Netflix Adds New Category: Shows You Started and Forgot About
In news from Los Gatos, California: Netflix adds new category designed for viewers who began watching a program, abandoned it somewhere around episode 3, and subsequently forgot it existed.
The category, titled Shows You Started and Forgot About, reportedly contains more than 18,000 titles, making it the platform’s largest collection.
According to Netflix representatives, the feature was developed after internal research revealed that the average subscriber is currently halfway through 27 different series while confidently believing she is watching only two.
“People have busy lives,” said Trevor Henshaw, 46, Netflix vice president of narrative incompletion. “A viewer starts a Scandinavian crime drama about mushroom smugglers, gets distracted by a documentary about luxury bunker enthusiasts, and six months later wonders why strangers keep appearing in her Continue Watching row.”
Among the titles appearing in the new category are The Duchess of Moderate Concern,Undercover at the Museum of Slightly Damp Objects, Federal Witness Protection for Competitive Beekeepers, and the critically ignored thirty-two episodes of Waiting for Gerald.
The Netflix recommendation engine now tracks abandonment patterns with uncanny precision.
“We can identify the exact moment viewers stop caring,” explained data scientist Melanie Pruitt, 38, of Berkeley, California, whose doctoral thesis examined whether anyone actually finished prestige television after season two.
“In many cases, it’s fourteen minutes into episode four. Occasionally it’s the instant a character says, ‘Everything is connected.'”
Netflix subscribers welcomed the update.
Martin Greeley, 57, an insurance adjuster from Dayton, Ohio, discovered he had forgotten nine separate series, including one he had apparently watched late at night for three consecutive weeks.
“I don’t recognize any of these people,” Greeley said while examining screenshots from a historical drama involving revolutionary-era turnip inspectors.
“The system claims I watched seventeen episodes. Frankly, I don’t recognize myself in this story.”
Netflix executives say future enhancements may include categories such as Movies You Paused to Answer a Text in 2024, Documentaries You Intended to Learn From, and Things We Suggested Because You Watched One Viking Program Three Years Ago.
At press time, millions of subscribers had spent time browsing the new category before deciding there was nothing worth watching.
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