Rebinge
My TV comfortzone (that I won't be leaving anytime soon)
There is a part of an old stand-up routine from the Dutch comedian Youp van ‘t Hek. He is joking about his kids and their idiosyncrasies. They want to watch the same Disney movie over and over again. Every new movie he offers is rebuffed with the same conversation:
-“Do you want to watch Cinderella?”
-“No, we want to watch Bambi”.
-“But you’ve already seen that (a hundred times)”
-“We want Bambi”
-“No Cinderella?”
-“No, Bambi. Because we know that one. We don’t know Cinderella.”
A while back I read that the reason, we like to rewatch films and series is the familiarity and predictability. It makes us feel safe, and comfortable. As this is exactly what I need right now I have been revisiting some of my favourites.
For as long as it has been digitally available, I have watched Gilmore Girls once a year. I usually reserve this for the short days and long nights of winter. Instagram algorithms and HBO promo work as I also found myself watching The Sopranos again. It immediately brought back the memories of my ex-boyfriend who I originally spent my Sundays with watching that. He was a diagnosed narcissist - both boyfriend and Anthony Soprano. The difference was that BF actually made a conscious effort to develop empathy and care without expecting immediate reward. He was weirdly one of the most thoughtful and attentive men I have ever met.
He studied my habits and learned my preferences and nurtured me accordingly. He even kept track of my menstrual cycle and would cook me steak when I was on my period. When he went on a skiing trip with friends, he brought me back a copy of Italian Vogue as a gift. He had seen old ones lying around my apartment and had made a mental note of this. He taught me mindfulness over peeling and eating a satsuma and gave the best bear hugs in the entire world. We broke up when he went travelling, not because of narcissism. I found binge-watching Sopranos to be utterly depressing.
I then moved on to another HBO classic: Sex And The City. I know Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte, and Samantha probably better than I know my best friends. Not in the spiritual sense but in the TMI sense. I watched the movies too. The new revamped version I also watched. Twice. Mostly for the styling. When I told a friend she sent a message on WhatsApp: They ruined it for me. Big didn’t need to die.
And Just Like That doesn’t do it for me either. I want to like it, I really do. I love SJP and I have so many memories attached to the original series. Living in Amsterdam and trying to make a living writing, my life was nowhere near as glamorous as Carrie’s. But my love life did seem to be inspired a little by her escapades and observations. I would walk into a bar in a gala dress after attending a movie premier to find my high school boyfriend at the pool table. I would cycle to work on a Friday morning. Get hit by a car. I called my colleagues from the ambulance on the way to the hospital to say I wasn’t coming in that day. They later told me that after I hung up, they had all immediately agreed: whoever drove that car is her new boyfriend. They were right. Michael and I dated for just over a year.
I haven’t found my Mr Big though.
And Just Like That feels forced to me. It comes across as if a team of writers sat down, made a list of every single issue that needed to be tackled, and then started writing stories and dialogue just to cross each item off the list. Death, divorce, recreational drugs, addiction, aging, family, race, gender, sexual orientation, past loves, everything is crammed into a sequence of episodes that don’t seem the have any of the intimacy of the original. That said, I am looking forward to season 3. Who knows, it may be better.
In the meantime, I am rewatching GIRLS.