Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney+ and all the others are killing books. These box sets are the new crack and like crack after awhile quality of the product becomes less and less an issue. Movies are a one night stand. Wham, bam and it’s ticked off the list, a couple hours gone and I don’t have to revisit it again no matter how much I might miss it but with episodes it keeps harkening you back with the promise of new ways to tell the story. Even if 3 episodes in it’s shit you make excuses, hoping it won’t betray you and that it’ll get better. It started out with The Sopranos, quality stuff that instilled the desire and need to see more. Then the amazing Breaking Bad which was the final hook that made me want more, in any form. That level of story telling was such a high bar that so many that came afterwards tried and never achieved. After that it becomes a constant, failed search to find the next great, long form visual story. Books will have to wait, where’s the next episodes of killing, sci-fi, car chase, uncomfortable sex scenes and glimpses of lives I’ll never be a party to or history I was unaware of but always waiting to be read in books. Consequently I’ll never forgive the great ones that came early on and now the wannabe elite that keep thinking they’re making the next Breaking Bad or Sopranos. Well fuck you you well read, detached, fly-over pricks who keep promising more but falling short. If there’s a support group that meets twice a week to could get me free of this all this I’d be first in line to sit in a circle, drink bad coffee and retell my journey. That is until the next spin off of the Mandalorian is announced. I mean c’mon, just one more then I’ll go cold turkey. Promise.