The newly released collection ofThe Great British Baking Showonly contains one episode onNetflixas of right now with a thumbnail that announces, “new episodes weekly.” Similarly, the upcoming rap competition seriesRhythm & Flowwill release episodes in batches. The first four episodes will be released on October 9 and will reveal theAmerican Idol-style auditions with judges T.I., Cardi B, and Chance the Rapper. Then, episodes 5-7 will be released on October 16, and episodes 8-10 will follow on October 23.
It seems Netflix may be rethinking some aspects of its model in light of competition from upcomingstreaming platforms, and has started to release certain shows one episode at a time, going against the binge-culture it helped create. So far, Netflix has restricted the practice to its reality competition series dependent on weekly eliminations.
The model of weekly releases allows the shows to keep the tension of elimination alive when it would be all too easy for fans to skip a few episodes to get to the end, but they aren’t the only streaming platform to begin this change. The highly anticipatedStar Warsseries fromDisney Plus,The Mandalorian, is expected to drop on the internet weekly as well. Hulu also has followed this model for many of its shows. Sometimes, this is due to licensing the content rather than producing it, other times they simply release a few episodes to test the waters and then release the rest of the series weekly. Either way, the streaming world seems to be at a crossroads.
On the other hand, serialized television, which follows a continuous story arc rather than rely on stand-alone episodes with their own contained story, is arguably best consumed as a single, very long, viewing. The shift to binge-culture has allowed creators the freedom to structure shows more like movies than ever before. Whether streaming services will make this distinction between crafts is yet to be known.
There is plenty of content left to binge on Netflix, however.The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistancewas just released,Mindhunter’snew second season received rave reviews, and13 Reason Whyseason 3 is currently available. Now that many of the Network shows have wrapped up, they’ve landed on Netflix as well. The latest seasons fromMarvel’s Agents of Shield,The Good PlaceandThe Walking Deadare ready to binge. Upcoming Netflix releases include the limited seriesUnbelievablecoming Sept 13 as well as new seasons of Jon Favreau’sThe Chef ShowandThe Ranch. This story was first reported on byComic Book.
