The Batch Release will be Love is Blind’s true legacy
Watching Paradise + stanning Anna Sawai + Baby’s First Hibachi
Megan on culture’s move back to episodic content
One of my predictions for 2024 was the return of television programming. This year, that discourse has entered the mainstream as culture critics praise the community-building power of episodic content like The White Lotus, Love is Blind, Traitors, and Severance.
When did the pendulum start swinging back from binge reigning supreme to a more meted out model? And is Netflix’s happy medium of batch releasing content here to stay?
I would argue the turning point away from binge mode was season one of Love is Blind. The first season of the dating show slash social experiment reportedly reached 30M Netflix households thanks in large part to its social media dominance:
“Chatter about Love Is Blind, a Netflix reality show where couples consider getting engaged, sight unseen, after less than a week of isolated conversation, is impossible to escape. The premise is so twisted, so deeply cursed, it quickly produced a storm of memes and social-media debate. Another unavoidable Netflix show. Resistance is futile.”
—Chris Black, Love Is Blind Holds a Mirror to a Reality We’d Rather Ignore (W Mag)
Let’s go back to when Love is Blind first took the world by storm. The year was 2020, COVID-19 was something still only happening in China. I was–as I often found myself in that time–in a room at a legacy entertainment brand decoding Gen Z, who were then still considered the “new generation” of content consumers. While I was advocating for the return of episodic releases and appointment TV, the exec-in-charge at the legacy brand was newly confident that binge watching was the future. They were convinced that binge behavior was a key factor behind them losing out to the streaming brands.
At the time, my desire for more week to week programming was mostly based on a personal craving, but I’d also noticed Netflix’s recent decision to switch up their release cadence for their newest cultural phenom: Love is Blind.
I found it incredibly significant that the platform that had invented binge watching was suddenly experimenting with alternative release schedules. While they’ve since experimented with a different number of episodes per batch and per season (likely to optimize the storyline) the general flow has remained consistent from the beginning:
🫛 Batch 1: the first (and largest) batch of episodes introduces you to the key players, the stakes, and gets you hooked largely the same way it gets the participants hooked on each other: the pods
😦 Batch 2: a week later, the next batch of episodes raises the stakes and challenges and/or validates fans speculation, theories, and hunches coming out of batch 1
🎪 Batch 3: The following week tees up the finale and serves as a “last chance” to get caught up before the big climax
💍 Batch 4: The finale episode completes the on-camera narrative and also marks the end of the contestants’ social media embargoes (creating a massive content opportunity)
🎤 Batch 5: Since season 5, Love Is Blind has hosted a Bravo-style reunion where contestant give an update on their relationship status & answer questions raised based on viewer-led discourse
This cadence reflects two of Netflix’s strategic priorities:
To foster Netflix’s reputation as a culturally relevant brand: Netflix is strategically factoring in the interaction between content–especially reality tv content–and the online discourse cycle. Through creating tentpole-like content moments like this, Netflix has become Hollywood’s zeitgeist leader, often dictating the topic of discourse among netizens and drawing even more attention.
To retain viewers until the next billing cycle: As Netflix has all but saturated the market in terms of subscribers, they’re looking to retain subscribers as much as possible. Week-to-week shows can combat subscription hopping, the behavior where people subscribe to a streaming service to watch a particular show, binge it, and then cancel.
If you believe, like we do, that release cadence has an impact on the cultural relevance of shows, we’re in the midst of an especially interesting case study. Below, we’ll unpack the way three different series on competing platforms are wrestling to own the cultural spotlight - and how their release strategies might be playing a role.
