Getting your Netflix fix even quicker than the real thing!

A Different View with Dave O’Connell

They must be on some strange substances at Netflix – or else they just have too much time on their hands. Because they’ve now come up with a way of ensuring the rest of us have more time on our hands too….by watching their programmes on fast-forward.

You had to check that it was November 1 rather than April 1 last week, when the streaming service revealed its latest feature – the ability to stream its TV series and films at one and a quarter or one and a half times the normal playback rate.

Thus, viewers in a hurry would knock two and a half hours off the new series of the Crown, which would otherwise have taken them ten hours to consume.

This, by the way, is a series for which fans of this period drama have been waiting with baited breath ever since the last run ended – but why wait a minute longer than necessary to get to the end of it, if you can simply speed up the tape?

Apparently, television no longer for enjoyment – but for consumption; a race to the end and the bottom.

First off, Netflix pioneered the binge option – watching an entire series back-to-back over a day and/or a night, getting your entire fix (or Netfix) sorted in one fell swoop.

Long gone is the notion of sitting down for an hour at the same time every week and enjoying the drama as it unfolds slowly; now it seems the biggest ambition is to get to the other end as quickly as you can.

We had this in the past with books. They called it the digested read – great for students cramming for exams without the time to read the books, but a complete oxymoron for those who supposedly read for pleasure.

Reading and viewing used to be about escapism and enjoyment, entering into another world or place, losing yourself in the pages or in the pictures for a small part of an otherwise busy day.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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