![]() Did Gotham get better? Maybe-but I don’t really mind missing out on a pretty good show. I found it very easy to part ways with Gotham after sampling the pilot, and haven’t looked back. But because there’s always one more Daredevil to devour, I feel compelled to consume them all. (Purging being another term with unfortunate food associations.) For some reason, it’s very easy to quit a weekly show mid-season, or even after one less-than-enticing episode. I’m binge-watching to simply get a show off my plate-I’m purge-watching, basically. Yet too often I find myself binge-watching for other less noble and less enjoyable reasons-much in the way that, say, the concept of binge-eating doesn’t exactly conjure culinary discernment or unmitigated enjoyment. (The most extreme example of this phenomenon is when someone skips the show altogether and just reads the Wikipedia page.) I was in it to the end, no matter what. I wasn’t enjoying Daredevil per se, but I knew I’d keep watching, just to find out what happens. ![]() Then I remembered the poker term “pot committed,” and realized that was my problem exactly. A few of the answers hinted at specific shows other people have felt this way about: “ Broadchurch-ing,” “ Card-housing,” and “ Friday Night Lights–ing.” My favorite suggestion was “ purge-watching,” since it gets at that feeling of dreary obligation, of the chorelike effort to clear away televisual clutter, as though you’re finally eating that can of lentil soup that’s been sitting in the cupboard, just to get rid of it. A few people wondered if this wasn’t simply hate-watching, though hate-watching to me seems both more active and more actively enjoyable. During a pause in Daredevil (actually, it was during another endless conversation between Wilson Fisk and Madame Gao in Chinese), I asked Twitter whether there’s a term for what feels like the opposite of binge-watching: that modern sensation of feeling compelled to finish a show that you don’t really like. ![]() This strategy is premised on the popularity of binge-watching: the manic desire to consume every unwatched episode of a great show as quickly as possible. Like every Netflix original series, and unlike traditional TV, Daredevil is released one whole season at a time. ![]() Well, I’ve already spent eight hours, I thought. There I was, eight episodes in, with only five more to go-I had to stick it out, right? Even though, on the whole, I found the show underwhelming, and had certainly amassed enough evidence-eight hours’ worth!-that a sudden uptick in enjoyment was unlikely. I was reminded of this concept sometime around the middle of Episode 8 of Daredevil on Netflix. ![]()
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