Discover the Secret to Keeping Up with the Endless Stream of Content

There’s Way Too Much to Watch (But There’s a Secret to Catching Up)

It’s secrets (plural).

Welcome to the week of (American) Thanksgiving! It’s a time, for many, of abject panic as we all scramble to get our dishes ready and prepare ourselves to deal with that one weird uncle we’re forced to be polite to (you don’t actually have to be, it’s OK. You can tell your mom I said so). But after all the scrambling and stressing and the inevitable family bickering that has become so synonymous with the holidays, there is a three-day weekend of peace. It’s during that long weekend that people across the country take the quiet days to catch up on the shows and movies that they’ve missed out on during the year, whether it’s because they’re media buffs or because there’s simply little else to do while surviving our respective tryptophan-induced lethargy.

Over the years, a shift in release cadences has threatened this longstanding American tradition. Rather than knowing exactly what to put on in the background while you decorate the tree or, let’s face it, struggle to remain awake while rotting on the couch, many of us find ourselves in the dreaded overwhelm freeze: Media Edition.

“Overwhelm freeze” may sound like a silly phrase, but it’s actually a bonafide psychology term. It means exactly what it sounds like on the tin, and acts as a shorter explanation than “I have too many things to watch or read or play and so I will simply do none of those things and have a nap instead.”

There used to be a time not terribly long ago where this wasn’t a problem. In the Before Times™, the fall television season wrapped before Thanksgiving, Hollywood largely went into hiatus, and theatrical releases beyond a couple of big family-focused films for Thanksgiving and Christmas weekends were few and far between. This left plenty of time to catch up on what you’d missed throughout the year. These days, though, theaters are the only ones sticking to their traditional trends. The fact that there is no such thing as television seasons anymore coupled with direct-to-streaming films means that there is more media to catch up on than ever.

Since it’s my job, I watch a silly amount of movies and TV. Even still, I’m looking at my traditional catch-up weekend and the proverbial stack of “to be watched” with a kind of frozen dread. The tried and true methodology of listening to the recommendations of folks you respect is typically the best path forward, but I was also just burned by Emilia Perez, the Cannes darling that, put politely, is basically just a bunch of trans tropes stacked in a trench coat. A bad film or show isn’t the end of the world — hundreds and hundreds of them are made a year. But when you’ve got infinite options and finite time, the pressure to find something you’ll love on first swing can be daunting. Worse still, the mentality that we must find The Best™ show or movie can hold us back from finding new art that we love. I made fun of the concept of The First Omen from the second that it was announced, and it ended up being one of my favorite films of the year!

Here’s the extra frustrating part: the typical clinical advice to tackle overwhelm freeze doesn’t really apply when it comes to its shiny Media Edition. Usually, the steps are to shrink the task, incentivize yourself, and ensure you don’t avoid the task entirely. This doesn’t really apply to watching things you’re interested in, because it’s ostensibly something that you want to do rather than a huge laundry list of errands or obligations.

With that in mind, here are some things that I do:Make a spreadsheet or list of media that you want to check out. Don’t think about it, just start spitting movies and TV into a list. You can do this as one list or separate, but the reason I keep mine together and mention not thinking about it is because whichever ones you write out first are probably going to be your top priority titles. If that doesn’t get you where you need to go, I add in a genre column. Sometimes I’m not in the mood for a documentary or drama, so I know to head straight to the other genres I typically gravitate to. Sometimes, an easy indicator for what I want to prioritize is whether or not I’m concerned a series is going to get cancelled. One person may not matter individually, but a lot of people watching does, so I try to give my attention to shows I want to see more of as early as possible after they release.This one probably won’t matter to folks who don’t vote on annual awards, but I don’t know your life! The last step I take is to do a quick skim of the list to see which titles I need to prioritize for end-of-the-year awards voting for Critics Choice, Television Critics