a compromise or just to make a head smart play. He was the classic…”It is nothing personal, it is just business” type character. He takes the young evil drug dealer under his wing and teaches him all about the business and ultimately… it ends poorly for Prop Joe… and it broke my heart! Seriously…
The character development was flawless and the characters were compelling. Michael was street kid who had a drug addict mom and was raising his half brother and became a contract killer working with the creepily perfect female killer, Snoop. Until they decided they needed to kill him...buuuuut…
But it was not all cold blooded murders. There was the politician Clay Davis….Sheeeeeeeit!
But the series had a 100 classic moments like Snoop, at the Hardware Barn… buying a nail gun in order to… well you would need to watch the series.
And there was Omar Little. He robbed the drug dealers. A tragic/comic figure without equal. Shakespearian…. and he loved Honey Nut Cheerios. Who doesnt?
There were white people too. A lot of them. There characters were also richly drawn. The homicide unit. The Port Authority Teamsters. The Politicians. The Schools and finally the Newsroom.
I just finished the whole five seasons and I was pretty much spellbound by the entire thing. It was unbelievably enveloping and it was hard to get done work or communicate with people or read any books or eat, or sleep or blink or… anything. And tonight it ended… and I feel very empty. Kind of like what I imagine the ending of a serious drug addiction probably feels like.
Binge Watching.
This series was so good that I fear I may fall prey to more. Perhaps really immerse myself in “Breaking Bad”. Even worse I might have to watch Kevin Spacey and “House of Cards”. The good news there is that there are only two seasons to catch up on. Maybe this “Game of Thrones” show that everyone is talking about. I don’t know. Bing Watching… it could be the death of me. But it might be a very intriguing ride. But for God’s sake don't let it happen to you!
