Everything from the Boys, to Marvel shows, to Lower Decks waste so much time every episode recapping what happened previously. We’re watching these shows on demand. If we needed a recap we simply watch parts of the last episode. Binging shows is so normal it’s a meme now.
Do the people making these shows seriously think there’s a possibility of network syndication or something? As if we’ll eventually go back to the network model?
What do you think?
I don’t always binge watch shows. And I’m not going to rematch all the episodes every time I come back to a show. And as an ADHD person I appreciate the reminders of what happened.
So much time being 30s in an hour long episode?
If I’m binging, I’ll skip them if the option is there. Otherwise, they help when I remember a show exists and I come back to it.
I like them. I watch stuff in bursts. Like ten episodes at a time, then I don’t have the time to watch anything for a month and my memory gets sketchy.
And The Boys recaps are funny.
Previously on The Boys: Splatter, splash, gloop, burp, blop!
Honestly, the best treatment of this was in the pre-streaming world with the “next time on Arrested Development.”
The running joke is that they would pretty much never happen, except once in a while when they did.
I don’t binge. Can be helpful if it’s been a few weeks since I last watched one, although if it’s been that long and I can’t remember what happened then it’s probably not that good a show anyway.
Maybe have the recap as a separate bit that plays only if you’re not?
I’ve been watching Clone Wars with my partner and find the recaps really useful since we usually only watch one episode at a time.
Official chronological order, of course
A lot of times they re-cap the bits from previous episodes that are relevant to the one you’re about to watch. They aren’t random flashbacks.
Yeah. They always show that old character that you forgot about in the “previously on” right before his surprise comeback.
If they need a recap for the viewers to remember what’s going on then it’s bad storytelling.
Oh yeah, because everyone will obviously remember what a guy mentioned off hand on a random episode 5 years ago.
I agree that a “previously on” for what happened the previous episode is bullshit, but that’s almost never the case.
Not bad, just extended. If you’re watching season 3 and there’s a throwback to season 1, it’s good to have that reminder.
Or possibly the viewers have more going on in their lives than focusing on one TV show.
Not everyone binges shows, and some release weekly, and in either case are following the pattern of recaps for those who didn’t just watch the previous episode before starting the current one.
I’m just glad all of the ones I can think of have a skip recap button. Same for intros!
I watch shows 1-2 episodes at a time, then switch to another show.
I tend to watch shows three or so episodes at a time, but then it can be a few days or even weeks until I get back to it.
Side note: I really appreciate shows that put out a proper recap of the last season. I ain’t rewatching an entire season just so I can watch the new one.
I’d rather watch the recap than manually skip around through a previous episode. And if the recap leaves me confused then I’ll looks at the last episode.
I appreciate the 30 second heads up of which exact previous scenes will be important in the upcoming episode.
Even if I’ve just binged a bunch, and don’t need a recap of the broader story arc, there may have been a name drop or specific reference that could have been missed.
I think there are loads of people that watch several shows at once and get their wires crossed. But there are platforms that are able to skip those
My only gripe with this is with anime like Bleach. Each episode is 3 minutes of recap, 12 minutes of actual show, and 5 minutes of credits and the outro scenes that have nothing to do with the story. It’s somewhat infuriating to watch a recap of something that happened 10 minutes ago 4-5 times an hour.
Apart from that I don’t mind them as there is so much content out there and many shows are doing weekly releases, making it easy to forget details.
