As people who follow my Twitter most likely know, I mainly go through TV shows by utilizing the 10 Words or Less format, basically serving as a quick way to get my thoughts out on each episode as I go. But by this point, I think it’s high time for a change.
See, for a while now, I’ve tried to hold firm to the idea that you shouldn’t just binge through a show, especially if you plan on doing a review of it. Netflix‘s release strategy basically encourages binging, and as someone who’s actually done binging myself several times, I can say that it‘s 100% not for me. Not only does it inevitably lead to episodes bleeding together in your mind, but because you go through it so quickly, you don’t really have a chance to truly absorb everything, to take it all in and process things before moving on to the next piece.
What does this have to do with anything? Well, lately, I’ve come to the realization that…I don’t really practice what I preach. With how I do my 10 Words or Less threads, the speed at which I go mainly depends on how long the episodes run for. If it’s a show with 11-minute segments, I do four a day; if it’s a show with 22-minute episodes, I do two a day. Once we get to the 40-minute mark, that’s when I restrict myself to just one. That’s how I’ve been doing it for a while now, and it is certainly efficient. But in the case of the first two scenarios, that does eventually lead to episodes bleeding over, which sucks when you’re trying to do reviews.
On top of all that, taking this approach inevitably backfires when IRL factors get involved. With how my daily routine goes, chances are high that something will happen that leads to me having to delay things further, and when you’re trying to keep a consistent schedule on things, that sucks. It also doesn’t help that it restricts the time I have to do other things like whatever game I’d like to be playing or YouTube videos I want to experience. I function best when I have less to deal with, basically.
So with all that in mind, how do I go about fixing it? Believe it or not, the inspiration for these changes came from how my review series of ”The Fairly OddParents” is going. Sure, I don’t see that many people reading them, but the thing is…I feel proud of it so far. Going through the show one segment at a time has done wonders in how I analyze the series, and it’s because I take it one step at a time.
That is why, going forward, one change I’m implementing is the rate I go. If the show has 11-minute segments, I’ll only do one in a single day, to give you an idea. That way, my mind can properly absorb everything, and I can hopefully get out some level of unique insight that the 10 Words or Less format lacks.
That leads me onto the second change. My current threads are covering “Green Eggs and Ham” and “Rugrats”, and for the remainder of those threads, they will maintain the 10 Words or Less format. But after those, that format will essentially be phased out. Now, I’m not exactly Ms. Cold Turkey, and switching things right off the bat would just throw me off too much. I’m basically trying to ease myself into this new style, and I’m fairly confident it’ll work out for the better.
In place of the 10 Words or Less format, my thoughts on each episode will be given using this blog. It’s proven to be a very effective way to catalogue all my thoughts more easily without having to make over a dozen tweets talking about the show generally. My friend Toon4Thought describes that as being unwieldy and…yeah, that’s accurate. Plus, with this blog, I can go into as much detail as I want, which I think is when I work best in terms of writing reviews.
Now, if I’m only going through one segment/episode a day, wouldn’t that make going through these shows last forever? Well, yeah, but if I’m taking time out of my day to properly analyze it, then I don’t think it‘s right to just rush it. But I also want to make sure I’m experiencing as much as I can, so I’ve got a bit of a compromise here: a weekly schedule for each show.
That’s right, each day of the week will have a review dedicated to an episode of a specific show. Now, obviously, that’s not gonna happen right away(like I said, I’m trying to ease my way into it), but doing it this way will hopefully keep discussions varied enough to where I can keep people interested. The only real rule is that any show with episodes longer than a half hour will be reserved for Wednesdays and Thursdays, since those are my days off work.
So yeah, it‘s a pretty big shift in how things are going to be done, but I do have confidence it’ll work out in the long run, and as far as you guys are concerned, I hope this approach will lead to more substantial content for you to indulge in. The first series I’m testing this with is gonna be whichever one wins my most recent poll, so I guess we’ll see the results of this change then.
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