Comfort Bingwatch

We are bingewatchers. We rarely watch “as aired” TV programmes. We pick something to watch and consume it in large chunks. It’s how we unwind at the end of the day. Often it’s something only one of us has seen before; occasionally it’s something completely new to both of us.

And then there’s the comfort binge-watch. This is where we revisit a show we both know and love, just to bask in its warm and cosy glow. It’s like visiting with old friends. Recently, we powered our way through all seven seasons of The West Wing, our ultimate comfort binge. It was Stuart’s fourth watch through, and my…well, I’ve lost count to be honest, but I know I’m in double figures. It doesn’t matter that we know the scripts or the endings; it’s a nice mental place to be, an oasis far away from the chaos of the outside world. We are among familiar faces and prepared for what is about to unfold. It’s like being wrapped in a warm blanket with a big cup of hot chocolate. It may be pure escapism, but it works for us. We feel better for it, and when we’re done, we miss the characters and storylines. We could easily just start again to stay in that world a tad longer, but we don’t. We move on, watch something else, and preserve the magic of our favourite shows for the times we need them.

In recent years, “experts” have implied that binge-watching is a bad thing. I assume that they mean the type where you sit up all night believing the lie of “just one more episode before sleep.” We don’t do that; we use episodes like timers. One episode with a cuppa before setting about the tasks of the day, one while our food cooks, one while we eat, one to make sure we’ve digested our food properly before bed. We do occasionally watch a lot more on the rare days when we have a whole day or two together with no work or major chores to be done. Basically, we are beyond letting it dominate things or distract us from things we really need to get on with. It’s more like a reward for getting stuff done.