On Thursday last week, Amazon Prime Video dropped Reacher Season 3 but it did so by only releasing the first three episodes of the season. This follows the release cadence of Season 2 but I’ll be honest, I don’t care for this return to regular scheduled programming that streaming services have adopted of late.

When Netflix launched in South Africa in 2017, it gave locals the chance to experience something the rest of the world had long enjoyed – binging. The Netflix model saw the entire season of a series launched in one go, giving the viewer the ability to watch everything in one go or watch the series in their own time. It was a model that worked, at least for viewers.

However, in today’s world, streaming services are vying for subscriptions and the best way to do that is to offer viewers a reason to come back every week in hopes they extend their one month subscription into two, or three. From the view at the top of the C-Suite this looks clever but as a viewer that cut their teeth on binging series, this feels bad.

As mentioned, this weekly release schedule is something that broadcast television does in order to keep viewers coming back to the channel so that the broadcaster could run advertising and keep the coffers filled.

It was also just the way series were filmed back in the day with a week between filming sessions. As mentioned, streaming platforms now do the same only for subscriptions rather than advertising bucks. We also know of few if any scripted shows that aren’t wrapped by the time the “pilot” or first episode hits platforms.

The thinking appears to be that if popular series are drip fed to viewers they will maintain their subscription to be part of the ongoing conversation. However, from our experience, folks would just rather wait until the season is out in full and subscribe for one month to catch up.

This is what has happened with Invincible, The Boys, Jack Ryan Season 4, Beast Games (although this was more down to boredom) and Rings of Power. All of which are Amazon Prime Video shows but the same can be said for Netflix, Apple TV+, Disney+ and other platforms. I would much rather subscribe for one month and watch everything I want in that month than keep my subscription running month-to-month.

Netflix has seemingly learned that weekly releases aren’t the best idea with You, which had its fourth season split into two parts, will see all episodes of season five released at once in April. With that having been said, there are still many shows on Netflix and other platforms that adopt this release cadence, the opinions of viewers be damned.

In the case of Reacher, Amazon is releasing the last five episodes of the show weekly. This is likely to inflate subscriber numbers given that the last episode airs on 27th March, little less than a month after the first three episodes dropped and just in time to snatch two months of subscription from a fan.

So how is Reacher S3?

With only three episodes of Reacher available it’s hard to give a full review but this third season is really just more of what we expect from the big smart man.

Season one of Reacher is still the best so far. Season two helped give us an idea of who Reacher was before he became the world’s deadliest drifter but it was, dare I say, boring until the last few episodes of the season.

Season three kicks off with a bang with Reacher saving a teenager and then coming into the employ of the boy’s father who manages a rug business. We quickly learn that rugs aren’t the main business though.

The highlight of season three is the introduction of Oliver Richters as Paulie who towers over Alan Ritchson’s Reacher. The pair come to loggerheads as soon as they meet and we suspect that the relationship will meet a bloody end before the show is over.

That’s the thing about Reacher though, the story isn’t as important as big man doing smart things violently, which is what Reacher does so well. The first episode has a twist that you likely won’t see coming and the second explains how that twist happens. The third episode is tense and feels like the season is just starting to get going, as does the body count.

Reacher is a good show because it knows what it is, leans into its genre and does that well. It’s action movie schlock for the thinking man in 45 minute morsels with some twists and turns that make for engaging viewing.

What isn’t good is that I now need to wait until Thursday for the next instalment which has me tempted to just cancel my Prime subscription until the entire season – which is just eight episodes long – is out.

In fact, I may just do that right now.