the TV binge

I'm getting into the second season of Atlantis, which ended on one mother of a cliffhanger for the first season finalle. A few episodes in and I'm hooked again, its a piss off I'm so over this binge TV. Having to wait a year between seasons and watching them all in the span of a week or so. I also just watched up to the last episode of Heroes and have to wait 6 week for the final 5 episodes of the season. I'm lovig Both is it the way of television shows?, I don't know if i can do that. its even more difficult if i watch any of my british TV shows on DVD, I can watch a full season in one sitting of those, having just watched Red Dwarf and the Good Life, which average about 8 episodes a season. The other way to look at it is perhaps how we read books. Quite often I have 2 or three books on the go at a time depending on what i'm in the mood for? Others cant read more than one book at a time having to stop and read the whole book before going onto the next?. It Occured to me this is how I'm watching my TV. We sit for hours immersed in one TV reality now and absorb the whole lot before going onto the next block. Its TV binging and is it good for us. As an example of how bad this is for me. I'm getting up early and instead of going out to exercise i'll sit the Exercise bike in front of the DVD and ride through a whole episode of whatever it is i'm watching. My World of Wacraft characters are being negected for mindless exercise in front of a TV. Its a strange thing for me but I cant stop it. Is TV the new book? In that we will sit down and read chapters with our kids before bed, giving them a new chapter each night and then going ont the next story. That being said, are feature films the new short-story peices? Im not worried that these things will die as many in the industry are, I'm worried that I have to adapt to a new way of doing things when i had grown up doing in in a completely different way. But that is the way of nature isn't it, adapt or Perish.