Power-Watching TV Takes Edge Off Strike

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Power-watching TV takes edge off strike
Entire seasons on DVD viewed in long sessions
By Matthew Gilbert
Globe Staff / February 9, 2008



The Writers Guild of America strike has left Kristen Merrill bereft. "I go to watch 'How I Met Your Mother,' and there are no new ones," the Brighton resident said about CBS's Monday night sitcom. "I miss it."
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But every TV loss provides an opportunity, and not just to pick up a book. Like many viewers suffering from strike-related withdrawal, Merrill, 27, has used the recent shortage of new programming to engage in some serious power-watching - that is, catching up by watching entire seasons of TV shows in a few hardcore marathon viewing sessions.

Recently, Merrill said, she sat through all the DVDs of "Alias," the Jennifer Garner spy drama that left the air in 2006. "One of my friends bought a five-season box set of 'Alias,' and it took us a ridiculously short time to get through it." She has also brought herself up to speed on "Lost" by power-watching the first two seasons in 14 days. She plans to begin the third season today.

Before the strike, which began in November, consuming TV on DVD was already popu lar. Television shows on disc accounted for $2.5 billion in studio revenues in 2007, according to Tom Adams of Adams Media Research. With power-watching, you can see an entire TV series on your own terms, in quick obsessive gulps, with no commercial interruptions. You can have an orgy of, say, five years of "Six Feet Under" in just 10 days. You can have "Lost" weekends.

During the strike, power-watching has been the perfect way to fill the gap left by the lack of new episodes. Once the writers strike is resolved - and resolution, according to published reports, is imminent - more viewers might understand the virtues of power-watching and resist committing to primetime schedules. Already eroding because of DVD and digital-on-demand viewing, the phenomenon of watching TV when it airs could be one step closer to extinction.

Rob Watson of Jamaica Plain said the strike inspired him to sit down and watch the complete first two seasons of "How I Met Your Mother," which he'd previously resisted despite the recommendations of friends. "I wouldn't have gotten around to it if it hadn't been for the strike," he said. "It isn't the kind of show I thought I would like at all, and I actually thought it was pretty great."

Watson, 25, said he joined Netflix, a DVD rental service, after the strike began. "I just ordered the first season of 'Friday Night Lights,' " the NBC drama about a high school football team in Texas. "That's another one people have been recommending that I haven't gotten around to." And during the strike Watson's friends have taken power-watching suggestions from him. "I've also found myself recommending shows that I like, like 'The Comeback,' " Lisa Kudrow's short-lived, cultish HBO comedy. "I'm converting people now."

Power-watching has become Watson's viewing method of choice. "Some shows are even better when digested in that way," he said. "Like 'Arrested Development' - the commercial interruptions threw off the pace of that show. Information comes at you so quickly, you kind of lose your place in it after a four-minute break. And that's a show that if you watch three or four episodes in a row, it gets a kind of crazy momentum going. It makes it funnier." Serial dramas can also benefit from power-watching, because viewers do not run the risk of missing an episode and, as a result, missing important plot developments.

Watson said he feels less compelled to watch series episodes as they are broadcast on TV. "When a show starts that a friend recommends, I think, 'well I can always get that when it comes out on DVD.' "

For Joyce Godsey of Methuen, the strike has given her time to power-watch "The Closer," starring Kyra Sedgwick, and "Surface," a sci-fi series canceled after one season by NBC. "I've gotten through many shows on DVD I wouldn't normally have watched because I'm not being distracted by the shows I'm addicted to," she says.

Godsey, 45, generally tries to watch her favorite TV shows on the Internet, at the time of her own choosing, but even that source is empty from the strike. "Give me another two months of this, and I'll be gnawing my arm off," she says. "I'll be watching 'Gidget' and 'The Bachelor'!"

Power-watching speaks directly to the addictive quality of television. "It feels like when you get a season on DVD, it's something you have to get through," said Merrill, who lives in Brighton. "It's like, 'OK, one more episode, one more, one more.' "

Power-watching also speaks to our attention-deficit cultural pace. Many viewers are unwilling to commit to a two-hour movie at home. The idea of sitting for 30- or 60-minute stints is far more inviting - even if they ultimately end up watching more than two hours.

"I look at my Netflix list, and it used to be all movies," Merrill said. "And now it's all TV shows. I keep bumping the movies to the bottom."

Of course, speeding through great TV shows has one big drawback: The experience ends quickly. What those who watched "The Sopranos" on HBO savored over an eight-year period can be imbibed by eager power-watchers in a matter of weeks.

Said Godsey, "The bad part is you get to the end too fast."