What should be your comfort rewatch?
The four shapes of a great one, and the one for you.
Start the quiz →What this quiz explores
A comfort rewatch isn't a favourite show, it's a specific tool: the thing you put on when you're depleted, ill, or can't settle. They come in four shapes, and putting on the wrong one is why some beloved shows don't work at eleven at night. This finds yours.
How it works
The quiz has 4 possible results. Each answer option was written to lean toward one of them.
Your result is the one your answers pointed to most often. Skipped questions, and the occasional answer that does not lean toward any result, are not counted.
Alongside the result you see your answer profile: the share of your answers that pointed to each result. Close percentages mean you sit between two results, which is common.
Four comfort-rewatch shapes
Warm Ensemble
You put it on to be around people, and what you need is a group who like each other.
Any episode, background, falling asleep is fine, and what you notice on the twentieth watch is small kindnesses. Mean-spirited shows are what kill a candidate for you. You first watched it during a period when you needed company, and what an episode leaves you is less alone. What to try: Detectorists, which is the quietest and one of the best. Ted Lasso's first season. Northern Exposure. Schitt's Creek from its second season on. Derry Girls. Somebody Somewhere. Doc Martin if you want something gentler still. In unscripted, The Great British Bake Off does the same job for a lot of people, and Old Enough for a very short, very warm version. What to avoid: shows built on humiliation, which are the commonest failure mode when someone recommends you a comedy. Test a candidate on whether the characters would help each other at cost, and if the answer is no, it won't work at eleven at night however funny it is.
Competence Loop
You want a problem introduced and solved by the end, and the pleasure is watching people who are good at their jobs.
Self-contained episodes, contained tension, a theme you know cold, and a specific case you'd start from. Arcs you have to follow are what kills a candidate. What you notice rewatching is how the plot was set up, and what you feel afterward is settled. This is the most underrated comfort shape. What to try: Poirot, particularly the earlier run. Columbo, which is the purest version of watching someone be good at something. Foyle's War. Endeavour. The Good Wife's case-of-the-week episodes. Bones or Elementary if you want a lighter register. Star Trek: The Next Generation, which is procedural in everything but name. For non-fiction, Grand Designs and The Repair Shop. What makes one fail for you: a serialized arc bolted onto a procedural, which almost every modern one has. Older television is better for your purposes precisely because it was made episodic on purpose.
The World You Return To
You're not watching for the story, you're going somewhere, and the place has to hold up on the tenth visit.
Full attention, always from the beginning, rewinding if you fall asleep, and details in the background as the thing you notice. You'd want someone else to start at episode one. A world you don't want to be in is what kills a candidate. Quality matters because shoddy worlds don't hold. What to try: Studio Ghibli, particularly Kiki's Delivery Service and Only Yesterday. The Lord of the Rings, which a great many people use exactly this way. Deadwood. Call the Midwife. Wolf Hall. All Creatures Great and Small, either version. Anne with an E. For film, the work of Hayao Miyazaki generally, and Whit Stillman if you want somewhere verbal to live. A note on what you need: production design and location do more work for you than plot, so follow directors and designers rather than genres. Period drama and animation over-deliver on this because both build worlds deliberately rather than borrowing them.
The Fast Talk
You know every line and you put it on anyway, because the pleasure is the writing arriving exactly on time.
Twenty-two minutes, best episodes in no order, background while catching every line, and what you notice is how tight the writing is. Jokes that miss are what kills a candidate, and you want someone watching with you who also knows it. What an episode leaves you is lighter. What to try: 30 Rock, if somehow not. The Thick of It. Frasier, which holds up structurally better than its reputation. Arrested Development's first three seasons. Community. Party Down. Peep Show. Black Books. For film, the Coen brothers' comedies and anything by Preston Sturges, which is where a lot of this writing tradition starts. What to watch for: joke density ages better than premise, so shows built on a situation date faster than shows built on writing. When you're testing something new, judge it on whether the third-best line in a scene is good, since that's what separates the ones you'll rewatch from the ones you'll finish once.
What this quiz can’t tell you
- It matches you on the preferences you report, so the result is only as good as the options offered. Your real favourite may not be among them.
- Taste shifts with mood and season. Treat the result as a suggestion to try, not a verdict.
Read more about how our quizzes are created, including how scoring works and what we do and do not claim.