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[Captain Hot Stuff]

I got season 1 on DVD for Christmas. I've never seen it before (I started watching at Season 4) and I'm toying with the idea of watching it all straight, 24 hours real time. Not only that, but I want to match its times, midnight to midnight. At the moment I'm on summer holidays and don't have a job, so this is one of the few times of year I can afford to screw up my sleep cycle.

Anybody ever done this before? Is it even possible to do without falling asleep?

[Terry Cheesecake]

Yes but it will take you less than 24 hours.

[Kyle]

Captain Hot Stuff

[Jon]

Well if he matches the times perfectly it'll take exactly 24 hours. Since I've seen all the seasons before I'd probably hit a wall, but I think watching a new season consecutively like that would be awesome.

[Alan]

Well, no, unless he adds in his own commercials that are timed exactly right it will be less than 24 hours, as each episode had 15-20 min of commercials. I remember when I first watched Season 1 Episode 1, on DVD, and getting so excited when I noticed the time on screen was the same as the time on my DVD player. Then the first commercial break hit and the time never synced up again.

[Spoodles]

That 15 minutes per hour can effectively be used to pop some microwave popcorn and hit the can.

[Captain Hot Stuff]

As long as it's roughly matching 24 hours I'll be fine with it. What I'm most worried about is just losing concentration/getting sleepy around the 18 hour mark.

In any case I'll be waiting till January to do this, since I don't want to screw up my sleep pattern and fall asleep at 7 pm on New Year's.

[Jon]

Well, no, unless he adds in his own commercials that are timed exactly right it will be less than 24 hours, as each episode had 15-20 min of commercials.

It seems to me that the trick would be to pause it for the length of the commercial break. For instance, if the show goes to break at 8:48 and comes back at 8:53, take a five-minute break. SCIENCE!

[kliq]

Ive never watched a season in 24 hours, but I did watch season 1-4 all within like 2 months. Fricken awesome!!!

[Captain Hot Stuff]

I'M TOTALLY DOIN' IT

I don't think I'll make it since I got up at about 10 AM this morning, but what the hey. I don't think I'd ever manage it anyway, and season 6 premieres here on january 31. I want season 1 out of the way for that.

So right now it's paused on ad break and I'm just happy to see how far I get.

12.33 am. One down, 47 to go.

[Captain Hot Stuff]

OK, it's noon. The halfway mark. I'm fatigued but I can keep going.

I THINK I'M GONNA MAKE IT

[Captain Hot Stuff]

I did it!


...Hooray!


I think I'll go to bed now since I haven't slept for oh, say, 40 hours or so?

[Jon]

Well done, that's pretty amazing. I've never been able to watch more than eight or so hours consecutively. If I hadn't seen each season at least twice already I'd be willing to try it, though.

So how was the experience overall? Did you find yourself thinking "this sucks" at some point, or did you stay into it the whole time?

[Captain Hot Stuff]

Overall, it's the kind of thing that's awesome to have DONE, but not so awesome to do. 24's great and all, but a single 24 hours is pretty draining. Despite the concept, the show isn't actually meant to be watched that way.

I found the worst part was pausing during the commercial breaks, since it gave me a frustrating five minutes to do nothing in. (Just watching an episode straight and waiting about 15 minutes for the next hour broke up the flow too much).

Generally the best parts of it were when the show was really engaging; I wasn't feeling sleepy at all from about 7 pm until the climax. On the other hands, during parts of the series that were dull (1 pm to 3pm, I'm looking at you), I got sleepy.

On the upside, the show really does come well together as a "single day" thing. Of course it's the whole gimmick behind it, but it's filmed over a series of months, usually watched over a series of months, and has a bunch of different plot arcs. But I could genuinely believe it was all happening in one day.

Also coffee is the most useful thing mankind has ever invented.

[Neil]

While I am not watching it straight through, I expect to have season one finished sometime tomorrow. I just finished 6:00am-7:00am and it's pretty crazy.

Should I just not bother waiting and order the next season now, or what? I bought season 1 on iTunes and have very little hard drive space left, or I'd just do that again.