Comfort T.V.

In which I list down some of the things I rewatch instead of watching something new

I’ve never really found an explanation for my tendency to put on a television show I’ve already seen countless times instead of delving into something new, until some of my Internet friends mentioned it having to do with anxiety and not being able to deal with something unexpected happening. It’s the comfort of knowing what you’re in for — a brush with the familiar, instead of the anticipation of the unknown.

As someone with GAD, that makes a lot of sense. It could also just be that my attention span has been ruined, and I just need something I don’t need to be fully invested in running in the background while I attempt to get things done.

In any case, here are a few of the shows I like to put on when I’m knitting, painting, laying stuff out, writing these things… you get it. This list isn’t exhaustive, just FYI.

Reply 1988

I’ve rewatched this series countless times, and I don’t even understand it without the subtitles. I’ll put it on when I’m writing, and when I look back up, I know exactly where the story has left off. I always say that Reply 1988 is my favourite K-drama, and it still is. Although there are a lot of good dramas out there, finding someone who loves it as much as I do is such a strange, charged feeling of camaraderie. One of them was a girl I had gone out with on a park date just as lockdown was easing up in London. I never got around to meeting up with her again, but we thought of visiting New Malden, London’s Koreatown, and sometimes I still think about how much fun that would have been.

Good to watch if: you love slice of life, coming-of-age stories that are of a nostalgic time, but aren’t steeped in it. If you’re looking for a k-drama that isn’t super invested in romance (but still has a little bit of it) and isn’t super action-packed, then please, please, please give this a try.

Elementary

Look, I know people love BBC’s Sherlock, and while I did enjoy that series, I love this version more. Jonny Lee Miller’s Sherlock is a dipshit, but perhaps because of the considerable amount of time we get to spend with him, there is actually a fair bit of character growth. The setting is in New York, and his and Lucy Liu’s Watson’s intervention in this place makes sense in a real-world context. It’s not The Sherlock Show, but a study of a partnership from two unlikely characters who grow to care for each other, with no romantic subtext, but a pure friendship and partnership. I love how they approached issues of addiction and the struggles that come with it — as much as a prime time American T.V. show could, anyway. Even though it can veer into copaganda territory, I do love Elementary, and I wish more people watched it.

Good to watch if: you’re in the mood to buckle down a long-ish serialised show, with long overarching storylines and an endearing duo riffing off each other.

House M.D.

I stopped watching House fairly early into my first rewatch of it, and I didn’t realise how much would happen since that point, lol. A lot of it is ridiculous, and I don’t actually think I like House, as a character, all that much, but the format clue lends itself to comfortable watching. I don’t understand any of the medspeak, and I have no clue if illnesses and diagnoses are as convoluted as they are made to seem on the show, but I suppose that’s to drive the point that he’s an excellent diagnostician, who somehow lives and works in New Jersey. I definitely would stay away from it if you are prone to hypochondria or self-diagnosing, but it’s a fun thing to put on if you’re bored and are soothed by a tried-and-tested formula.

I put this on after I had finished Elementary and it’s so obvious how they’ve tried to do another Sherlock Holmes adaptation, plonking the asshole genius character into a different setting. House is fucking annoying — I think I’ve outgrown these types of characters, personally — but the show is good background noise.

Good to watch if: you’ve finished Elementary and like medical mysteries with a little bit of drama, but not Grey’s Anatomy level of soapish incidents.

Married at First Sight Australia (Season 6)

Holy shit, the gaping hole this left in our hearts when it wrapped. We tried to watch other MAFS series, but nothing came close, although we did find a few we ended up watching all the way through (MAFS Aus Season 9 and MAFS UK Season 7). There’s just something about the chaos ! and the drama ! of season 6 that remains unparalleled, and I don’t like to admit it, but there are times that I live for that.

We’re currently rewatching it, after about two years since we first started, and we forgot so much of the crazy shit that went down, so it was a nice revisit. Like, part of me feels bad that I’m enabling this obviously batshit “experiment,” but it does make for good T.V.

Good to watch if: you are in the mood for action-packed reality television that’s a little bit high stakes, but also has some heartwarming (lol) moments.

BoJack Horseman

I love BoJack Horseman, and I love that although the episodes’ run times are not that long, we get some focus on the side characters’ lives as well. BoJack Horseman is an animation, but it speaks so truthfully about emotional turmoil and existential crises, that it’s a bit mad that a show can be quite astute with modern-day observations, but also still be intensely funny. I don’t think there’s anything quite like it. It’s very dark, but very funny, and really does hit home way too keenly, at times. Funnily enough, it deals with the struggles of addiction, I think, more honestly than Elementary.

Good to watch if: you’re not in a bad place. It’s kind of shit to watch and lean into when you’re in a particularly shit period of your life or if you can be easily influenced by cartoon animals speaking plainly and matter-of-factly about life, as it can be quite confronting.