Here’s some depressing maths for you: two people plus one television equals a whole lot of compromise. In the usual run of things, the prurient advice would be to choose your binge-watching buddy wisely, because you are entering into a serious and potentially long-term commitment. But in the current climate, the particular luxury of being able to choose has been pulled out from under us. We are often stuck in front of the gogglebox with the person we live with, and heaven forfend if your watching styles don’t sit neatly.
Case in point: I am perhaps best described as a complete pain in the arse to watch television with. I mimic accents and stuff like, “she’s gonna be at the door now, watch – SEE I COULD WRITE THIS MYSELF!”. My fiancée isn’t entirely without sin, either. “Who’s he?” he will enquire of a person who has had about three seconds of screen time. “We are probably about to find out,” I say evenly, seething. Every so often, tensions will spill over. “Watch and FIND OUT!” I hiss. All very conducive to a relaxing night in.
In the last year, TV has become the very glue binding us together. After a day of working and parenting, all that is left to do is to flop on the sofa and rest our eyes on the sizeable flat screen in the corner. These days, it’s our way of spending quality time together. Unfortunately for us, our respective tastes run wildly different. B likes nothing more than a meaty history documentary on BBC 4, an esoteric subtitled drama, or anything to do with gardening. He is also devotedly old-school, in that he will gladly snaffle anything that RTÉ 1 has to offer. These days, my brain can’t process anything more cerebral than the lightest, fluffiest, most harmless comedy. So much the better – please, no judgement – if it’s set in a high school or has an element of interior design in it. More often we agree on something to watch for the evening, but only after lengthy and tense negotiations.
In my defence, B is something of a commitmentphobe when it comes to watching TV series
Recently, I’ve been contemplating something more serious and damaging than that: the huge breach of romantic trust that is the “Netflix cheat”. This happens when you sneak an episode (or three) ahead of your communal series-watching experience, because you are either too excited to see what happens next, or you, as a unit, are watching it too slowly.
In my defence, B is something of a commitmentphobe when it comes to watching TV series. We rarely get to a finale before his interest wanes and something newer and shinier catches his eye.
I get emails from Netflix and Amazon Prime politely enquiring as to when we might pick back up on several shows that I have bullied him into trying. (The current situation precludes me from catching these series in my own time. Yeah, what “own time”?). We have yet to perfect the fine art of negotiation. To wit:
“Shall we go back to Sex Education?”
“…”
“Okay, well how about Forever then?”
“(stares off into distance)”
“Pretend It’s A City, maybe?”
“(temporarily forgets how to speak and understand English)”
“We never got round to finishing Ozark, you know,”
“(Tries to enact the Homer Simpson meme of fading into a hedge)
“Or, I suppose we have an episode of First Dates Ireland recorded…”
“Oh yes! Okay then!”
One day I was caught out, deep into Series 4. The betrayal in his eyes was real
First Dates Ireland is our Switzerland. A show on neutral territory that we can agree on, being and all that we met on a first date. We have also incorporated a sort of prediction game to see who will make it to a second date (which B, in his infinite wisdom, wins week after week).
And yet, Netflix cheating is definitely a thing. A study from the streaming platform suggests that a growing number of us – nearly half of subscribers – secretly press ahead while binge watching certain series that we promised to share together. B will perhaps never get over the fact that years ago, we started watching Mad Men together, and then as I waited for us to pick it back up as a couple, I decided to press on and watch it behind his back. One day I was caught out, deep into Series 4. The betrayal in his eyes was real.
All that said, the alternative – vowing to battle through to the end of a series, together – isn’t much better. Recently, and against our instincts, we both decided to stick with an American TV series, Firefly Lane. It was easier than deliberating about what else to watch. Firefly Lane is saccharine, samey, schmaltzy and bewilderingly predictable. The perfect, undemanding show for me, albeit something B would kill with fire if he could. Nevertheless, we both persisted, hooked by a cliffhanger lobbed into the second episode. By the time we waded through to Episode 10, little the wiser about what was going on, B felt robbed of 10 or so hours of his life that he knew he’d never get back. How this will affect future negotiations… well, I guess we’ll have to see how that particular plotline unfolds.