Binge Watching →
There’s a fascinating article in the New York Times about Netflix’s plan for developing new shows based on four Marvel characters, coinciding with the release of the first of those shows, Daredevil. What I found interesting from the article is that Netflix’s business model and viewer behaviour lets them make shows that other networks can’t afford to develop.
There was nothing small, however, about the size of Marvel’s pitch: It wanted an upfront order of all five series, without pilot episodes. That approach seemed to rule out broadcast networks like ABC (…)
It also lets them make their shows differently.
The Netflix model also means that subsequent episodes don’t have to spend time recapitulating what happened in previous installments. “We had a brief discussion about it,” he said, “and decided: ‘Eh, why does that matter? People are going to binge-watch this.’ ”
It wasn’t mentioned in the article, but I noticed that most of the Daredevil episodes are closer to 60 minutes than the standard 42. I’ve really enjoyed the additional time that lets each episode tell the story it wants to, without squeezing it into a rigid time box.
One thing I’ve found curious is that all of Netflix’s original shows still show the intro sequences. These are even more redundant than the episode recaps. I wonder when Netflix will remove them too?