The new class of comfort TV
WHAT DID YOU STREAM, IN THE EARLY MONTHS OF THE PANDEMIC, TO FEEL NORMAL FOR AN HOUR? Did you mainline Tiger King, as Nielsen says 34 million viewers did in its first 10 days on Netflix? Or did you return to an old favorite—something from NBC’s classic 1990s Must See TV lineup or a prime-time soap that luxuriates in the white noise of rich-people problems?
No matter what show you turned to last spring, chances are that nearly a year later, you could use something new to soothe your still locked-down soul. Happily, TV has over the past year achieved what magazine calls “Peak Comfort.” Netflix has invested in some diabolically addictive reality shows, and streaming service discovery+ isn’t just for cable subscribers anymore.
