LAUREN CEBALLOS / EIC

Before streaming platforms emerged, TV shows would drop one episode at a time during the week. Families would gather around the box with moving pictures for appointment TV. Once streaming appeared, viewers no longer  had to wait seven days to find out how the cliffhanger that was introduced in the last two minutes would end. 

While watching a weekly episode can be romanticized, viewers can still make an event out of a show that is released all at once. People are no longer forced to plan their week around an episode of TV. Audiences can have more control over when they want to watch it and more freedom to coordinate with their friends. 

Now we can watch it all at once and “binge” a show if you will — watching the episodes all the way through without stopping. Streaming also allows us to dictate our times of watching even if it is not all episodes after the other. 

Families used to gather around the TV, planning their day around their favorite show’s air time. Photo courtesy of National Library of Medicine/Unsplash

But now, streaming platforms are taking back our freedom and bringing back the week-long wait for our new favorite episodes of whatever show we’re watching. 

Netflix recently released “Wednesday” in this format. The show first aired in November of 2022 and it blew up throughout the media, drawing new eyes to the popular original “Addams Family.” Following the release came lots of buzz for the show, prompting the creation of a new season. Fans patiently awaited the season’s release and were met with a trailer revealing the split-season release. The show dropped the first four episodes of the show on Aug. 6 and the final four came out on Sept. 3. 

As a Netflix original, thanks to the platform’s vertical business model, Netflix has control over the distribution and production of the show. Netflix collects the internal data of its users data to determine its content. Without drawing in more users and viewers, they would not be able to keep collecting that data and remain successful. One way that they can do this is by breaking up the release of a show to draw audiences in. 

In USD language, it’s like Pizookie Tuesday. The five-dollar pizookie gets you in the door but the fact that you likely missed your window to get SLP dinner after class so you could get pizookies with your friends, causes what would be five dollars, turn into dinner and a drink too. “Wednesday” is the pizookie. In the month between Aug. 6 and Nov. 3, Netflix users likely found a show, a movie, or both that they got hooked on. They were then met with the classic “suggestions” and “recommendations” that bring and keep people in.

The slow show release is not for our benefit, but a benefit for the company. Netflix isn’t alone in doing this however. My personal pet peeve was Amazon Prime Videos’ similar tendencies. I love the show “The Summer I Turned Pretty.” It is a show that is exclusive to Amazon Prime Video and with that, they decided to release one episode a week. The first two episodes were released on July 16, followed by one episode every following Wednesday.

I understand that a possible reason for wanting to release the show one episode at a time would be to increase viewer engagement, but being the stubborn person that I am — it made me want to watch the show even less. I found myself seeing how long I could wait throughout the week before I watched it so it could be down to one less view as long as possible and I would try to watch the episodes back to back. I wanted to watch the show how I wanted to watch the show. I didn’t want someone or something else to control that. The whole point of streaming platforms is to provide a wide library for the people who use it. 

The way I see it is, I’m paying for it — so give it to me. Give me the shows that I want to watch on the release date — the entirety of the show. It would let me delete my subscription if I wanted to and I could control my viewing habits. I could personally decide to watch it once a week or watch it all in one sitting because I might have more time on a specific day.

I think the viewers should have a say in what they watch and when they watch it. Our data is already being collected by the algorithm. They know what we want, they are just keeping it from us, dangling it in front of our face. The market has grown so much for these platforms and they are trying to ensure that we keep it growing. 

I vote that these streaming services give the power back to the viewers and relinquish some control, they just might get some stubborn viewers back.

The caption of the post reads ‘grave time’s ahead. wednesday returns from the dead in one week,’ nudging the split release. Photo courtesy of @wednesdaynetflix/Instagram