This article is part of SELF’s third annual Rest Week, an editorial package dedicated to doing less. Taking care of yourself, physically and emotionally, is impossible without genuine downtime. With that in mind, we’ll be publishing articles up until the new year to help you make a habit of taking breaks, chilling out, and slowing down. (And we’re taking our own advice: The SELF staff will be OOO during this time!) We hope to inspire you to take it easy and get some rest, whatever that looks like for you.
Once upon a time, beloved poet Mary Oliver wrote “let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.” I have to wonder if she’d also advise that you let it watch what it watches, especially if what it watches is the same thing over and over—and over—again.
Anyone who’s zoned out in front of episodes they could likely recite knows the solace of this perfectly pointless activity, best undertaken while rotting in bed, or mopping your kitchen, or painting your toenails. It tends to be preceded by a long or tiring day, week, or season (hello, holidays!), and always involves paying limited attention: You’re also scrolling or eating or simply staring, half-listening to Rose babble about St. Olaf or Liz Lemon enjoy her night cheese. My good friend calls these series “baba shows,” baba being a common nickname for a baby bottle or pacifier.
I asked some pals about their go-to pacifying programs, and while some answers were expected (Chopped, Modern Family, SVU, Grey’s Anatomy, Living Single), a few were less so (I admit I’d never considered disassociating to Columbo). Which begs the question: What makes a comfort show comforting? Length is vital—most feature bite-sized half-hour episodes—and it can’t have so few seasons that you’ll be watching the same one again next week.
But tone is especially crucial: Thorny, thinky shows like Atlanta are mind-expanding and funny, but may be too complex to serve as cozy fare. The friend who coined the baba show concept says her go-to is Friends, a classic pick shared by countless others. After all, it has ten seasons and a steady cadence of jokes, and it relies on the premise that Joey will always be dumb, Monica will always be neurotic, etc.—and maybe that unyielding consistency helps us viewers feel like the world will go on reliably spinning.
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