CHAPTERS on Why don't you read more?! 📚

Confessions of a *guilt-free* TV lover

The other day I read an article on substack by Pandora Sykes about all the things she doesn’t do which means she has time to read. (Spoiler alert, she’s not watching much TV). She argues that the act of reading is held up as worthwhile, regardless of what you are reading and that reading lots doesn’t necessarily make you “well-read.” This got me thinking about why reading is held in such high esteem whereas watching lots of TV is seen much more negatively.

I’ve been feeling guilty about what I’m going to reveal in today’s article but my raison d’etre for this substack is to say the things that no one shares on social media, so I am going to ‘fess up.

The last couple of weeks have been my first foray into the freelancing world. This has consisted mainly of sending emails, going for networky coffee dates and… waiting for replies. I have been finding plenty of things to do in the meantime - writing, gardening, long dog walks, reading but yes, I’ve been binging TV shows.

Until my full lean in to freelancing this month, I had forgotten the guilty pleasure that is watching TV in the daytime. This was something I revelled in at uni. There was nothing I loved more than using the excuse of a hangover to lounge in front of an episode of Homes Under The Hammer, with a fresh cup of tea in hand. If I ever catch HUTH now I like to throw in a little rightmove app action - a deadly combination colloquially known as ‘heaven’. But as pleasurable as it might be, it is tinged with a pang of guilt.

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I will admit that my taste in TV shows can be pretty low brow. Whether it’s a Channel4 dating show, a Netflix political drama or a Channel 5 programme about air fryers, I will watch it. I love to view shows in the purest sense of the word. I like to inspect them. Back in the day I would be noticing a broader sweep of things like the soundtrack on The O.C. Or the filter they put over the street scenes in Made In Chelsea to make West London look fantastical. Since working in TV myself this habit has become quite granular, geeky. I get a thrill when I notice the editor’s tightly snipped shots or reused sound effects. I subconsciously imagine the Adobe editing timeline of different coloured bars layering over each other. Don’t even get me started on the last ten minutes of the Attenborough shows when they reveal the complexities of filming in some of the most hostile environments on the planet. Aka. TV lovers’ catnip! Do any of these justifications make my time spent watching tv seem less wasteful? Probably not.

Historically watching TV has been tarred with a brush of shame and laziness. I’ll catch myself two hours deep into a ‘Love Is Blind’ hole and curse my culture-less, potato-like state, swearing to keep this dirty secret between me and the dog, and vowing to never be so basic again. But why? Why is it that spending hours reading or even going to watch a movie is held in higher esteem, even though they’re essentially the same thing - telling stories through interesting characters, plot, narrative arc and scene setting. Is reading more worthwhile because you have to use both hands and can’t tandem in a foray on the rightmove app? Maybe the bigger the book the harder it is to hold and therefore the intenser the challenge to your arms?

I believe TV is, in fact, more of a challenging and complex art to create than books or paintings or music. To make a half decent TV show you need a team of trained people who can act or present, produce, shoot, direct, edit. You need a lot of money and time. It only takes one person to sit down and write a book or a song. In theory that could take a matter of days and cost very little. This is not to say that books and music aren’t wonderful creations too but to question why they seem to be higher up the pecking order in the hierarchy of art forms.

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Perhaps two recent TV shows have shifted the needle though. They’ve provided a bold reminder that TV is a powerful medium and can be a great communal experience. No one should be ashamed about that! Obviously we have to talk about The Traitors. But first, the ITV drama, ‘Mr. Bates vs The Post Office’ about the sub-postmasters scandal. This is a drama based on unbelievable but real life events. Post office branch managers across the UK were wrongly accused of theft and false accounting for almost 20 years, with more than 700 being prosecuted. People were wrongly imprisoned, some took their own lives, families were ripped apart. It is one of the most awful miscarriages of justice in UK history. The depiction of the story in the TV series has had a life-changing impact on the people involved. The majority of the public hadn’t heard about this story, despite it having been written about and covered on the news. It was the TV drama which reached the masses and stirred up so much public outrage that it could no longer be ignored - within a week more than a million people had been moved to sign a petition for justice and the government had to announce a new law. ITV says 9.2million people have now watched the show. That is incredible.

Drama has the power to put you, the viewer, in the shoes of the people on screen. It lets you walk around in their skin, feel their emotions and viscerally understand the experience of the underdog. It reminds me of shows like Russel T Davies’ “It’s A Sin” about the Aids crisis. A heartbreaking depiction highlighting how the government and medical services failed the young gay men of our country by refusing to respond to a disease that was killing people. Instead, locking them away and covering it up. I also wept the other day watching Jack Rooke’s sitcom “Big Boys” which, through dry humour and relatable throwbacks, casts a light on losing a parent and the importance of a chosen family. (Would highly recommend watching if you haven’t, it’s on Channel 4).

Drama is perhaps the more obvious device to unite and draw together audiences but what about an entertainment, reality-gameshow. Who would have thought that would be a saviour. ‘The Traitors’ has bucked all TV trends. In a world where catch-up TV, our short attention spans, the distractions of social media and our unquenchable thirst for click-bait is said to have eclipsed ‘appointment-to-view’ TV. Enter Claudia Winkleman in a tartan kilt, 22 strangers and a gothic Scottish castle to prove all the cynics wrong. The Traitors is genius. It is Shakespearean. It is an edge-of-your-seat dissection of human-nature, a psychological study of relationship building, a deep-dive into personality traits, trust and deceit. I saw people on my instagram gathering around screens at Traitors Finale parties, like you’d imagine for the World Cup or a Wimbledon showdown.

I love that TV can be shared, creating bonds between friends, families and colleagues. I love that it provokes thought, discussion and relatability. I love that it can expose truths about our world in to the homes of most of the world. And so it can literally change the world. Of course, balance is key and we’re all aware of our screen time. But when I’m feeling guilty about the unread books on my shelf and the hours I’ve spent poring over a series instead, I will remind myself to reframe the aspersions cast upon the genre of TV and you should too.

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So grab the remote and work your way through some of these recommendations;

The Diplomat, Netflix

Big Boys, Channel 4

True Detective, Sky

Mr Bates vs The Post Office, ITV

Fool Me Once, Netflix (just for the way that Michelle Keegan repeatedly says ‘Judith’)

And I’m about to start The Traitors Australia, I’ve heard great things?!