Summer streaming hit Hijack and how weekly viewing is taking off

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In the age of Too Much TV, it’s tempting to get misty-eyed about the old days when we had only a handful of channels and families gathered around the box to watch the same shows. In the streaming era, home viewing has become increasingly solitary, with household members retiring to separate rooms to watch different series and platforms. With such fragmented habits, so-called water-cooler moments are few and far between.

Yet TV networks and some streamers are now paving the way for a more communal viewing experience by changing the way they deliver shows. For prestige dramas, the series “dump” — depositing an entire season on a Friday in readiness for the weekend binge-watch — is being phased out in favour of a staggered delivery.

At the start of this year, the final series of BBC crime thriller Happy Valley aired weekly on Sundays, much like the teatime dramas of yesteryear, after which episodes were made available to stream on iPlayer. The finale was watched by a whopping (by today’s standards) 7.5mn UK viewers, not counting those who caught it on catch-up. HBO’s zombie series The Last of Us, broadcast in the spring, similarly opted for a week-by-week delivery; its final episode was watched by 8.2mn in the UK alone. In the past 12 months, other series have gone similarly old school with staggered scheduling, among them HBO’s The White Lotus and Succession and Amazon’s The Marvelous Mrs Maisel.

Now it’s the turn of Apple’s new series Hijack, which debuted last month and is fast becoming this summer’s stealth hit. It sees Idris Elba’s Sam Nelson take on gun-toting hijackers from his business-class seat on a flight from Dubai to London. As a corporate negotiator, Nelson is accustomed to oiling the wheels of big business deals by flattering both parties and making everyone feel that they are in control. Thus we see him advising the hijackers on tactics while furtively trying to alert the authorities and thwart their efforts. It’s all very silly and undemanding, the kind of show where intelligence officials say: “Let’s be absolutely clear, this has all the makings of an international tragedy” for those sleeping in the stalls. And yet, three episodes in, Hijack is proving undeniably addictive and popular.

Much of its tension comes from the series taking place in real time, meaning a seven-hour flight plays out over seven episodes, each about 45 minutes in length. Clearly, there’s nothing new about that: the early-2000s thriller 24, in which Kiefer Sutherland played Los Angeles’ counter-terrorism unit agent Jack Bauer, unfolded over 24 hours, complete with a ticking clock, even though you never saw Bauer eat a sandwich or visit the toilet. The films Run Lola Run (1998), Tape (2001) and — Hijack’s clearest precursor — United 93 (2006), an account of the final hours of the hijacked plane on 9/11 that crashed in Pennsylvania, all used real-time to ramp up the suspense.

But just as significant to Hijack’s tension levels is the fact that Apple has decided to roll out episodes weekly, making the most of the series’ cliffhangers. This not only builds up the anticipation between instalments, but also allows time for viewers to dissect and discuss each episode. Actual water-cooler moments may still be rare in our flexible working era but the impulse to debate the previous night’s viewing remains, with conversations more likely to occur on social media. This can only work if viewers are watching the shows in sync.

It’s no coincidence that the eking out of shiny new series coincides with a slowing-down of new content on major streaming platforms. With subscriber numbers stalling and the number of commissions falling (and likely to fall further as the US writers’ strike hits home), it’s no wonder that streamers are looking to make the most out of the new content they do have.

That’s not to say that all believe the binge model is dead: having previously toyed with the idea of weekly schedules, Netflix’s chief content officer Bela Bajaria said last month: “There is no data to support that weekly is better, and it’s not a great consumer experience.”

But, clearly, this isn’t a view shared by Netflix’s rivals. So are we seeing a return to the old days of appointment TV? Perhaps not completely, though for prestige dramas a staggered delivery represents the best of both worlds: a weekly viewing schedule, but with a catch-up service for viewers now accustomed to flexibility. For those invested in a particular series and keen to avoid spoilers, the impetus is there to watch a new episode as soon as it lands and then discuss it with others. For the likes of Hijack, a show built on suspense and mystery, a bit of delayed gratification goes a long way.

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