Of course, I should have stopped. Instead, I caught myself thinking, "You've come this far. Don't give up now. That's like quitting a marathon just before the finishing line."

Again, I'd fallen victim to the "Concorde fallacy": the idea you should stick with something so you don't "waste" the time, effort or money you've already sunk into it.

The name comes from the now-defunct Concorde aircraft, which the British and French governments poured millions into – even after it was clear they'd lose a tonne of money by doing so.

I didn't lose millions by forcing down those last spoonfuls of ice cream. I just felt a weird compulsion to finish. Which is absurd. A logical appraisal of the situation would have told me I'd only end up worse off – as I indeed did, with a sugar-induced headache. But because I'd become emotionally invested in my dessert, I willed myself to conquer it.

It's no accident we've adopted the food-based term "binge" for the way we watch TV now. We consume our favourite shows a lot like ice cream: excess amounts in one sitting. Mostly, this is a delight: ten episodes of Transparent in an afternoon, three seasons of House of Cards in a weekend, and – my guilty pleasure – three episodes of grisly true crime series Forensic Files before bed.

Except very often, we binge without an appetite. We lose interest in a series, but carry on with a sense of grim determination. Naturally, someone coined a name for this: purge-watching.

Vulture's Adam Sternbergh writes:

There I was, eight episodes [into Daredevil on Netflix], with only five more to go — I had to stick it out, right? Even though, on the whole, I found the show underwhelming, and had certainly amassed enough evidence — eight hours' worth! — that a sudden uptick in enjoyment was unlikely. Yet I was forging on. Well, I've already spent eight hours, I thought. I might as well spend another five.

I cringed knowingly as I read this.

How often had I laboured through multiple seasons of some Critically Acclaimed Award-Winning Cable Drama, only to quietly concede it wasn't my cup of tea?

How many times had I stuck with a show I once loved until the bitter end, long after its wheels had fallen off?

Brothers & Sisters, I'm looking at you.

I was addicted when this "super soap" launched. When it was axed, I realised I'd missed the last season-and-a-half entirely. Probably because, by this stage, the plots were silly and the writing had grown flabby.

Deep down, I knew this to be true. But it was too heartbreaking to admit. I desperately wanted that old Brothers & Sisters vibe to magically re-appear. So I sat down and watched 29 episodes – each one more disappointing than the last.

I'm not sure what I thought would happen. Was I hoping to feel a sense of accomplishment? (I didn't.) Did I feel obligated to somehow honour a show that had once brought me so much pleasure?

If I'd engaged my critical faculties earlier, I'd have realised that my past "investment" in this show was entirely irrelevant. The only pertinent factor was whether I'd enjoy viewing more episodes. 

We have a lot of obligations in life, but TV shouldn't be one them. If you're watching for entertainment, don't let it become a chore.

Here, our Fairfax writers name the shows they've purge-watched.

Share yours in the comments below. 
 

True Detective

I was five episodes deep and felt like I had contracted lung cancer from watching Rust Cohle (Matthew McConaughey) suck back cigarette after cigarette. He was mumbling into the tape recorder of two Louisiana detectives and my life was flashing before my eyes.

I'd been given the series for Christmas and opened it with high expectations, having blocked out months of plot spoilers and leaks. I'd set aside a day and now here we were, trapped together in disappointment. Cohle, getting nowhere fast in his investigation into the Dora Lange killing, and me, twisting and shouting at the go-nowhere plot points and McConaughey's garbled delivery.

Still, there were only three episodes left and I was in too deep. There were unanswered questions - could Woody Harrellson's head get any bigger, and could McConaughey make any less sense? - and the hour was late. I pressed play and finished the last three episodes. It was over. I wished I had never begun.

LOUISE RUGENDYKE

The Good Wife

Oh, Alicia Florrick. What a temptress you are. Watching The Good Wife has become, in many ways, a chore. For more than three seasons, there was fun, light and shade and sometimes joy at watching Alicia triumph in court while having one of the world's most complicated relationships. But the longer Alicia has stayed out of the courtroom, the more I watch with a sense of obligation - and it's no coincidence that this has led to more interesting characters, like Diane and Kalinda, being sidelined or leaving. I will watch for just one more season in the hope that there is some satisfaction in finality.

ADRIAN LOWE

Fargo

I've tried and failed a few times to sit through Fargo, the TV spin-off of the Coen brothers' much-loved 1996 film. Perhaps I'd been watching too much Justified, but the quirky-criminal element seemed worn out. Once the novelty of seeing Martin Freeman and Billy Bob Thornton together had worn off, my mind began to wander and refused to come back. What happened to Thornton's film career? Off to IMDb to have a look. Is this all really based on a true story? No, and the pretense is irritating. Should I just give up and purge-watch season three of House of Cards? You still haven't finished season two, remember.

