When weekly television was at its most popular, I was far too young to actually be invested in it. I was two years old when “The Office” started airing, so I couldn’t exactly get invested in Jim and Pam’s slow burn romance. “Lost” premiered five days before my first birthday, so I wasn’t heading into work the next morning and discussing last night’s episode with all my co-workers. This is the definition of “water-cooler television”, meaning that the episodes were so important that they had to be talked about the next morning at the “water cooler”. Netflix was largely seen as the killer of this kind of TV, as they would release whole seasons of shows, such as “Outer Banks” or “Wednesday” all at once. While these shows still gained immense popularity, they did not have the same sort of “water cooler” effect, people were just binge-ing the whole season at once.
In recent years, there has been a resurgence of weekly release shows and it is absolutely beautiful. HBO is at the forefront, with “Euphoria”, “The White Lotus”, “Succession,” “House of the Dragon” and more. These shows all become massive moments in pop culture because people talk about them for full weeks until the next episode airs. The concept of “Euphoria Sundays” was huge. People (myself included) would gather in some cramped dorm room with their faces covered in glitter to watch the week’s latest episode while crowded around somebody’s laptop propped against a table. When the second season of “White Lotus” began, you would have to avoid Twitter for days if you missed an episode because people would begin discussing and tweeting at 10:00 p.m. that night. My friends and I would get together every single Sunday to watch the latest drama unfold, and then scroll through tweets to see if anyone else agreed with the seemingly masterful theories we came up with while watching. The finale aired when we were already on winter break, so we coordinated when we pressed play so we could live text about it together. I binged the first 3 seasons of “Succession” so I could be prepared for the weekly releases of the fourth season that comes out in March. “The Last of Us” based on the critically acclaimed video game just began on HBO, and I had to start watching it because I literally could not avoid spoilers on Twitter anymore. I had planned on watching the show regardless, but now my boyfriend and I are keeping up with the weekly releases. My entire timeline on Twitter is consumed by people talking about the show.
We need to fully revive the concept of weekly release TV because there is something about a shared human experience that is simply magical. I will watch whatever new weekly release comes out just because I can’t stand the idea of not having “a show.” It gives people something to look forward to and we all really need that in this day and age.
Emma is a sophomore studying journalism at Ohio University. Please note that the views expressed in this column do not reflect that of The Post. Want to talk to Emma? Tweet her @ErionEmma
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