Ahhh, binge watching. I love it and I hate it. Thinking of that time I watched 16 episodes of Community in one day fills me with pride, just as remembering how I spent that whole day slouched on the sofa, smelly and covered in popcorn kernels and spilled salsa, makes me feel the tiniest bit bad about the direction my life has taken.
Even if we feel bad about binge watching, we’ve all done it. And a recent study by The NPD Group has determined which shows we’re binge-watching most frequently.
And the top ten is, in decreasing level of bingeworthiness:
- Prison Break
- Charmed
- That ’70s Show
- How I Met Your Mother
- Gossip Girl
- Supernatural
- Scrubs
- Heroes
- 24
- One Tree Hill
This list fills me with questions. Among them: Prison Break is number one? Really? Should I watch an episode or two of Charmed and How I Met Your Mother? How many people mainlined seasons one through three of Supernatural just so they could get to Castiel in the season four premiere (guilty as charged)? How can people binge watch Heroes when there’s only one season?
Don’t argue. Heroes only had one season. It is known.
The study breaks down bingeing into two types: There’s “marathon bingeing,” which usually happens with shows that’ve gone off the air, and “catch-up bingeing,” which applies to current shows and usually increases before a premiere. A show’s binge ranking is heavily impacted, understandably, by its availability on streaming platforms like Netflix. I wouldn’t have thought Charmed would be so high up, but when you consider it’s available on Netflix Instant, Amazon Prime, and Hulu Plus, it makes sense. Likewise the study notes that many popular shows (The Big Bang Theory, for example), isn’t available on Netflix. I’d also add that all the shows on the list, with the exception of Prison Break and Heroes, have six or more seasons, so there’s more to binge.
Of this list, the only show’s I’ve binged are Supernatural and season one (THE ONLY SEASON) of Heroes. And then there are others: The Walking Dead, Community, The IT Crowd, Spooks (only the Richard Armitage seasons, because reasons), Being Human… the list goes on. How ’bout you? What’s your biggest bingeing achievement? Let’s share horror stories.
(via: TIME Entertainment)
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