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Fan of Amazon Prime’s The Tick, may have noticed that the first season of the new series based on the hero, has been separated into two batches, six episodes are currently available for streaming on Amazon Prime, and six more will be made available later this autumn.
This decision was made by the show’s creators, and their reason is a good one.
Speaking to CinemaBlend, creator Ben Edlund and his executive producers revealed that they purposefully split the season in two, deciding to air it in two six-episode portions, in an effort to push back against the viewership’s tendency to binge watch.
“The Binge Watching [sic] issue is… I see it as it’s a perfect dive from a high board, and there’s no splash,” Edlund told CB. “We’re all sort of veterans of the opposite of that. Fan energy wants to have a culture to express itself in. So if you split a season, and give a gap in-between, you get anticipation, you get people are able [to] talk about what happened.”
This isn’t exactly a new idea—if I recall, Hulu’s rationale for airing shows like The Path one episode at a time was similar—but it’s still really intriguing to me. I’m interested in the way delivery method and form shapes the way we receive a medium like television. Does watching a show in a staggered manner allow us to engage with it, to even enjoy it, more than watching it in one or two big clumps?
This isn’t a completely new concept, WWE recently did this with their Mick Foley fronted reality show/sitcom-esque series, Holy Foley. I personally didn’t watch this show but I did hear people discussing it, I know though that I actually prefer this method of watching, one per week isn’t ideal for streaming services as I feel it’s too long to wait for shows in this day and age, and would actually prefer it if TV networks put up the next edition online or something similar like Hollyoaks and Home & Away did here in the UK. But putting up half of a season now and another half later, is more than welcomed.
Edlund and co. appear to have the right idea in my mind, while I love to binge, sometimes I’m busy and have to wait a little bit longer than other people so have to browse the web carefully to avoid spoilers. I know others that are regularly in that position!
We’ll have to see what the general consensus is when the remainder season of The Tick is available on Amazon Prime.
Do you think this is a good idea? Sound off below.