COMMENT
Till death do us part, unless I catch you watching House of Cards without me. Photo: iStock
Have you ever been unfaithful in the lounge room, or caught your partner faking it after a plot twist?
Committing yourself to a serious relationship comes with a lot of unwritten rules and one of them seems to be that you always watch your favourite TV shows together.
This wasn't too difficult back in the days of linear television when you'd have your weekly schedule of appointment viewing — whether it be Star Trek or Sex and the City. The temptation to stray is much greater in the era of Video on Demand.
It might sound trivial, but I'm sure plenty of people would be genuinely hurt if they discovered that their significant other had skipped ahead on Breaking Bad or taken a sneak peak at the next episode of Mr Robot. It doesn't seem right to go behind someone's back like that.
Of course you can't watch everything together, especially if you work different hours, have different weekly commitments and varied tastes in TV shows. Actually I'd say it's healthy to each have your own favourite TV shows, just like it's healthy to keep your own circle of friends rather than spending every waking moment together.
The trick is to lay out the ground rules to ensure that everyone knows where they stand, nominating a handful of shows that you've committed to watching together and giving each other the freedom to stray beyond these.
Even then you might need the occasion Hall Pass, such as if you're travelling for work during Foxtel's Game of Thrones and need to agree that you'll watch this week's episode apart rather than trying to avoid spoilers until you get home.
When it comes to on-demand services like Netflix, Presto and Stan, some people will binge watch an entire series in a week before moving onto the next show, but that can be rather intense if you're into serious dramas. In my house we find it easier to commit to half a dozen shows at once, a mix of comedies and dramas, and jump between them depending on what we're up for on any given night.
We end up sprinkling our favourite shows throughout the week, watching a few different shows each night with a mix of first-runs and repeats. It's a little like old-school appointment viewing in that it's spread out, but still at a time that suits us rather than suits a broadcaster. If your head is still spinning after an intense episode of Daredevil, sometimes it's best to wind down with a quick episode Brooklyn Nine-Nine before you hit the sheets.
Obviously not everyone watches Video on Demand this way, as the average binge watching session is 2.3 episodes — which sounds like a full evening's viewing if you have to get up in the morning to get the kids off the school and go to work.
Netflix infidelity becomes even more complicated once you have a family, as you need to coordinate your viewing schedule between more people to ensure no-one feels betrayed. My children were looking for a new TV show so we started watching The Flash, but made the mistake of not setting the ground rules.
My wife came home from her weekly trivia night with the girls to catch us watching The Flash without her — upset that we'd gone behind her back even though we didn't realise it had officially been added to the list of "our shows". Now we only watch The Flash as a family and the kids and I are working through the original Battlestar Galactica when the lady of the house is out. After the kids go to bed I catch up on my "me time" shows like Archer.
How do things work in your home? Does making a life-long commitment include committing to watching your favourite TV shows together?
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