Column: Love, marriage and television
“I have a confession to make,” I said to my husband a few weeks ago. “I watched the next episode of ‘Outlander’ without you.”
“That’s fine,” he said.
I don’t think he was bothered by it because we’re not as fascinated by this show as we are by other shows we’ve watched together, like Severance.
“I don’t mind watching the episode again,” I said. “Or you can catch up on the recap.”
Like many multi-season shows, Outlander unfolds slowly, so it’s not hard to keep up. But let’s be honest, I violated one of our marital viewing protocols: I watched ahead of time.
While television (or rather, the content available on various platforms) has never been better, it has also become more complicated. When you watch TV with someone else, there is a lot to navigate.
In addition to our guidelines for looking ahead, here are some of the things my husband and I negotiated regarding the not-so-big screen:
Reading the text box preview. My husband, who is more meticulous than I am, likes to read the short paragraph before an episode. I prefer to be surprised. But I give in and try to be patient while he digests the information before we press play.
Subtitle. Until about a year ago, neither of us believed in subtitles. But lately, we’ve both found them helpful. Neither of us has hearing problems, but for shows that use mumblecore, accents, or move quickly, subtitles or closed captions for the hearing impaired can be helpful. Exceptions are sports and stand-up comedy. In those cases, subtitles are distracting.
The intro/title song is playing. Again, my husband and I agree. We always press “Skip Intro,” although sometimes, if it’s the first episode of a series, we try it anyway.
Evaluate and analyze during an episode. I admit, this is a sticking point for us. As I said, my husband is more demanding than I am. He likes to rethink the characters and the plot as the series progresses. I prefer to trust that we’ll figure it out as the series progresses.
So when he starts talking, I press pause while he asks questions and summarizes. If I’m particularly impatient, I say, “Let’s just keep watching. We don’t have to treat this like we’re studying for a final exam.”
Then he reminds me that when watching sporting events, I often ask questions at crucial moments, and that is true.
Multitasking while watching TV. My husband often takes out his phone in the middle of the show to read the actors’ bios, find out their ages, and see what else they’ve done. It doesn’t really bother me, but I can’t divert my attention like he can.
Press pause. We agree that we don’t mind taking a break to get food, go to the bathroom, feed the cat, or do another quick household chore.
Stop in the middle of the episode. We also agree that we don’t need to watch an entire episode in one sitting. If a show is an hour long, we might watch 40 minutes of it. But the most typical scenario is that after a cliffhanger, we watch 10-15 minutes of the next episode to find out what happened.
Have separate shows. While we’ve watched a lot of stuff together, my husband and I also know the value of having our own shows. I watched Shrinking on my own when he was out of town and Hacks when he was more interested in the NHL playoffs than I was. When I’m away or busy, he might watch Real Time with Bill Maher or episodes of The Sopranos.
Still, I prefer watching the movies with my husband rather than without him. The shared experience is more fun. In fact, we recently started talking about “Ted Lasso,” which we watched together during the pandemic. We had so much fun rewatching the series in its entirety. And neither of us had watched it before.
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