So I've been having a discussion with a friend of mine about what gets me to continue to watch or read something. I laid it out pretty specifically.
TV: You have 5 minutes. Not even joking. If you do not grab my attention in that first 5 minutes and make me want to watch more, I turn it off and move on. That is why I don't watch BBCs Sherlock. It's why I don't watch any of the NCISs. It's why I don't watch a lot of shows.
If you grab me in that first five minutes I will give you three episodes to keep my attention. That is all. Three whole episodes. Then I stop watching. It's why I stopped watching How To Get Away With Murder. It was confusing and hard to follow and I didn't like it. So I stopped watching.
Movies: If it's a movie in a theater that I paid $10 for a ticket I will sit through the entire movie. I will mercilessly nitpick it in my review afterward, but I will sit through the entire movie.
If it's a movie that I rented, you have 30 minutes. I will watch a movie for the first 30 minutes. Now, you have to understand that when I watch movies and TV shows at home, I am almost always on my laptop chatting or doing things online. If, in that first 30 minutes, I spend more time looking at my laptop than I do at my TV, I turn it off. If I am drawn in and spend more time watching the movie than looking at my laptop, I go the distance.
Books: If I pick up a book and a time comes that I have to put it down and I am perfectly okay with putting it down, I most likely will not pick it back up again. This happened with Blood Canticle. The book came out in 2003. I borrowed it from the library, got about halfway through and had to take it back. I did not renew the book. And actually, all these 11 years later I still have never finished that book and I have no intention of doing so.
I have had times, however, when I have picked up a book and did not want to put it down again. I have gone through entire book series in a matter of a few days. This does, of course, depend on the availability of the books. I went through an entire 13 book David Eddings series in roughly a month because the books drew me in that well. And this was while holding down a full time job and taking care of a (at the time) toddler. I didn't sleep much during that time.
Yes, I am very picky about my entertainment. I mean, the only reason I honestly keep watching Once Upon A Time is in the hopes of seeing Sebastian Stan return at some point. Yes, actors that I like have gotten me to watch some SERIOUSLY shitty movies. I have watched movies for Robert Downey Jr that made Sharknado look oscarworthy. I sat through one of the most boring movies in the history of boring movies just because Jeremy Renner was in it. A movie that was so boring I had actually forgotten that I watched it. I watched a movie that had literally every teen drama cliche known to man and a few I didn't realize existed all shoved into one movie just for about 5 minutes of Chris Evans. But if an actor that I adore isn't in it, I am one of the pickiest people you will ever meet.
