My first instinct is to blame Netflix for this. By "this," I mean my rather erratic TV viewing habits. Gone are the days of neat and ordered viewing, an episode a week enjoyed genially at the time it's aired (or an hour or two later, because life before DVR is hazy and may not have actually been real). Gone are the days where I can flit between a bunch of shows, casually watching "whatever happens to be on" with mild but a steady sense of disinterest...
At any given time, I need "a series." I need a single (okay, maybe three) programs I can pull up at a whim, ones that can hold my interest steady for four plus hours, in the event I need a binge, which is the preferred method of viewing...
Until I get, you know, a bit too deep in. In already-completed programs, this will happen around season 4. Of every ten, the majority won't be viewed past this point. My interest suddenly fizzles to zero, and the thought of pulling up an episode seems unmanageable.
As a result, a good deal of the shows I've begun have remained perpetually unfinished for me (or for those ongoing, I've fallen dreadfully behind). And I need to stop doing that! I've been unsuccessfully evading Buffy spoilers for too long. I'd like to follow the Call The Midwife tag on Tumblr. And I need to learn what on Earth the Big Deal Thing was at the end of True Blood season 4. I'm a girl of the Harry Potter generation, gosh darn it! An obsession with the way things end is in my blood, right?
Or maybe that's the problem. Harry Potter, after all, was and wasn't about how the whole thing ended. It was the lead-up, the guessing, the weird sense that this could go on forever, even though it obviously can't. Harry Potter taught me both how to care deeply about how something ends, while subconsciously dreading them. I like getting more of the story (thus the episode binges) but I don't actually want to run out. And if I back away half-way through, I can be assured there's always a bit of story still waiting for me, until I decide to pick it up next. Unless of course it's just too good to pass up. In which case, I'll gladly go racing straight to the finish.
