A better way (I think)

So, as you might know, this Sunday is the finale of ABC's LOST, one of the more anticipated events in recent TV history. The show has been quite popular and has kept it's fans guessing for the better part of the last 6 years, and they will all be watching as the answers (well, at least most of them, I'm sure there will be some mystery left) are revealed. And I will join them, though my journey has been a bit different.

You see, prior to the first of this year, I had never seen a single episode of LOST. I really am not one to be drawn to new TV shows by the previews, so I rarely catch a new show from the very beginning, and by the time I'd heard enough good things about LOST to be intrigued by it, it was several episodes in, and I knew it was the kind of show that I'd want to see from the beginning. Catching up on a show was not as easy back in 2004 as it is today, with the prevalence of things like iTunes, video on-demand service, networks posting back episodes on their website, etc, so I figured some day, at least after the first season DVDs came out, I'd give the show a try and catch up if I liked it. Some day turned out to be earlier this year, and it wasn't by some serious compulsion - I got a Blu-ray player for Christmas, had my Netflix account ready to go, and was looking for some adds to the queue. LOST was one of the more intriguing options to come to mind, so I added the first season and was ready to see if I liked it. After the first disc or so in the first season, I was into the show and decided that I would continue.

This immediately presented me with a bit of a deadline. I knew the season that was upcoming was to be the last for the show. As popular and talked about as LOST was, I also knew that, were I not caught up and able to watch the finale when it aired, there was no way I was going to be go any length of time without hearing some major spoilers - so I had to caught up by the finale. I added seasons 2-5 to my queue and got to work. When the beginning of February rolled around, I set my DVR to record all of this season's episodes so they would be ready for me when I needed them. I initially wound up going almost too fast, and in March and April had to "ration" my watching, because I decided I couldn't go from being able to watch a new episode pretty much on demand to getting caught early in the final season and having to wait week to week. It worked out pretty well, and tonight I just watched last week's episode and last night's episode, so I'm all caught up and ready for the finale.

Inadvertantly, I may have stumbled onto a vastly superior way to watch TV - or at least serial dramas. I see a number of very positive aspects of going this way:

1. No fear of "failure" - Like I said, I don't often get in on the ground floor of shows very often, so this isn't something I've run into too often, but very often serial dramas don't grab enough of an audience and get dumped before they can wrap up their storylines - which really sucks for the loyal fans the show did have. My most recent similar experience to this has been with Friday Night Lights, which started out on NBC, was very nearly axed after its first season, and then was moved so that its first run epsiodes would air exclusively on DirecTV, before re-runing on NBC. It's made it through 4 seasons now (the last two have been shortened), but the 4th season was the first one that ended with any certainty about whether the show was coming back (the last renewal was for seasons 4 + 5, with 5 widely expected to be the last), and yet season finales constantly left plenty of unresolved questions. Heroes also just got axed after 4 seasons having left a lot open in its season (now series) finale, but that show has been consistently going in the tank for the last couple seasons and I wasn't likely to come back anyhow. Regardless, going the "wait and catch-up" route eliminates this concern - you can start watching knowing the plots will be brought to conclusion, or you can at least make an educated decision to watch a show that got the early axe, knowing what you'll be getting into.

2. No waiting - Watching a show as it unfolds always necessitates waiting at least a week between episodes, and in the case of serial dramas, you're usually signing up for months between seasons with some sort of cliffhanger to be resolved. The shorter seasons LOST has run from 4-6 have resulted in almost 9 months between season finale and season premiere, and for shows that run through a full traditional season, these days you're almost invariably looking at some form of hiatus at multiple times to keep the episodes lined up with sweeps and the like. The longest I went between LOST episodes was a week (driven by blizzard related mail delays and a disc that was broken on delivery), and it just so happened that occurred between the 2nd season finale and 3rd season premiere, so I was still months ahead of everyone else on that wait. This also feeds into...

3. No commercials - There are no commercials on Blu-rays, and I can skip them on the DVR'd episodes. Nothing more needs to be said.

4. Ease of recall - Most shows aren't as involved as LOST, but in general, serial dramas are building on something, which makes it helpful if you remember what happened in previous episodes and seasons. I could be wrong, but I'm assuming it's much easier to remember what happened in Season 1 if you watched it a few months ago as opposed to several years ago.

5. Muting of a potential final letdown - Let's face it, a number of these kind of shows have had finales that were quite disappointing. I feel like such a letdown would be much less brutal if you've only been watching for a few months before getting to them as opposed to 5+ years.

Now, there are also some potential pitfalls with this method, the primary one being the obvious issue of spoilers. By catching up before the finale, I've eliminated the possibility the "big" spoiler, but as popular as LOST is, it was inevitable that I was going to pick up somethings, some of which I had picked up before I even started watching. It got particularly difficult once season 6 started up, but overall, I didn't have anything major spoiled. And of course, there's the fact that if everyone tried to employ this method, there would never be a serial drama made again, because they wouldn't get ratings. This is also an easier method for me, because I don't watch a ton of non-sports TV to begin with, so I have time to devote to such an effort, in short bursts.

Regardless of all of that, I've really enjoyed watching LOST in this manner, and will likely try do something similar in the future. I'm probably not patient enough to take this approach with every show that piques my curiosity :-)