Letterboxd might just be my favorite app — I love tracking the media I consume and making lists, and Letterboxd is basically a perfect take on that for movies. And while I don’t love Goodreads quite as much, I find that it serves a similar purpose for books. But I’ve struggled to find an app like this for shows.
That’s not to say no such apps exist — of course they do. But for one reason or another, I’ve always bounced off them. Until, perhaps, now.
It’s early days, but so far, Bingers — a new app from the co-founder of TV Time — seems like it might mostly fit the bill, though it doesn’t quite address all of my issues with other TV show tracking apps.
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Beautiful and customizable
One of the things I love about Letterboxd is just how much of a joy it is to interact with, and part of that comes down to it being aesthetically pleasing, with the same being true of Bingers.
Here you get big posters and backdrops for each show, along with the ability to swap them out for other options, and the interface beyond that feels polished and — for the most part — well laid out.
Adding shows to your watchlist can be done with a single tap, and marking episodes or whole seasons as watched is similarly speedy, so there’s minimal friction.
Switching over from another app is potentially easy too, as you can import your data from TV Time, TV Time Liberator, or Refract.
It’s not perfect; for example, while you can search through the filmography of cast and crew members, there’s no way that I can see to sort or filter those lists. But the core parts of the app at least are largely well laid out. And Bingers has only just launched, so it’s sure to improve over time.
Impressively full-featured
There’s also a lot here. You can add shows to your watch list and then get alerts when new episodes or seasons are out, so you never miss them. You can also rate and review shows and episodes, and even attach an emoji for how they made you feel.
There’s even an option to select your favorite character in an episode, and then see what percentage of people picked each option. I’d love to see more stats, which is something Letterboxd still has over Bingers, but that — along with a total watched time and number of episodes watched — is at least gesturing towards an interest in this sort of data.
Plus, you can mark shows as favorites, create lists, and follow other users — with that last point giving this app the community feel that things like Letterboxd and Goodreads also have.
You can also explore trending shows and genres if you’re looking for something new to watch, and you can log rewatches, so you can see how many times you’ve viewed something.
There are movies here too if you want all of your visual media in one place, though for now, at least, I’ll mostly be sticking with Letterboxd for those.
Keeps me coming back
Still, while I’ve only been using Bingers for a few days so far, that’s longer than I managed with most apps like this. I think all of the above contributes to that — the beautiful design, the lack of friction in logging, and the reminders and alerts for new episodes, plus a handy timeline view that shows what you haven’t yet watched, and what episodes are landing in the coming days.
I do wish there were a Bingers website, as sometimes I’d rather interact with these services from my computer, and it could still do with a few more features within the app — more stats, an overall average rating for each show, and the inclusion of trailers, for example.
But for a new release, Bingers is off to a very promising start, and as long as the app keeps evolving — and continues to find an audience — this could become the Letterboxd for TV.
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