Longform Television Commentary

   For this week's assignment, I watched A Series of Unfortunate Events. Although I was only able to watch four episodes, I watched them all in one night so I think I still was able to feel the effect of binge watching. I've only watched one other long form of television, and that was Stranger Things, but that was over the course of a few weeks. In the Unfortunate Events series, it was interesting because the element of storytelling was more evident than I expected, possibly because I didn't read the books when I was younger as most other people did. The inclusion of a narrator really added to this because he told the audience what was going on through explaining definitions of words which were already known by the audience, and also because he was also a character in the series. I realized this when Count Olaf was trying the wedding cake flavors and his henchman said one flavor was lemony, which was also the name of the narrator. Count responded by telling him to never say that word again. He also told the audience when dramatic irony was happening and he would simply step into the scene and begin speaking while the scene paused behind him. All of these added to the storytelling part of the series. In addition, the set design was clearly made to look fake or like it came out of a storybook, much like Wes Anderson's films. For example, the outside of the homes were two-dimensional, and then not until they went inside did it look three dimensional and more realistic.
    I think the effect of binge watching it was that I developed a connection with the characters faster because I watched so many in a row. It also felt like I was watching a series of short films, not episodes, or even like I was watching a movie, because they were so long. I think this causes viewers to want to watch more because there are always cliffhangers, and this leads to even more binge watching. But I also think that watching a show like this where there are so many details can be difficult to binge watch and may take away from what they want the message to be. Watching a whole season in a day can make us drowsy and feeling unproductive, so we don't end up getting anything out of the show either because we're too tired to understand completely what's going on...or at least that's what happened to me.
   In the end, it was a fun show to watch, especially for the design and storytelling aspect, and I will definitely continue watching it, but probably not in one night. :)