Sorry Neil Gaiman, I'm Watching The Sandman One Episode At A Time

thegamer.com:

The Sandman is a classic fantasy comic with a cult following, a following that might have just been expanded with the successful launch of its Netflix adaptation. Successful might be an understatement, as The Sandman has the eighth highest total viewing hours of any Netflix show since records began last year after just three weeks, at 274.22 million hours. Millions are watching. Bookshops are sold out of the comics. It’s incredibly popular. But Neil Gaiman, who wrote the comic the series is based on and produced the show, says that may not be enough to guarantee a second season.

Why? “Because Sandman is a really expensive show,” he said on Twitter last Sunday. “And for Netflix to release the money to let us make another season we have to perform incredibly well. So yes, we've been the top show in the world for the last two weeks. That still may not be enough.”

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It makes sense. Netflix wants to recoup its investment. But Gaiman also responded to a fan asking if binge-watching helped those metrics too, to which he replied: “It does, yes. Because they are looking at ‘completion rates’. So people watching it at their own pace don't show up.”

If any of you were confused by the title of this piece, I obviously don’t mean that Gaiman wants you to watch every episode simultaneously on 12 separate screens like a guard looking at the CCTV feeds of a high security prison. He just means that binge-watching counts for more, as far as Netflix is concerned. The thing is, I don’t like binge watching.

I don’t have a lot of time to watch telly. I’ve got a young daughter who demands my attention for all her waking hours, and after she goes to bed, I cook and eat