What CU students are binge-watching

Castleton University sophomore Mike O’Neill is binging a variety of shows these days, including “The Walking Dead” – again.

Freshman Dylan Roebuck is trying to get his “Breaking Bad” fix with “Better Call Saul.”

And Olivia Merrill is all about “Manifest.”

Through days filled with snow and freezing temperatures, Castleton University students, like college students across the country, are binging away on a variety of streaming platforms.

“I feel like people binge watch shows because some of the storylines are so good that you can’t bear to stop watching cause episodes tend to end on cliffhangers,” Roebuck said.

CU students said late-night binging is common as they try to get in an episode before they hit the sheets. But before they know it, it turns into three episodes and it’s 3 a.m.

And class is in five hours.

“I’m re-watching “The Walking Dead,” but “Breaking Bad,” “Game of Thrones,” and “Ozark” are my go-to shows. I think the plot of them all are very interesting and it’s good storytelling,” Oneill said. “‘Boondocks’ is also fire.”

Students say they binge certain shows because they know they are blowing up on various streaming platforms, or they turn to Twitter or YikYak to see what peers are recommending.

Netflix has reigned as the leading streaming service with 222 million subscribers at the end of 2021 with Amazon Prime being right behind them with 200 million according to cloudwards.net.

“Right now, I’m on “Better Call Saul.” I loved “Breaking Bad” and heard a lot of good praise online about “Better Call Saul” so I decided to give it a go,” Roebuck said.

Castleton students, like any other college students, have helped new shows thrive and old shows come back to life due to binge watching.

“Right now, I’m binge-watching “Manifest” because my friend told me it was really good and it’s really interesting,” said sophomore Olivia Merrill.

Manifest was canceled by NBC in 2021 and put onto streaming platforms like Netflix and Hulu, and it blew up allowing Netflix to pick it up and milk it for another season that they are breaking into two parts.

“I’m using Netflix to watch “New Amsterdam” because it has a good plot with a good message behind it and it is very entertaining,” said junior Justin Stairs.

Some CU students say they aren’t too crazy about binge watching because it hinders some other priorities they have – like homework and sleep.

“I’ve never been one to binge watch much because it gets in the way of some things. The only show I really binge watched was “Prison Break.” The trailer drew my attention and every episode left on a cliffhanger. It had a sense of brotherhood in it, and I really liked that. It inspired me because it was a lot of guys trying to find greatness in their life with the situation that they had,” said senior Brandon Collett.

Whether it is due to the message behind shows or the show just being that good, CU students get their binge-watching fix on at least one of the trusty streaming platforms.

“My show was “Yellowstone,” not currently, but I watched it because I wanted to be country growing up and I never really was. The show is about people looking out for each other and there is a lot of loyalty and I love that,” said senior Kyle Sargent.

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