Catch Up If you Can: Five Series That Demand A LOT Of Your Time
By: Mithrandiel
We live in an age of endless bounty when it comes to media. Thousands upon thousands of hours of content at our fingertips. Yet, like the fashionable person standing amidst an oversized walk-in closet lamenting that they have nothing to wear, we often are overwhelmed by choice.
The most common method of discovering new shows and entertainment is from our friends, but sometimes catching up on a series is much easier said than done.
In a recent interview, Michael B. Jordan referenced his love for anime as inspiration for his recent film, Creed III. When asked about the top 5 shows for “beginners” who are completely new to anime, one of the first titles he dropped was One Piece - a series that crested its 1,000th episode some time ago, and is still sailing ahead at full speed.
This got me interested in diving in a bit deeper to uncover other series that may be frequently recommended, but require an insane amount of commitment for newcomers. Take a look and see if you’re among the privileged few that have already made the journey!
Honorable Mention: Marvel Cinematic Universe [MCU]
Total Runtime: ~110 hours
This one is probably the most commonly suggested journey to take among friend circles. New Marvel movie or series coming out? Feeling left behind? Simply embark on a 15-year, 31-film, multi-series journey to put all the pieces together.
All told, catching up on the MCU would take you about 110 hours from start to finish. Assuming you commit ~20 hours a week to catching up, you’re looking at about 5 and a half weeks of viewing before you’d be “in the know”.
5. Dragonball
Total Runtime: ~260 hours
A cornerstone of shonen anime, the most recognizable format of the Dragonball franchise would likely be the Toonami-featured Dragonball Z, which made up a good portion of many millennial geeks’ childhoods and teenage years. All told, including OVAs and films, the Dragonball franchise runs up the clock to 260 hours.
Using the same 20-hour metric as we did before, that’s just over 3 months of training/powering up!
Or, by Frieza’s standards, about 5 minutes.
4. One Piece
Total Runtime: ~381 hours
Yo ho yo ho, a pirate’s life for me!
Running since 1997, One Piece is the epic tale of Monkey D. Luffy, a young man who is determined to become the Pirate King. Gathering allies and crewmates over the past 25+ years takes some time, as you can imagine. Approximately 381 hours, in fact!
Taking on the “part-time job” of playing catch-up, you’d be working for nearly 5 months!
Maybe being a land-lover isn’t so bad after all…
3. Doctor Who
Total Runtime: ~748 hours
Fear not, Whovians! I see and respect your struggle!
This British sci-fi series has been on the air since 1963, and has spanned 13 “Doctors”. In the 60 years since its debut, intergalactic conflict has been sparked and calmed, love was found and lost, and people everywhere became much more fascinated with a certain blue telephone booth.
Clocking in at an immense 748 hours, at 20 hours weekly, you could carry a child to term in the amount of time it would take you to catch up on 6 decades of Doctor Who’s exploits - nearly 38 weeks!
That’s a lot of wibbly wobbly timey wimey!
2. Doraemon
Total Runtime: ~1,350 hours
I know I know, this one seems a bit odd to throw on the list, as it’s unlikely you have friends ribbing you that you need to catch up on Doraemon of all things, but this series, which debuted in 1979, is a staple in Japan. You’ve likely seen countless pieces of merchandise sporting the lovable space-cat: it didn’t get there by having a short runtime.
All told, to catch up to every episode of Doraemon ever made, you’d need to invest nearly 68 weeks of your life, or a year and four months, watching the series for 20 hours a week.
You are definitely going to have that theme song stuck in your head…
1. Critical Role
Total Runtime [Core Series]: ~1,210 hours
Total Runtime [Core + One Shots/Other]: ~1,460 hours
The internet sensation that some argue single-handedly sparked the Dungeons & Dragons renaissance, Critical Role is a weekly D&D game hosted by voice actor Matthew Mercer, and joined by his very talented and rambunctious friends. Set in the world of Exandria, Critical Role is currently in its third season, following a group of adventurers known as “Bell’s Hells” as they investigate mysterious goings-on with their world’s red moon.
Unlike most other weekly series, however, Critical Role isn’t 30 minutes. It’s not an hour.
The average runtime is closer to 4 hours, with some episodes pushing the 5th or 6th hour depending on the extent of combat, lore and worldbuilding, or Sam Riegel’s ridiculous ads. The longest episode on record, season 2’s finale, was just over 7 hours long.
As a result, since its debut some 7 years ago, across the three core seasons, Critical Role has nearly 1,210 hours of content to consume.
If that wasn’t daunting enough, adding in one-shots and the external Exandria Unlimited series, which are tangentially related to the broader world, piles on another 250 hours.
That’s right, the extra content is the same as watching the entire MCU twice, with time to spare.
Further complicating the catch-up timer is the amount of content that would be created while you work to catch up. Watching 20 hours a week is fine and all, but getting hit with a 5 hour episode that week means that you basically made 15 hours of progress.
Taking that into consideration, it would take you approximately 80 weeks to catch up to the core series of Critical Role.
80. Weeks.
20 months.
We actually did the math in a recent Tweet thread - here are some other fun comparisons:
A weekly, 30 minute television series running nonstop since ~ June 1976
Watching the entirety of One Piece 3 times, and then watching up to episode 166 on your 4th go-around
You could watch all of Detective Conan twice
You could watch all of Game of Thrones 17 times
You could watch the entire MCU catalog (movies + TV) 11 times
You could watch Breaking Bad AND Sons of Anarchy 7 times
You could watch all of Doctor Who 1.75 times
Every current episode of Grey’s Anatomy ~4.5 times
All of Gilmore Girls 10.5 times
All of MASH 11.3 times
All of Columbo 12 times
All of Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman 12 times
Finally, if looking at the total runtime including extras, the beloved children’s seres Sesame Street only beats it by ~ 40 hours.
Thankfully, the recently released Legend of Vox Machina animated series can help you shave off a few hundred hours…
That’s it!
What series did we miss? What catch-up challenge are you currently working on? Feel free to share in the comments below!
