Originally published on August 28, 2017
It’s hard to believe the current Game of Thrones season is over (or will be, when this article is
published). It’s been a stressful season for many reasons, not because of
cliffhangers and character deaths, but because of the leaky nature of this
season as a whole. Episode 4 was leaked a couple days before it aired. Soon
after, the scripts for Episodes 5 and 7 followed. And in a blunder that had
nothing to do with hackers, Episode 6 was aired
once, the Wednesday before it was supposed to air. It was a nightmare for
people like me who had to avoid YouTube comment sections and recommended videos
and even be wary on other social media sites because for a few days there were
two types of people: those who had seen the leaked episode, and those who had
not.
It stands to show the fortitude of the fans of this show
because the leaks have not affected the number of viewers. Each week the show
crushes its own records. And somehow the finale stayed under wraps until it was
originally supposed to air. Yet I have heard the idea of releasing the final
season all in one go, since it is only 6 episodes (albeit about the same
minutes-wise as a regular season). I’m torn on how I feel. If someone said the
final season was available somewhere and I could watch all of it in one go, I
might just pounce on it. On the other hand, what I discovered this year between
the off-season and during the actual season is the amount of fun the online
community has just waiting for the next episode. People take the time to watch
it two or three times, looking for small details, making informed predictions
about what would come next, and discussing it at large. A week can be both a
very long and very short amount of time.
What this is all boiling down to is are we in such an
on-demand world, a world of instant gratification, that a week really is
torture to wait between episodes of a beloved show? Is this now the beginning
of the end of television as a weekly format? We have already seen in recent
years the ongoing switch to on-demand and mobile app being the preferred
methods of consuming TV. That’s how I watched most of my TV this past year. But
that is rather different than Netflix’s method of releasing all of their
episodes of original content at the same time.
If releasing all episodes in one go became the norm, I think
the world of fandoms would suffer a little bit. Even water cooler chatting
would be different. It would be the end of “so how about Game of Thrones last night?”. Not everyone would have watched all
the episodes at the same time, so then we come back to the discussion of
spoilers and having to avoid the Internet for a time. Even though it is clear
we live in a world of instant gratification, that does not mean we have to continue
it. It is good to slow down and let things take their time. Good things come to
those who wait, or something like that.
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