Clockwise from top left: The O.C., early 2000s obsession; Emily in Paris, train crash; Grey’s Anatomy, exams got in the way.

Binge watching is an art in itself. One at which I have excelled for many years. Both a gift and a curse is the lusty siren call of a binge watch. Or maybe that’s just me.

The beautiful thing about binge watching is that we all have our own methods and idiosyncrasies that make it particular to us, and yet the experience is universal. I consider it an art if only for the lengths to which I will go to make it possible.

Why, I hear you ask? Well, there’s not a lot I won’t do to enable myself to have a binge watch. Cancelling plans to watch several episodes of a show in bed? A rush unmatched, like simultaneously snorting a line of coke and setting a pile of money on fire.

Right now, for example, I should be writing this story quickly and getting it off my plate so I can then memorise the 20,000 scripts I have to look over. But here I am, dragging every word out of my brain at glacial pace with an episode of “Grey’s Anatomy” on Stan in the background and the CNN election coverage streamed live on my phone.

This is binge multi-tasking. Elite level binge watching. Why am I like this? Another question for another day and another therapist.

My binge watching record is long and storied. I’ve been a proponent of the binge since the pre-streaming era, when if you wanted to binge a show you’d have to either buy the DVDs, see if the library had it, buy it from iTunes, wait for the marathon to come on TV or illegally download it (which I do not condone, but let’s be realistic).

Streaming has made it even easier for us all to engage in the art of the binge watch. And seeing as we’ve been in lockdown for several months this year and there hasn’t been an avalanche of new content, it’s become even more of a staple.

One of my first concrete, easily identifiable binge watches (“The Simpsons” on Fox8 on weekend mornings starting in the early ‘00s excluded) was “The O.C.” Ask anyone who knew me circa 2003-07. I was obsessed with “The O.C.” I watched it on Channel 10 religiously. If I had to miss an episode to surrender to human fragility and the need for sleep, I taped it. Soon I realised I could buy DVDs for myself with pocket money as opposed to asking my parents and being told no.

I’d buy the DVDs the day they were released, paying top dollar because my desperation was real and it didn’t occur to me that I could buy them later at a vastly-reduced price.

As soon as I bought the DVD, I’d binge watch an entire season, despite the fact I had just seen it week by week on TV. And when the next season came out, I’d preface the DVD release by watching every other previously released season on DVD.

I don’t know how I still had time to do other things with American TV seasons as long as they are, but somehow I managed it.

This pattern was repeated with almost every show I’ve ever loved. “Veronica Mars”, “Criminal Minds”, “Sabrina The Teenage Witch”, “Seinfeld”, “Charmed”, “Weeds”, “30 Rock”, “Parks and Recreation”, the list goes on.

In fact, I used to do the exact same thing with “Grey’s Anatomy” every year until Season 7 came out on DVD. By that point it was late in the game high school-wise, and I couldn’t justify the same amount of procrastination and flying by the seat of my pants, not with 20-plus episodes per season and whilst trying to complete VCE.

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Which brings me to another notable binge watch, “The Newsroom”. I have no idea why I decided to start it, but I get the feeling it was because Dev Patel was in it and I was all: “Anwar from ‘Skins’? Sign me up!”

Unfortunately, my decision to start an Aaron Sorkin HBO drama coincided with the two weeks prior to my Year 12 exams, “The Big Kahuna” of my educational existence, if you will.

In fact, in hindsight, this timing was definitely on purpose. So I did what any self-respecting academia-hating teenager would do. Binge watched both available seasons in two days (three wasn’t out yet, I saved that for uni exams), didn’t sleep and consumed four cans of V energy drink.

I accomplished something in being able to see through the man-made construct of time due to the large amount of caffeine in my system, but not what I set out to do, which was study. But I had at least finished both seasons of an excellent, if somewhat preachy television show. Which really explains a lot about my result in my Legal Studies exam.

Binge watches affect you differently when you have a massive amount of important things to do. Like an adrenaline rush combined with an all-consuming Catholic guilt at the same time. Absolutely intoxicating.

But lockdown came along and changed everything. I either binge watch, or watch nothing at all. Maybe watch the news and then leave whatever trains program SBS has on afterwards whilst refreshing Twitter a million times.

Since going into a form of hibernation this year, I’ve watched all of “Broadchurch” twice. Once by myself, once because I asked my mum to watch it and she ended up watching it all in three days, a season per day.

I watched all of “The Haunting of Bly Manor” in one night because I couldn’t stop thinking about human connection and grief, thanks Mike Flanagan. Then I didn’t open Netflix again until the other day, when I scrolled mindlessly for 20 minutes then turned it off because I couldn’t find anything to watch.

I woke up one morning and ended up watching all of season two of “The Split” on ABC iview because my mum was watching it. I still don’t know what happened in Season 1, but damn, it was good telly.

I was an innocent bystander to a Sunday morning viewing of all of “Emily in Paris” in one sitting. It was horrific, I truly suffered from second-hand embarrassment the entire time, and yet, I couldn’t look away. It was like watching a train crash in slow motion.

I don’t even know if I can watch things week by week anymore. I tried it with “The Bachelorette” and ended up turning off halfway through because I couldn’t take it. But that might have more to do with the concept and less to do with my attention span.

When you’ve got nothing but time, like in lockdown, it’s just another day. But there’s something about doing it when you’re truly time poor which elevates it to a higher plain.

Can I memorise 10 scripts AND watch half-a-season of “Criminal Minds”? Not without sacrificing my sleep and half my sanity, but you bet your arse I’m going to try anyway.

What’s next for me? Well, seeing I have a mountain of work to do, I think I’ll spice it up a bit by starting “The West Wing” for the first time, re-watching “Normal People” AND following the never-ending US election on CNN in the background. Elite stuff, folks.