Mr. Gaspin said that this year he and his 13-year-old son decided to try out the AMC series “The Walking Dead.” Hooked by the first two episodes, they set aside an hour at 9 each night to watch the first two years, hour by hour, which Mr. Gaspin had collected through every means available — some episodes from Netflix, some from iTunes, some recorded on the family DVR.

“We learned a new behavior,” Mr. Gaspin said. Finally they caught up to this season’s finale.

“We watched that live,” he said. “It was not nearly as good. The commercials broke the tension. We had watched the other episodes with blankets over our heads. I hate to say this to the AMC executives and everybody else in the business, but I will never watch ‘Walking Dead’ live again.”