My name is Paola B. Sur and I am addict. A TV addict. I acknowledge it and declare it public, although this does not mean I want to go to rehab, in the best style of Amy Winehouse, (I said no no no). And like any addict, I now think about the factor that led me to this state. I am not talking about when you hit rock bottom. I speak of that “something” that has influenced me to fall into the addition. For me it boils down to one word: NETFLIX. And of course, like any other addict, I have a partner, although at this point I don’t know who is the kettle or who is the pot. This person is my husband.
It all started when he came home with a little device called Apple TV. Soon we realized we did not need the 1500 television channels, which we paid an unnecessary amount of money for. With cable TV out of the picture almost completely, our nights became marathons of television series, watching back-to-back episodes of those series that Netflix offers for us the addicts. It starts with the first chapter of a popular TV show, a pilot of that series that everyone talks about in social networks and you’re the only idiot who does not know what the heck is going on. Generally the series has aired one or two seasons. Since that very first episode you are doomed. Thereafter your nights end at 2 o’clock in the morning, with you watching episode after episode, fighting your desire to sleep because your desire to see what happens is bigger and uncontrollable. Once the seasons on Netflix are completed and you are up to date with it you have two options: subscribe to Hulu or some other television service that offers the possibility to catch up with the most recent season or the weekly chapters, just as the other mortals do, or download them online. The problem with that is that the nights become void, and then you are asking yourself, what do I watch now? So you choose another series and the cycle starts again…
This is what the new way of consuming television has left us. The possibility to enjoy what we want, when we want, and how we want, without having to suffer through annoying commercials, or having to wait a long week to see what happens next in many cases. In fact, many couples have found in their Netflix nights a way to reconnect, to discover new things in common, but this also leads to “television cheating,” as I recently read on another blog. This happens when a couple, faithful to a series discovers that night after night this is the time to be together, is the new something to share. And when one of them goes on a trip, and the one who is left at home alone decides to watch the episodes without the other, that’s what is considered as “television cheating.” It happened to me. My husband “cheated” the week that I went to Miami and watched what was left of the second season of Revenge without me. Unforgivable! I had to catch up biting back the comments he made “accidentally” spilling the beans of some important details.
The truth is that it’s fun, at least for us. We realized after 10 years together that we have a lot more in common than we thought. It was a solution for our date nights at home since we almost never find who can babysit our daughter. You have to be resourceful. We have sustained all kinds of conversations that come out of the themes of the series we watch and have had interesting discussions. In short, our addiction has brought us closer as a couple. And if television offers us this opportunity well, let’s enjoy it! So now I’m preparing for tonight with two major season ends: The Following and Vikings, because we did not see it yesterday. And last but not least, the return of Revenge and catching up on Once Upon a Time, not to mention that last night we started with Game of Thrones … I told you I am an addict, didn’t I?
What do you think? Does this have happened to you? What are those series that have made you a TV addict?
