Hello!

Although it will seem like no time at all to some, my partner is away with four back to back jobs at work and will be gone for 10 days and I – a codependent, sappy mess – already miss him and it hasn’t even been 24 hours. So I thought a nice way to lean into that feeling without being super miserable would be to talk about the TV we’ve been watching together, what I watch when I’m home alone and what I’m looking forward to watching next.

I love storytelling in all forms and when I love something I fall hard – whether it’s books, TV, films or even TikTok, I often can’t stop myself thinking about these things and if someone has the misfortune of bringing it up? I will go off. Sometimes that can lead to a lovely conversation between two people who love the same thing, sometimes people look at me funny and realise how weird I really am.

So, here’s what I’m watching at the moment:

• Greys Anatomy – this is something Lucas (le fiancé) and I are watching together. This is such a hard one to talk to anyone about because there are so many seasons and I don’t want to spoil it for anyone else and I don’t want anyone else to spoil it for me. There’s 16 seasons on Disney+ at the moment and I’m pretty sure season 18 or 19 is in the works, so this is a long commitment but I’m here for it. It’s trashy and unrealistic because everyone’s dating each other but it’s sweet and funny and I have a top three favourite characters but it makes me sad so I’m not talking about it.
• Arcane – the relatively new Netflix series based on the League of Legends game (but apparently the game isn’t anything like it? It’s set in the same universe or something?). This is another one I’m watching with Lucas and obviously the gamer nerd was more interested in watching it than I am. I’m finding it was a bit slow in the middle and I might have ‘accidentally’ taking a nap during one episode but now we’re nearing the end I’m getting back into it – we only have a couple of episodes left.
• Merlin – I recently finished the series I’ve been watching whenever I’m home alone (I’ll get to that later) and having listened to a couple of fantasy audiobooks recently, I fancied a rewatch of the fantasy series that started my relationship with creative writing. Merlin is a BBC show that launched in 2008 and I became so obsessed with it, I started writing my very first fanfiction. It’s cringy as heck to look back on, but without it I definitely wouldn’t have fallen in love with writing the way I have, so I have a very sentimental spot for this show and I’m very much enjoying the nostalgia of rewatching it.
• The Resident – technically I binge watched this a while ago (even snuck in a couple of episodes while I was working from home last year) but I’m keeping it on the ‘currently watching list’ because I’ve just been notified that season 5 has been added on Disney+ so I will be pausing my Merlin rewatch to binge through that, inevitably in one weekend if I’m honest. But I love it so much – I’m really into medical dramas and I have no idea why (it started with watching clips on Facebook video, now I’m listing my second of several medical shows on one TV recs list).

Now for the shows I recently finished:

• The Wheel – completely unrelated to anything else on this list, The Wheel is a BBC One Saturday night quiz show hosted by Michael McIntyre and filmed by the broadcast company Lucas works for, so one of our friends worked on shooting both series one and two and we watched it as a way of supporting him, now we’re a little bit obsessed. Some of the celebrity experts on the show are painfully dumb and some of the contestants are somehow worse, but I love a quiz show and a multiple choice quiz show means I always have a 25% chance of guessing a right answer and feeling like a boss. Thoroughly recommend – we finished series 2 and it was a banger.
• House, M.D. – now this is the medical show I’ve been binging for months. This was my go to when Lucas was away for so long and just last weekend I finished the end of season 8, the last season, and wow it was a rollercoaster. It’s like if a medical show met a detective show, I don’t know how accurate the medicine is but the heart and the story of each of the characters is just beautiful – Doctor Robert Chase and his beautiful Australian accent will live forever in my heart and I will argue that James Wilson is one of the most underrated characters on the show. But Gregory House himself, Hugh Laurie, is incredible, absolutely fantastic show. Some of the jokes have aged incredibly poorly, but I can’t deny that I very much enjoyed this show.
• Cheer Season 2 – I absolutely adored the first season of Cheer when it released last year – showing the athleticism and the dedication to the sport outside of the stereotype of high school popular party girls. Season 2 was so interesting to watch the follow up from how much season 1 blew up, the impact of the pandemic and the more in depth introduction to a proper rivalry team. Personally I preferred season 1 because I think it felt a lot more organic and the way some of the issues were handled in season 2 weren’t great (i.e. Jerry undergoing a trial for child grooming and everyone mourning like he didn’t deserve it…) and the ending was heartbreaking, but the insight to the sport and to sport competition in the US is still so fascinating. I binge watched the whole thing in maybe a day and a half?

And here’s what I’m going to watch next:

• Suits – my mum and I watched maybe 2 or 3 seasons when it was originally airing, but I really want to rewatch it and try and follow it a bit more closely. I feel like it’ll scratch the same itch the medical dramas do but with less gore and significantly less vomiting. Plus, Patrick Adams is a very pretty person.
• The Crown – I didn’t think I was really into historical dramas then I watched Bridgerton (don’t worry, I’m getting to it). I love the history of the monarchy and the cast is insane so I definitely need to give this one a watch. I also find it particularly interesting that I think this show is almost entirely responsible for the sudden remembrance of Princess Diana, bringing back her fashion style and consequently more films. Maybe it’s a huge coincidence, but the new-found Diana hype absolutely coincided with her characterisation in the Crown.
• The Good Doctor – this one should kind of be on my ‘currently watching’ list, I watched about two and a half seasons last year but then got logged out of my friends Sky Go account and felt awkward asking to log in again, so let it go. But then I realised it’s on Amazon Prime which I already have so I need to finish it off at some point.
• Bridgerton S2 – here she is! I also binge watched this in early 2021 (I think I must have been going through a very low phase to have been binge watching this much TV?) and absolutely adored it – I love the modern take on a historical drama without the racist excuse of ‘historical accuracy’, I loved the orchestration of modern pop songs, I love the fact it inspired a whole musical on tiktok (which was then nominated for a grammy). I’m very excited for season 2 and I might even branch out into the books, but my tbr is already long enough for now!
• Stranger Things S4 Volume 1 + 2 – the release date for the new season of Stranger Things has only been announced in the last couple of days but oh my god I’m excited. There’s a licensed book of the series that is set just before El is born called ‘Suspicious Minds’ and it is such an incredible tie in to the show that I kind of hate that I don’t know anyone that’s read it because it’s such a cool addition to the story of the universe. I absolutely need to rewatch the first three seasons before season 4 volume 1 comes out in May

I knew that as soon as I started writing about TV, I’d go off on one and write a really long post. But I think those are the best ones, because I think it shows how much I really, genuinely care about what I’m writing.

Thank you for reading,

Sophie x