A Sound Bath of Shiny TV
Where's Tyra when you need her?
The media literate millennial recalls the era of America’s Next Top Model and more specifically the period when VH1/MTV ANTM binges (née marathons) were thee background noise of choice. But as Tyra hosts three seasons of Dancing with the Stars atrociously, the American Dream™ of having the leisure time to rewatch a season of a show for hours for comfort is long gone. I’m on hold with the Biden administration as we speak to raise this concern.
Various shows scratch different itches but the concept of a “comfort show” is universal. Everyone has a fill-in-the-blank favorite show or genre (honey if it’s true crime… go on a walk!); ones that you could endlessly rewatch, given the time. But with the television release schedule so unrelenting, I’ve found myself lamenting the loss of extended time in which one may lay on the couch to rewatch 12 episodes of an old favorite. To paraphrase Nick, Joe, and Kevin Jonas, what a man gotta do??
My archeological dig re: the lost art of the reality show rerun helped me draw conclusions between my trifecta of shows that wrap me in the thickest blanket:
Selling Sunset: girlies selling real estate while not having pores
The Kardashians: girlies plus mom throwing elaborate kid birthday parties while not having pores1
The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills: mom girlies riding in large vans while not having pores2
“Big deal, you… enjoy reality television…?” I can hear you screaming in your cubicle reading this. When soul searching (read: making lists of TV shows in my notes app), what strikes me about this set is that they’re the only non-competitive reality shows in my rotation (stay tuned for twelve essays about Survivor, now in its 45th season). As much as I dive headfirst into the same competitive series since 2000 (*ahem* Survivor… 45th season on CBS and Paramount+), it’s this specific corner of the reality landscape that has me glued to the screen in a different, specific way.
This lobe of my brain reserved for what I call Glamour Comfort Shows is firing trying to draw all of the (admittedly glaringly obvious) commonalities in this elite group of programs. They each have their bright millennial pink and shiny palette (even nighttime scenes are lit to burn a retina or two). Characters accumulate hair extensions by the episode. And of course they all take place in/around Los Angeles. I wonder if my living in Southern California is the key to this fandom (if anyone who lives in the corresponding area wants to let me know if MTV’s Floribama Shore was any good, please don’t reach out). Does living here make me watch these shows differently? For example, due to my home, I exclusively hold the knowledge that the fancy drone footage of ✨HOLLYWOOD✨ in The Kardashians is bonkers knowing they live years away in a gated community that passers-by can never approach. (Same goes for their Palm Springs homes, I tried.) Only I was able to nod along when Crishell Stause walked into her new job at the Oppenheim Group to prove that there are indeed nice homes in “the valley”. And every time I treat a friend in town to my favorite pizza place in LA3, you know I’m bending over backward to assert that housewife Sutton Stracke went on a date there once for a 4-minute scene two seasons ago.
As CocoMelon teaches toddlers how to count, Glamour Comfort Shows are not without their own educational aspects. Selling Sunset gives what I can only assume is a legitimate junior real estate license. I hear a listing price and know it’s too high but what if they added a second kitchen and also a sauna. Each season of The Kardashians will end with some sentiment along the lines of “we’ve been through a lot this year, but as long as we have our family…” and that’s cheaper than therapy! I am constantly learning about the evolving nature and logistics of having “glam” (the shorthand for a personal style/hair/makeup team, always dolling the gals up, even before a workout).
As television, or “screen time” as defined by iOS and also young parents everywhere, is my top enrichment activity, my moral code has me maintaining that TV should never become a chore; a “must watch” in the “wow you have to see this” sense is okay, a “must watch” as a to-do list item below “laundry” is not. So as I thrive on staying up to date with television, there just isn’t room in my itinerary to rewatch old episodes of glamour comfort shows.
“FRET NOT!” say the shadowy figures at the top of Netflix, Disney and NBCUniversal. They’re able to combat this conundrum not by relying on repeating past episodes but instead churning out new ones so often and so similar that us smooth-brained can barely notice we aren’t just watching the same set on repeat. Each season is so much like the last that the gradual change in faces and fillers often go over my head. Glamour Comfort Shows thrive more than any genre on formula repetition, to scratch that itch that rewatching Ms. Banks never having yelled at a girl like this did in 2004.
By the time I find a completely free day to turn on an old season of GCS (Glamour Comfort Shows, keep up), there’s a new drop available, and that keeps me smiling and getting the face wrinkles that these ladies will never get. Heck, when a streaming platform participates in this genre (Sunset on Netflix, Kardashians on Hulu and I giggle every time I remember the Kards work for Disney), there isn’t even an easy path to find old episodes besides manually searching. While the Housewives arrive on a just-over-annual basis, the former two often air more than one season per year on an irregular release schedule. Plan right, and one can always have one of these shows throughout the year— or more! We stayed fed in November with all three concurrently.
I’m not naive that these formulas have been fine tuned over 20+ years to keep viewers attached, but when most television shows don’t last much past the first season, I find myself reflecting on my own attention span: if these shows didn’t churn out season after season, would I seek out the oldies if they went extinct only to be preserved in spray-tan-colored amber, as many go back again and again to Friends?
And lastly, if you’re reading these and have no idea who any of these women I’ve name dropped are, you’ve probably already formed an opinion about Housewives-with-a-capital-H and Kris Jenner, so perhaps spend your next open weekend day learning about the Los Angeles luxury real estate market.
And if all of the above didn’t make you want to go watch a girlie be pretty in 78º weather, allow me to continue to give. On the theme of comfort shows and young women wearing nice clothes in nice buildings, this time of the scripted variety, no show warmed my soul from 2017-2021 like The Bold Type (then on Freeform but now avail on Hulu). Inspired by and executive produced by a former editor in chief of Cosmopolitan magazine, The Bold Type serves as a watered down (not a bad thing!!) Sex and the City for a younger generation. Three women bond and cry and succeed etc. at a women’s fashion magazine in NYC. “Say no more!” Well I will.
While one of the stars was first discovered on American Idol (lol Katie Stevens was not a great singer so we applaud that she found acting), this was a breakout show for Emmy Nominee Meghann Fahy, who ate up the second season of The White Lotus at this time last year, and due to the summer of Hollywood strikes, her time at the Emmys is still pending.
This show is not subtle about any of the lessons about young adulthood, and it’s wildly bonkers in letting these young employees walk all over season colleagues in the workplace. In other words, it’s hilarious and perfect and makes you say “aw good for them.”
Specifically the current iteration on Hulu and it’s dusty pink sheen, not “the Kardashians” as an umbrella brand over all of their programs past, though past me did watch these girlies grow up on the E! network.
This is a finite list, I am not taking recommendations for other additions; no I will not add another Housewives series into my rotation.
Ronan on Melrose.