Comfort viewing during a pandemic

I've seen the entirety of Seinfeld probably four times (I came to that one late); the complete Parks & Recreation half a dozen times and I've completely lost count of the amount of re-watches I've done of The Office: An American Workplace (well, I admittedly tend to skip the less-perfect first season of The Office for the majority of my watches).

Yet I find myself returning to these three same shows time and again, particularly now, in these weird times we're living through. My favourite shows, in a constant cycle of repeat. Are you still watching? Netflix asks me. Of course I am. Sure, I'll slip in some new stuff here and there, but I always gravitate back to the same, familiar shows.

Why is that? Especially now?

Well, personally speaking, I find that they bring me great comfort. I've watched these characters grow and learn and develop (perhaps not so much Seinfeld, admittedly, which was deliberately a show where nothing major particularly happened), and fall in love and become better versions of themselves. I know the jokes, the banter, the story of their lives. I know how they talk to each other, I pre-empt the come-backs and jibes. I know exactly how an argument will work itself out.

As an introvert, I have never been someone who thrives in social situations, so you would have thought that the stay at home and don't go near anyone rules would have been a plus point of the pandemic. Even before this outbreak, I wanted to start working from home. Not because I disliked (most of) my office colleagues, but sometimes I find it exhausting just being around people. After five or ten minutes of conversation I find myself shutting down slowly until I shrink away and feel the need for a lie down. But now I am working from home, part of me misses those interactions - you can't just turn to someone on Zoom and discuss that movie you watched in the cinema (back when we could!), or the latest episode of that TV show. It's the loss of the little, inconsequential things, I think, that have hit me the hardest.

I put these shows on when I go to bed, my iPad perched on my bedside table and my AirPods in. Because I know them so well, I close my eyes and listen, watching the episodes play out in my mind, and soon enough I'm asleep. This probably isn't a good idea, though, if I'm honest, as I often now find that I can't sleep unless I employ this exact system: we all have too much to think about and worry about at the moment for my brain to be able to easily shutdown. These shows are like my meditation: I let the characters, their voices and their situations drift over me like a comforting blanket and lull me to sleep. I don't sleep very well as it is, and if I wake up in the very early hours of the morning and can't get back to sleep I know exactly what I have to do: put The Office back on.

I'm quite sure doctors and health professionals of any sort would advise against that, but let's be honest: we're all doing whatever we can to get through this.

So watching these characters I have come to love living out that almost care-free life where they can go where they want, sit together, huddled almost conspiratorially as they spoke of things of no real value - it's a reminder of all that we had before: things we perhaps took for granted and things we all look forward to getting back to as soon as it's safe to do so.

There's also the other matter of time: when lockdowns were first announced, every said how much extra free time they would have. People started baking, taking up new hobbies, writing their memoirs. But if you're like me, one of the many people who still has to work full-time, and has a child at home, honestly, how much extra "free-time" have you found? Very, very little. After work and home-schooling and the stress of just, you know, everything, there's no extra time left, and you don't want to take a chance on something you've never seen before. You want to watch something that you know you love without the extra stress of feeling like you've wasted that extra time that you don't have by watching something that was, frankly, terrible.

These characters have somehow all become if not an extended family then certainly friends. Does that sound weird? Maybe, but it feels that way. That is certainly down to the excellent script-writers and show runners for the series, but in our minds these characters take on lives of their own and now more than ever - when we're aching for some sort of social contact - who wouldn't want to be in that office joining Jim in a prank again Dwight, or sitting in a coffee shop with Jerry, Kramer, George and Elaine talking about nothing; or having waffles for breakfast, lunch and dinner at JJ's Diner?

Don't let anyone give you flack for re-watching the same show over and over again. Whatever it takes to get you through these troubling times, that should be good enough for anyone. Enjoy some quality time with those fictional friends of yours, and remember that sooner or later we'll be back out there sitting in coffee shops and restaurants and going to the movies and more likely than not complaining that we don't want to go out tonight.