By the time I took a break to watch the original movie again, I began to realise that I might not make it to the end of the series. And gnawing away the whole time was the feeling that I was wasting precious couch time. With streaming services offering more TV than we could ever watch, it's hard to persevere with something that doesn't float your boat. A few quick clicks and you can be into something much more enjoyable. Or at least more demanding of its own joyless purge-watch.

BRAD NEWSOME

Sons Of Anarchy

What started as a fascinating Shakespearean drama set inside the world of an outlaw motorcycle club wound up as a schlocky gorefest that left me wondering why the writers hated the cast so much. But I watched every scene, the brutal torture of characters I'd loved and the  betrayal of the show's original premise, just to get to the end in the vain hope someone - anyone - would have a happy ending. They don't. Even the motorbike dies.

SCOTT ELLIS

Dexter

I was – and am – a passionate, diehard Dexter fan. Its lashings of blood-soaked style and the irresistible lead performance by Michael C. Hall as the vigilante serial killer thrilled me as few shows ever have. I even enjoyed the much-derided and utterly insane season six. But after that, my notorious tolerance for trash began to creak.

As the moral ambiguities and dramatic tension gave way Dexter's sister bursting into tears every two minutes and Charlotte Rampling trying in vain to explain the plot every week, the show became a painful chore. Yet, motivated by a deathly fear of missing out and wasting all my hard work, I stuck it out. And so, after one of the worst series endings to ever blight the screen, I ended much like Dexter himself: he in his lumberjack camp, I in my living room, both of us staring ahead wondering where it all went wrong.

BEN POBJIE

Pretty Little Liars

 Don't blame me, blame Netflix's "auto matic skip intro feature". Pretty Little Liars is a new generation of The O.C. or Gossip Girl, but with a ghoulish twist for the Twilight era. The murder mystery follows five small-town friends as they try to figure out the identity of 'A': an invisible and cruel character who knows all the secrets they had only shared with recently murdered leader of the gang, Alison.

It's as implausible, shiny-haired and awkward as it sounds. Every episode uncovers another awful secret (stealing, cheating, lying feature heavily) with standard high-school drama fixtures like school dances and camping trips. The rational part of my brain knows we will probably never find out who 'A' is. Even the other parts of my brain derive almost no joy from this show, but come back in two years and I'll probably still be watching. Just to get it done.

BHAKTHI PUVANENTHIRAN​

The Game

The problem with starting an espionage thriller is that you need to stick it through to the bitter end in order to find out who did what and why. That was my dilemma with The Game, the six-part BBC series that screened recently on Foxtel.

Set during the Cold War, it had a team of MI5 agents in hot pursuit of a bunch of pesky Russkies, who were allegedly hatching a world-shaking attack. The convoluted plot became ever more complicated as the Poms tried to ascertain the details of Operation Glass, whose successful execution could apparently be catastrophic, though no one knew precisely what the thing actually was.

Amid the drab brown colour palette, there was a succession of meetings between spies involving cups of tea and strategising, and scenes of men having serious conversations in clubs. There was a myriad of twists, turns, red herrings, chases down blind alleys and shock killings. Trouble was, I lost interest in the game long before the series revealed the final piece of the puzzle. Or did it? The ending – when I finally got there – supplied some answers but was clearly setting up for the next season. Stay tuned, there's more to come, it seemed to be saying. Not likely: less purging and more abstinence for me in this case.

DEBI ENKER

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Borgen

I stuck with Borgen till the bitter end because – like her husband, Phillip - I couldn't quite relinquish my love for Birgitte Nyborg. But – like her husband, Phillip – that love no longer translated into a serious commitment. After watching the first two instalments I let the episodes pile up on the IQ where they sat there accusing me every time I dipped in to, say, the latest Supernatural. "You love Birgitte," they whispered. "Why aren't you watching me?"

Well, mainly because it was evident the series had said everything it wanted to say by the end of season two, and only returned to provide us with the obligatory happy ending. Eventually the guilt become too much, and I devoured Borgen 3 in two four-hour sessions of one-third pleasure, two-thirds duty. Birgitte deserved a respectful farewell; I couldn't just dump her. But - like Birgitte and Philip - Borgen and I were done.

MELINDA HOUSTON

Freaks and Geeks

It may be a cult show, but watching Freaks and Geeks was a surprisingly painful experience. I thought I was going to love it, given I'm a bit of each, but I remain clueless as to why anyone, bar the creator's mum, likes anything about it. After watching the first unfunny episode, I waited more than six months to devour the rest, under the sort of duress normally reserved for Camp X-Ray prisoners, but I'm glad I did because I know for sure just why this show was only given one season.

ALANA SCHETZER​