Sometimes I consume TV as radio plays with commentary. In 2019-speak, that means I listen to podcast recaps about TV episodes – and sometimes whole shows – that I have not seen and am not planning to see.
The habit began without me realising, growing as an obsession inside another obsession, like matryoshka dolls. The first obsession was The X-Files. There are about 220 episodes of the show in total, each 43 minutes long. When I realised in early 2018 that I was addicted (this was only circa season 1 episode 2), I consulted a couple of binge guides to drastically reduce the hours ahead of me.
It quickly became clear that there were two or three duds per season, plus a couple more episodes per year in which showrunner Chris Carter and his otherwise very talented 90s writing team mangled stories about ethnic communities and monsters based on “exotic” cultures and religions. Ripe for skipping, then.
By season 3, I was deep into comedian Kumail Nanjiani’s The X-Files Files podcast, recorded between 2014 and 2016, the first time I’d ever listened to an episode-by-episode recap show. His guests were so good and the extras so engrossing – “making of” trivia, discussions around what fans were writing on the message boards at the time – that I started becoming more completist about the podcast than the show. I wanted to know what Nanjiani thought about the problematic stuff, and find out the behind-the-scenes reasons for some of the rushed, below-par scripts. I just didn’t want to actually watch those episodes – partly to avoid tainting my starry-eyed-emoji view of the show.
Whereas some podcasts are in danger of feeling too much like homework, listening to a conversation recorded years ago about a show that aired decades before feels comically out of time and verging on subversive. No-one else on the Jubilee line knows that I’m not listening to Carly Rae Jepsen, I’m listening to a blow-by-blow account of The West Wing season 1. Because, no, this obsession did not begin and end with the spooky alien show.
Name a TV show and there’s an episode-by-episode podcast for it. Or ten. There are slick post-show recap productions like The Ringer’s The Recappables, which covers current shows like Billions, Killing Eve and True Detective, as well as more homebrew, bedroom fan recordings and everything in between. The titles are a joy: Buffering The Vampire Slayer, Bend The Knee, What the Tuck?, Battlestar Galacticast. It’s aural comfort food, an ultra-relaxing, screenless version of The A.V. Club write-ups and cheaper than a Headspace subscription.
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Podcasts like Sleep With Me, which does Doctor Who, Star Trek: The Next Generation and others, and its spin-off Game of Drones, explicitly play on the fact that, if the host has the right voice, recaps can be so hypnotic and tranquilising that they’re worth more than any white noise machine. (The best times to listen to podcasts about TV you’re not watching are while doing chores or trying to get to sleep.)
When it comes to TV I’m not actually watching, my pilot-surfing has seen me gravitate towards 90s and early 00s TV shows. It’s probably just nostalgia – for the vibe, if not specific memories. I never watched The X-Files as a kid, after all.
For not-watchability, a show has to hit the sweet spot between being of interest but not so much I think it’ll spoil things. So I’ll tune into Hrishikesh Hirway and Joshua Malina’s The West Wing Weekly because, even though Sorkin’s political drama is on my list to watch some day, it’s not urgent. I’d probably draw the line at listening to recaps of The Sopranos, though, because it could be my next commitment. Having seen The Wire within memory, The Wire Stripped feels too soon, but I’ve forgotten so much of Battlestar I might as well never have seen it.
Shows with standalone episodes make the most sense to not watch, and these tend to be sci-fi or procedural, but drama works too. As with written recaps, it’s also a good way to find out the endings of shows that you abandoned after they jumped the shark. The X-Files is still the only show I’ve watched (almost) in its entirety that I’ve then committed further podcast time to.
Listening to recaps of shows you don’t watch is less about the actual substance and more about the glow of the hangout, the reassuring tides of intros, outros and credits, the specific pleasure of listening to someone talk passionately about a subject unfamiliar to you. It’s possible I’ve discovered the antidote to both millennial burnout and toxic levels of screen time. I bet all the Silicon Valley CEOs will be doing it soon. I’m available for TED Talks.
Obsessions is a new regular column in which WIRED staffers share their current internet preoccupations.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
