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While movies still get a lot of critical acclaim, television series are gaining popularity. That’s not surprising: series tend to have longer running times and characters that face more challenges than movies do. Plus, they allow the characters to develop and become real, requiring greater commitment.
Streaming Services Assume They Own Your Free Time
When you watch TV series on streaming services, you are essentially paying the service to own your time. Traditional television assumes you have limited time and has to accommodate advertising breaks. As a result, scripts are usually divided into sections to allow these breaks. While this is a necessary part of traditional television, it disrupts the story’s momentum. On the other hand, streaming services assume you have an unlimited amount of time and do not have to worry about ad breaks. Streaming shows run as continuous narratives across every episode without ad breaks.
Provide Linearly Progressing Storylines
The linear nature of TV series provides a deeper commitment than movies do. Movies can be sped up to fill the time, but TV shows are often spread over several hours. Consequently, viewers must devote more time and effort to watching their preferred shows.
Allow the Characters to Become Real People
If you love watching movies and TV shows, you know that you have to spend more time watching TV series. But the reward is worth it: you can immerse yourself in the world of your favorite show without any interruptions. You can see and experience all the characters’ emotions in a TV show. You will get to know them as real people.
Watching TV series is often easier for many people than watching a single movie. You can take breaks while watching a movie requires you to be glued to the screen for two hours straight. And if you don’t enjoy it, you can’t just skip ahead and watch the next episode. It may also have something to do with the human attention span: watching several television show episodes is easier than watching a two-hour film.
TV series have several genres. For example, one group of viewers is called binge-watchers. People who binge-watch tend to be emotionally reactive and impulsive. Generally, they also enjoy watching TV series to escape negative affective states.
More Character Growth
A longer runtime means more time is spent with each character. They have more room to develop since they experience more difficulties and setbacks than they would in a movie. Long-running television series is renowned for how much their lead characters develop. Simply put, a movie does not have the time to subject them to as many trials as a series would. Even while a skilled director can bring about a lot of change in a movie, it probably won’t come close to what a TV show character goes through.
Require a Higher Level of Commitment
Television series have many advantages over movies, but one of the biggest is that they require more time to watch. On the other hand, movies come out in the theater every three months, and you can’t watch the same movie over again. Moreover, most TV series are developed with a single plot line, meaning you won’t have to watch the same episode repeatedly. On top of that, TV series have a larger amount of story development.
Unpredictability
Television is more engaging for viewers since it is unpredictable. Films can also be unpredictable, but not in the sense that add fresh turns and twists so frequently and at such regular intervals.