My folks are retired and live in Florida. All they do is watch T.V., so I thought I'd pass this note they wrote to Reed Hastings, Netflix CEO, along:
Dear. Mr. Hastings:
Just a note to say we love watching House of Cards. Both Season 1 and Season 2 were terrific. We also love the ability to watch an entire season in one sitting, and, being that we sit a lot, we usually plow through one in no time.
However, if we might make one suggestion, one that could easily apply not just to Netflix but all online and cable providers these days...
Being we're in the (barely) over 70 bracket, it's hard enough to remember what we ate for breakfast, let alone what the Underwoods did almost a year ago. So, when launching the third season of House of Cards, would it be too much trouble to ask for a one to two minute recap of all the major plot points from Season 2?
As we don't have too much time left on this earth, the moments we do have would be much better spent watching episodes we haven't seen than having to re-watch an entire season from last year just to come close to getting back to where we were.
Don't worry, we didn't watch the whole first season again, only the last two episodes, but even that didn't help when it came to remembering things that happened in previous episodes.
Anyway, I think you get our point. Going a year without so much as a "peep" and then seeing the Underwoods jogging together again, as if it's supposed to seamlessly pick up where they left off, is all well and good -- provided there was some sort of "catch-up" for your audience prior to the start of episode one.
I can't speak for anyone else, especially the younger viewers, but, boy were we lost. I remember saying to my wife, "Honey, other than Kevin Spacey is a conniving bastard, do you remember anything at all?" She didn't.
Think of the show like a hibernating grizzly. After sleeping for months, the bear wouldn't just jump up, dive into the river and catch a fish. Upon opening his eyes again, he'd have to remember he was a bear, that he was hungry, that those sharp things on the end of his paws were for catching salmon, and that he probably had a bunch of cubs close by to get reacquainted with.
Again, we love the show. We're just asking for a little bit of foresight on behalf of your older viewers when it comes to the long, cold winter. Shouldn't add much more time to the editing process.
That's it for now.
Anything else you want to bounce off us, feel free to ask.
Sincerely,
Richard and Diane Fagin
Boynton Beach, Florida