I barely find the time to watch TV series or movies. There is just almost always something else I could be doing.
So how the heck did I end up watching a ninety minute documentary about the history of speedrunning Monkey island 2?
Well, doubling the playback speed certainly helped.
And also the age-old trick of giving something just a few minutes before making a decision. I was hooked right away, by a combination of a small dose of nostalgia and a huge dose of fascination with people this dedicated to optimizing and exploiting glitches in order to minimize play time. The documentary built a very nice story by starting years ago, explaining some things people did to finish the game quickly and their times. Then, it builds from there, one player and optimization discovery at a time. It keeps going to fascinating levels as well, including long after the interviews for the documentary had finished.
I have a feeling the film maker thought the documentary would be at least twenty minutes shorter. It works fantastically well, even building a certain kind of tension as people try to outdo each other.
So yeah, great documentaries are great.