I can see Amber's point.
+ Staggering when people watch the show means people getting defensive about spoilers. Fear of spoiling show might get people defensive, then people with spoilers may not want to broach the topic in fear of causing agitation. Also inconvenient to go through the "phatic" conversation to figure out if information is a spoiler or not.
Hulu & other online options, unless someone has their computer attached to the home theater system somehow, also works against party/communal/gathering TV watching (which, in some ways, can hurt individual TV shows you love), so there's less percolation of ideas & thoughts after a TV show. TV watching becomes even more of an individual experience.
DVRs can also encourage individual TV experience but not forcing people to adapt their schedules to the TV schedule. Now individual members of a family can watch TV on their schedule and watching TV together becomes an effort rather than a byproduct of adapting to the TV schedule.
But I don't see Hulu and other online options as nearly affordable or ubiquitous enough over cable to be a major contender. After researching options, cable still seemed the best bet. A lot of shows would have to be purchased off iTunes.
After LOST, though, we're looking to try cutting down on shows we follow. It can become a chore to make sure the TiVo has enough space on it to record future episodes. We should really see about taking more advantage of Netflix online, Hulu, etc. etc. to see if we can make it more cost effective than cable. Cable TV would be a nice expense to get rid of.
But yeah, I would say with all the different options and some times more available options on the Internet, TV watching has become more of an individual experience.
I hate it when this happens:
Someone: "I love Battlestar Galactica!"
Me: "Wat do you think about last week's episode, where..."
Someone: "I've only seen the first season, please don't spoil the rest for me."
Me: "FUCK YOU! BALTAR KILLS DUMBLEDORE!!!!"
Yeah, boy.
I just don't care about Spoilers, at all.
I think this ties into a certain sense of "Es Muss Sein" inevitability about stuff in life in general. The thing was already written. It will happen one way or another. If the story is good, I don't care that I know the ending, I want to see how they got there.
Weirdly I can't trivially reconcile this with my idea that I'm a "cruxian", not interested in the details as much as the central theme. I mean often I'd rather hear high-level capsule summaries of things rather than the things themselves...
I can be the same way regarding spoilers. The emotions I feel while watching and appreciation for the craft can transcend my need for surprise or encountering something new.
I even think that I felt the emotion/effect of a scene more because I had foreknowledge of something.
At the same time, as an aspiring writer, I like ttry preserve non-spoiler experience. You can only see something once before losing your virginity of it. I like to examine & compare the virgin experience with foreknowledge experience.
Having an understanding of this difference, I believe, can help my attempt at writing craft. Would it be better to provide the reader with foreknowledge or to keep the information hidden until later?
It is funny how summaries can be better than the actual work, though.