A Dreadful Binge: Penny Dreadful Binge 2017

             For the 2017 January term Binge class, we (Ronald, Collin, and Hadis) the students have to choose a TV show, a book, and a video game to binge on for 18 hours, for each binge type. For this first binge, my group chose to binge on the TV series, Penny Dreadful. My group found that the beginning of this series was very slow and didn’t initially grab our attention due to the show focusing on establishing setting and all the different characters. After the initial bump we started to understand the purpose of the different characters allowing the show to have room for character development. The characters started to matter.

Aside from having this new experience with the show, having to binge for six hours a day for three days is strenuous. Our daily lives have already consisted the consumption of media, either playing video games or even binging for our own personal enjoyment. With this binging, playing video games or watching more TV felt too much, and it sort of interfered internally. It was as if our personal media consumption and overload on top of the class binging. It’ll be interesting to see how we feel on our first day from binging.

Binge watching with the group felt more enjoyable than it did when we binged alone. The feeling of comradery along with the ability to interact with what we are watching with other people makes it more enjoyable. Each of us as individuals notice slightly different things and when pointed out, we all get a sense of a full understanding of what is going on before our eyes. Everyone has his or her own point of view and see’s different things as the plot unfolds. Spoiler Alert Like one of our group members calling out that one the characters was a werewolf early on in the show and when it was revealed, proceeded to rub it in our faces. We wonder how more binges will affect us, whether that be positive or negative. We will see.