Loved 'Adolescence,' Hate the Binge
Bring back the weekly episode drop!
It happened last year with Baby Reindeer, too. I began seeing a show talked about by enough people whose taste level conjures intrigue that I find myself doing a cursory Google. In that instance, I read the premise — a struggling comedian’s strange and layered relationship with a woman whose initially friendly demeanor unravels as she begins to stalk him relentlessly — and thought, “nah.” But then the conversation started to boil to an unavoidable level that made me ultimately submit. In the end, I’m glad I did, as I both wrote about the show in this here newsletter and watched as it swept multiple award shows in recognition of its novel storytelling. And it’s happening all over again now with the new series Adolescence.
The headlines indicate it’s both a critical hit (“‘Adolescence’ Is the Biggest and Best Show of the Year”) and a commercial one (“‘Adolescence’ Sets Netflix Record With 66.3 Million Views, Best Ever Two-Week Total for a Limited Series”) and after watching the first episode I very much understand why.
Like Baby Reindeer, this show lacks the bells and whistles that tend to accustom a show that will no doubt sweep the awards circuit. And like Baby Reindeer, the premise — a family’s world is turned upside down when a 13-year-old boy is arrested for the murder of a teenage girl who goes to his school — did nothing to hook me. Of course, once I dipped a toe in, I found myself completely immersed and captivated, mouth agape, by this show’s truly landmark storytelling. But as I tried to spread out my viewing experience of the four-part miniseries, I found myself unable to find media that broke the series down by episode, rather than solely discussing it as a whole. And thus it truncated what I desired to be an expansive dissection of a show that I think is more than worthy of the same White Lotus-esque weekly discourse.
Let’s get into the show and why the binge drop model has no place in our current media consumption ecosystem.