Am I falling out of love with television?

I watched very little new TV in 2024. To me, that’s unsettling.

Background

My love affair with television started in college.

I studied journalism, which didn’t involve much studying, so I had a lot of free time. That’s when I began to watch a worrisome amount of TV.

Grey’s Anatomy. Prison Break. The Big Bang Theory. How I Met Your Mother. Lost. House M.D. Criminal Minds. Supernatural. Bones.

All the hits.

I don’t always know how to be a casual fan, so I became slightly obsessed. Got attached to characters, dissected theories, read lengthy reviews, browsed forums – that kind of thing.

Eventually, I got a job as a reporter, which, unlike college, involved tons of actual work. I still kept up with television. It remained my main hobby for years.

A dream started to take shape: I wanted to write about it. Pestering my friends with opinions was no longer enough.

The problem? No one was going to hire me. English is my second language, and this was before streaming, when staying up to date on US series required a touch of creativity. I did TV recaps for a Romanian blog, which was rewarding but hard to balance with my full-time job.

I was in the infatuation stage.

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My dream came true a few years later.

I began freelancing, got to write TV and movie-related stuff for minor websites, then started to work for an Australian streaming site. I moved to a bigger site after that.

Some of the writing I did was technical – in the vein of how to sign up for streaming services and use them. Even so, it was my ideal job.

Someone thought I was good enough to watch screeners, and do previews, and come up with viewing guides, and best-of listicles, and share my TV thoughts with the world. Unreal.

I watched so much television during this time it was insane. Always looking for underrated gems, I was spending entire weekends staring at screens. I read books about TV and perused long-form articles. Streaming services came to Romania. Keeping up became a breeze.

Television and I were in a committed relationship. It was the best of times.

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Our first hurdle came during the pandemic.

People were cooped up at home, watching more TV than ever before, so my workload increased as a result. The writing I was doing was repetitive, and the anxiety I was experiencing because of the state of the world made it impossible to enjoy new shows. While I didn’t realize it back then, this first crack had ripples.

The pandemic brought financial hardship for the company, and I was let go in early 2023.

You would think that was me and TV’s second hurdle, but nope. It came months later when three of my favorite shows ended over the course of the same week.

Succession, Ted Lasso, and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel were among the few I still followed in real time. Seeing them gone left me scratching my head.

By then, the golden age of television burned me out. There were SO many shows, I was exhausted. Sampling them became a chore rather than a source of joy, and not having to stay up to date anymore felt freeing.

My longtime, committed relationship began to crumble.

It continued to decay to the point where, last year, I barely watched any new series.

I’m not saying it’s television’s fault. At least not entirely.

It’s not me, it’s you

TV doesn’t really feel like TV anymore. It feels like movies broken up into mini-parts.

New sitcoms? I barely know them. The Bear (which, for the record, I love) is one of the most successful shows categorized as comedy that came out in recent memory. It rarely makes you laugh.

You occasionally have to wait ages between seasons, to the point where you lose interest in the new one. Because here’s the thing: when you wait more than two years for new episodes, the new season doesn’t hit the same.

You’re different. The writers are different. It’s a different show.

Additionally, watching a new series is a gamble. What if you get invested and the show is immediately canceled, as it happens so frequently nowadays? The world is disappointing enough.

Most series need time to grow and find their groove to become iconic. It’s how television works. The first season of Supernatural? Fine. Seasons 2 to 5? Masterpiece. It’s why the second and third seasons of a series are typically the show at its peak.

It’s also why it was easier to build relationships with characters in the pre-streaming era. You were watching them week after week, for years on end. Now, you spend six episodes with them during a lazy afternoon and say goodbye until who knows when.

Plus, the TV landscape is more fragmented. You probably pay for at least one streaming service, and even that one is getting expensive. If a show you want to watch isn’t on there, will you go the extra mile to tune in? Doubtful.

Not to mention that there’s less real-life community around television. When Game of Thrones was on, I loved to talk about it with friends and such. The show was so big and the fear of spoilers so great we were all watching new episodes the same day they aired. Discussing it was part of the fun.

Now, even when I watch the same TV show as a friend, we rarely synchronize. There are online fan spaces for basically everything, but it’s not the same thing.

And, as much as it pains me to say it, streaming has made some creators too self-indulgent. Many shows come across as hollow and stretched out as a result. Do you really need those three lengthy flashbacks, or is one enough to do the trick?

It’s not you, it’s me

As relationships go two ways, I’m part of the problem.

When I quit being a journalist, I stopped reading the news altogether. I was disillusioned with politics, my country’s authorities/government, and people’s cruelty in general. I needed to step away for a while.

When I stopped writing about TV, I didn’t stop watching TV, but I no longer kept up with everything going on in the industry. There are shows that might have been right up my alley I’ve missed over the last couple of years.

Then there’s my attention span. I know I’ve been complaining about that since starting this newsletter, yet it’s relevant. I like to actively watch TV that interests me. To notice the nuance and the subtleties. I can’t do that if I’m scrolling on my phone at the same time, or my mind drifts away for various reasons.

I need to be in the right headspace, and that doesn’t happen as often these days. Instead, I rewatch shows I already love. They’re comforting, and my mind can drift away as much as it wants. I already know what happens.

Bringing back the spark

One of the new shows I actually watched in 2024, Nobody Wants This, has a scene that reminded me why I love TV in the first place.

In the span of a few seconds, it called me out and spoke to me on a visceral level. I had to hit pause and think about what I had just seen. It was a wonderful moment.

Last weekend, I put on English Teacher because I wanted something light I hadn’t seen before, and ended up devouring all episodes in one sitting. It’s glorious.

There’s a new medical show on Max, The Pitt, a combination of ER and 24. From all I’ve read, it’s the exact type of series I’ve been missing. I’m almost afraid to watch so as not to be let down. I’ll get over myself.

Oh, and I bought the West Wing book for Christmas. It’s my favorite show of all time. Reading about it will be delightful. Can’t wait.

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I guess television and I aren’t quite over. Maybe we went through a rough patch. We were on a break. We grew distant.

Does that happen in long-term relationships sometimes?

As a chronically single girlie, I have no idea.

But I hope we find our way back to each other.

My life feels a little emptier without a new show to obsess about.

Featured pic by KoolShooters