Netflix has announced that it will experiment with the launch schedules for two reality shows, The circle and Too hot to handle (through The Hollywood Reporter) Instead of releasing all episodes at once, he will release them over the course of a month, with each program having a batch of episodes released on Wednesdays, and then releasing the ending alone at the end of the run. This means that you won’t be able to overdo all of the episodes in a single weekend … and that can be a good thing.
These shows are not the first time that Netflix breaks with the spree model it popularized, in which all episodes of a show are released at once. Launched cooking competition episodes The Great British Baking Show and music contest Rhythm + Flow weekly. With The circle and Too hot to handlehowever, Netflix is making a statement that it is experimenting and trying to give people time to “dissect and publicize” the program’s events. In other words, it is giving people time to gossip about what happened and what can happen next.
There is an advantage to having people talk about your program for a month, instead of just over a weekend. Netflix probably encountered this problem with The magician, with the writing of the program looking more suitable for weekly viewing, rather than an eight-hour marathon. This is especially true for a reality show like The bachelor, with the drama growing to a grand finale. That’s the kind of thing you would like to keep people talking about – and maybe subscribing to your service to see what’s going on.
That’s the kind of effect that Netflix can try to replicate. Reality TV lends itself particularly well to a slow burn, keeping the buzz of the internet alive. Imagine if Tiger King he was released a month or two ago, instead of everything at once. While The circle and Too hot to handle probably not become a cultural landmark as Tiger King did, there is a chance that the release schedule will let them get bigger than they would have been if we had all watched them over the weekend and then changed.
I’m not trying to say that Netflix will (or should) switch to the weekly release model for its future narrative programs. Yes, Disney was very successful in using this model with The Mandalorian and WandaVision, but these programs also had a lot in their favor, and Netflix has a history of successfully launching narrative programs all at once: o Witcher series was still well received, and Weird stuff was an inescapable cultural force for a while there. It is also important to note that narrative programs and reality shows are very different formats, and it may make sense to have different launch plans for them.
The circle is a game show about being isolated in an apartment and using only social media to connect with other people (strangely prescient for a show that aired for the first time in 2018), and will start airing on April 14, with the final launch on May 5th. It looks like Netflix is planning a similar release schedule for Too hot to handle, a program in which people try to date without a PDA, but the company has yet to release exact details about it, in addition to a “June” launch window.