As ‘You’ Season 4 Part 2 Looms, Is This Netflix Slowly Killing The Binge Model?

Netflix seems to have a new philosophy with some of its biggest shows lately, splitting them into parts 1 and 2 that air a ways apart.

Previously, when this happened with Stranger Things season 4 last year, I chalked it up to mainly the idea that perhaps visual effects in the final episodes needed some extra time to be polished. But now with You season 4 being split up into Parts 1 and 2, with Part 2 airing a month later on March 9? I’m starting to grow suspicious that Netflix may be afraid of the model that it made famous: the binge.

While Netflix has reiterated its commitment to binge viewing multiple times, and that is how most programs are still aired, it does feel like they’ve started to reach a point where they have tired of people talking about their new releases for a single weekend, and then never again for another year, year and a half until another season airs. It’s a stark contrast to places like HBO and Disney where you have weekly airings of something like The Last of Us or The Mandalorian that are being discussed for close to three months per series.

The Part 1 and 2 system may be Netflix’s vision of a compromise. You are still binging, you’re just forced to do two binges instead of one, which at the very least should double the amount of time a series stayed in headlines. Sure, sometimes a show can be dropped as a binge and have huge legs like Wednesday, but no one knew that would be a hit when it first aired, and mark my words, Wednesday season 2 will probably have two parts airing at two different times.

Just…watch how often this may come up now. In addition to shows like You and Stranger Things, the practice even appears to be coming to something like That ‘90s Show, the popular, cheap-to-produce sitcom revival that Netflix easily greenlit for a second season. But a second season that is 16 episodes, meaning it will almost certainly be split into two, eight-episode parts.

My guess is that Netflix is tired of watching its competition do a lot more with a lot less. Netflix absolutely has volume of series over all its rivals, but it’s pretty wild how these other services can drive attention and conversation for weeks on end with just a single series, and during that time Netflix probably launched two dozen different shows, most of which dissolve into the ether. There is almost certainly a reason that practically no other services are doing binge releases. Part of it may be to cover gaps in their program schedule, but part of it is to make a successful show not just big for a week or weekend, but for months.

I know Netflix fans love the binge model on the whole, but we have long been in an era where Netflix has not exactly been prioritizing user experience over their own needs, so anything is on the table to change. And I think that change has already arrived for some of Netflix’s biggest offerings, as we can see.

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