The blurb from www.gawker.com asks the following question –  Did you watch all of the second season of Netflix’s House of Cards this weekend? Good. So did I. Let’s talk. Spoilers ahead. 

I’ve not watched House of Cards yet.  Don’t get me wrong, I’d like to see it.  I’d also like to watch Orange is the New Black, and I am a bit embarrassed to admit that I’ve not seen more even one full episode of Breaking Bad.  I do watch and am completely up to date with Mad Men and Homeland, and even though it is a network show I enjoy The Good Wife.   But I’ve never watched Boardwalk Empire, Girls, Veep, Walking Dead, Game of Thrones or Dexter.  For whatever reason I feel a bit guilty about that even though I know I should not.

I know the above shows are all shows that I would enjoy watching but the daunting task of catching up via binge watching is something that in my case will likely never happen.   Ok, it will never happen.   For starters I have this job.  I commute nearly three hours total per day and so maybe you would think that I have ample opportunity to watch those programs on my commute.  Not really since I pass the time on the trip into work reading news both relevant and irrelevant to our business.  Most return trips are passed replying to emails (i.e. working) studying Mandarin (don’t ask), and trying to keep up with the all the communications I did not have time to respond to during the work day.  I also have a number of books that I am reading simultaneously and my goal is to keep a list of the books that I have finished in 2014.  So far there are four.

When I return home there’s time for dinner, doing whatever I need to do work wise and then, maybe, just maybe there might be an hour to watch a program of some sort.  At that rate I would finish Boardwalk Empire in the year 2020.  Exactly where would I find time to catch up on a series that has been out for years?

I don’t deny that in many ways we live in a golden age of new and interesting television programming content.  And there’s more good content being developed with each passing day.  Yet I have to admit that I am amazed at how so many people are able to keep up with all of these shows such that the morning after watching the original airing people are discussing the program and often rhapsodically.   These are people with families and jobs.

Where do they find the time?