WEEKLY: HBO & The White Lotus S3
HBO–a brand that never let go of their stake on appointment viewing–has captivated the cultural spotlight with season 3 of their prestigious weekly drama The White Lotus. But gone are the days when simply having a high quality, well constructed, R-rated TV show is enough to captivate a discourse. HBO, the OG leader in the space, is doing 3 key things especially well:
Plotted to stoke discourse: Keeping to the traditional weekly release schedule, shows like The White Lotus have a reputation for appointment viewing that incentivizes viewers to come back each week. In the meantime, the whodunnit nature of the show and creator Mike White’s reputation for layering in thoughtful easter eggs gamifies viewership. For those who want to and get invested, each episode gives more clues to the larger puzzle which they can discuss, dissect, and dive deeper into on social media with other fans
Trail Mix Casting™️: A term coined by Kaley, “trail mix casting” is one answer to our era of fragmentation. The idea is to create a mosaic of entry points through casting in order to strategically bring in fandoms that appeal to a wide variety of audiences. In the instance of The White Lotus S3, we’ve got our usual star studded cast and one very notable addition: KPOP superstar Lisa from BLACKPINK. KPOP fandom - and BLACKPINK stans especially - are so locked in on their idols that anything they’re in is almost guaranteed to crush even the most ambitious KPIs
Purchasable Aesthetic: Further proof that HBO understood what it takes to own a cultural moment, they’re following in the footsteps of other successful franchises like Barbie & Wicked to leverage their aesthetic, blanketing the culture in White Lotus-inspired collabs
BINGE: Netflix & Apple Cider Vinegar
I’m hearing from lots of people that they’re watching Apple Cider Vinegar. The 6-episode series stars Kaitlyn Dever and Alycia Debnam-Carey and is based on a true scandal involving wellness gurus Belle Gibson and Milla Blake and a case of munchausen syndrome. The show is being deemed a “hit,” getting to third place in the US on the platform’s top 10. But there’s an invisible deadline on this show - if I don’t consume it in time to get in on the current discourse, there’s no rush to watch it and people like me may never get around to it given the plethora of other options.
BATCH: Netflix & Love is Blind Minneapolis
Discourse can be an important motivator to check out a piece of content, but framing is everything. While a weekly series has you asking a friend “are you watching,” the binge-watch has you asking “did you watch”? One is an invitation to a larger conversation and community. The present tense suggests there’s still time to get in on it, whereas the past tense suggests you might’ve already missed out on something.
Through the batch release model, Netflix has found the middle ground to having their cake and eating it too. They’ve ingeniously married the appointment viewing model with Netflix’s signature drop & binge to carve a unique role for itself as a platform that knows how to work with the internet discourse machine. The batch release gives the series the opportunity to create momentum week over week and extend Netflix’s signature “binge watch” value add over a longer period of time.
(That said, I do think they could do some finessing for the next season of Bridgerton–the gap was too long last time.)
Only time will tell if culture abandons the binge and swings back to favoring weekly releases, or if more brands follow Netflix and embrace the batch.
This Week In Cool Shiny Culture:
🪩 Megan’s Cool: Charli may have attempted to officially put an end to brat summer in 2024 but in a testament to her artistic greatness, her it girl era continues. Most recently, a deep cut Charli track, Party 4U, is going viral and entering the Spotify charts. Written in 2017 for a mixtape but scrapped, it was ultimately released on Charli’s 2020 album how i’m feeling now but is just now getting its due.
📺 Kaley’s Cool: Paradise, the new action series on Hulu has me hooked. How could it not, with my fave James Marsden playing the president and Sterling K. Brown playing his rigid but righteous secret service agent. Also Julianne Nicholson is there acting the shit out of some overly written dialogue?? Yes, please! The less you know about the plot, the better. Every episode ends on a—
🔥 Megan’s Shiny: I normally don’t condone putting kids in content, but even I have been a sucker for the recently reignited “Baby’s first Hibachi” trend. The original Hibachi baby graced our feeds in 2022, but in the last week TikTok has been inundated with footage of babies and toddlers being surprised by sudden flames. Their reactions span a complex range of emotion including shock, awe, confusion, pearl clutching, and battle readiness.
👘 Kaley’s Shiny: I only watched two episodes of Shōgun before getting bored, but it was immediately obvious that Anna Sawai was a STAR (her historic Emmy win as the first Asian Lead Actress in a drama would agree). She’s also a fashion star, serving look after look on the award circuit this year.
Excited to see what she - and her stylist Karla Welch - come up with for the big game this Sunday!
Marketing we couldn’t wait to send each other: Giggly Squad for Vanity Fair
Speaking of Sunday… we were especially delighted to hear Paige DeSorbo & Hannah Berner of one of our favorite podcasts “Giggly Squad” announce they’ll be hosting the Vanity Fair Oscar Party Live Stream! Kaley and I were both so excited about this that we unknowingly sent each other the (extremely well executed) skit on separate platforms within minutes of each other. So Hannah & Paige coded of us!
In the video, the two show off their comedic timing and easy rapport as they Facetime fellow co-hosts Tan France and Francesca Scorsese and get in a few IYKYK jokes for the gigglers (what they call their fans).
Must see Long Sleeve: 🔒 New Kaley lore unlocked
Please admire my James Marsden sweatshirt gifted to me by my bestie Kassie.
It reads: Every time I poop I think of James Marsden. AKA a (PRIVATE) text I sent my bff after watching Jury Duty. Very Hannah coded.
Thanks for reading Cool Shiny,
Megan & Kaley
I’m late to this, but wow this was brilliant!