What TV Shows Are the Best Post-Election Comfort Watches?

This Week

What are we all comfort watching?

The Wicked press tour intensifies.

Chappell Roan’s phenomenal performance.

Cher to the rescue.

Protect Hugh Grant at all costs.

What TV Shows Are We Watching After the Election?

So what now, we just go back to watching Real Housewives?

It’s been an extraordinary week heralding an extraordinary time, delivering news that left all of us on a spectrum of reaction—all of it extreme. Whether you’re thrilled, terrified, shell-shocked, confused, exhilarated, devastated, smug, relieved, or furious—to each their own—the election results have moved all of us in outsized fashion. How soon and in what ways, then, do we, when we can, start to go back to “normal,” whatever that may now mean?

For me, the past few days have been surreal. I don't understand how, every time I’ve walked outside, all of New York City isn’t running around like panicked atoms bouncing off each other screaming, “WHAT IS HAPPENING?!?!” What do you mean you’re just going to buy a green juice on your way to work? Does that dog that you’re walking even know about the results in Pennsylvania? You’re going on a date?!

Yet there are parts of life that do go on, and quickly. So after my endless Tuesday night flipping through various networks’ election coverage, gathered with my colleagues around a TV in the newsroom to watch the speeches delivered by Kamala Harris and Joe Biden, and realized that I couldn’t possibly watch one more pundit pontificate and possibly retain the last semblance of my sanity, I ended up staring blankly at my TV screen: Well, what do I put on now?

I did have a new episode of The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City to watch. Would that be the right amount of comforting, or distracting? Or would I feel shamefully vapid for retreating from politics and the seismic nature of world news by watching a bunch of ex-Mormons argue over who is or isn’t invited on a group trip to Palm Springs? (It turned out that a bunch of friends I have a group chat with all ended up watching RHOSLC at the same time, so whatever feelings watching it gave, at least, at that moment, there was community in it.)

I asked some of my Daily Beast colleagues what was the first thing that they watched after working tirelessly on Election Night.

Mathew Murphy, a senior news editor, turned to his old friends, the ladies of The Golden Girls, for some relief. The new seasons of RuPaul’s Drag Race Down Under and, like me, RHOSLC, were also top of the list. Our visual director, Elizabeth Brockway, turned to Law & Order: SVU’s Olivia Benson and Odafin Tutuola, “because nothing says comfort and de-stressing like watching an elite squad of dedicated detectives investigate vicious felonies.”

Benjy Wilson, head of social media, admitted his choice was “a bit niche”: the new season of Misfits and Magic on Dropout for “the biggest dose of escapism I can find.” Our Washington bureau chief, Mary Ann Akers, cracked me up with a story about someone she knows in D.C. with ties to the Democratic party who has spent the week watching The Andy Griffith Show reruns with the sound off.

For senior editor Tim Teeman, “The Young and the Restless has performed a vital public service this week.” He then proceeded to regale me with a plot about some people named Victor, Nikki, and Sharon, which sounds like it must be thrilling if you’re a fan of the show. Otherwise, his additional suggestion: “Sex and the City reruns. Always Sex and the City reruns.”

Is tuning into cable news all day, every day, as I sometimes feel tempted to after a major event like this galvanizing? Numbing? Harmful? “My advice this week is to turn off cable news and start bingeing the two perfect seasons of Detroiters on Netflix,” senior entertainment editor and resident cable news guru Matt Wilstein says. “It's the perfect show to help turn off your brain this week and maybe if enough people watch it, they'll throw us a bone and make a third season.

I wondered a bit this week what a person could put on if they want to somehow engage with the news and what’s going on in the country without, like, watching The West Wing or The Newsroom and requiring a lobotomy immediately after.

A workplace mockumentary like Abbott Elementary isn’t overtly political and will make you laugh, all while slyly driving home a point about the need for funding for education and to pay teachers what they deserve. In that genre, a new show called St. Denis Medical premieres on NBC next week, applying the Office-style format to doctors and workers at a hospital in suburban Oregon. Starring The Goldbergs’ Wendi McLendon-Covey, it is funny and irreverent—and very real about the madcap state of healthcare in this country.

There are several procedurals airing right now that lean far heavily into being absolutely bonkers than Law & Order-style intense, like ABC’s 9-1-1 and new medical drama Doctor Odyssey, or FOX’s attempt at a modern day Baywatch, Rescue: Hi-Surf.

In a bit of wild timing, Yellowstone returns Sunday night on Paramount. In what ways the show “reeks of Trumpism,” “is a conservative fantasy liberals should watch,” or is “a red-state show” has dominated discourse as the series has grown to be one of the most popular on TV. How will that play in different parts of the country after this past week? It’s actually a fascinating cultural experiment, given how many people have long-been obsessed with it.

I don’t know if any of this is helpful or even needed. “Well, what do I watch on TV now?” is not exactly the most pressing question facing America at this moment. But here’s hoping that, however you’re feeling, there’s a Real Housewife, a long-running soap opera character, or Olivia Benson to keep you company. Now if you’ll excuse me, it’s time to check in with my dear personal friend, Carrie Bradshaw.

His Level of Charming Is Getting Insane

The press tour for the Wickedmovie is hyperdrive, with the film hitting theaters Nov. 22. The ramp-up in its stars’ interviews and the film’s marketing might be alarming if, like me, you felt like you already couldn’t blink without some product tie-in being announced or some press appearance going viral.

Luckily, the film’s cast is exceptionally charming and endearingly enthusiastic about this film, leading to some lovely moments this past week, like Ariana Grande’s candid and, often, very funny extended interview with Bowen Yang and Matt Rogers on their Las Culturistas podcast, or this emotional exchange between Grande, Cynthia Erivo, and an Australian journalist.

It is my professional duty, however, to be of public service and report on the various swoon-worthy moments involving my husband Jonathan Bailey that have gone viral this past week, each more perfect than the last: Little treats to watch during any future moments of despair.

This red carpet video where he’s tossed a flower, sniffs it, and effortlessly tosses it back: I have so many questions. Who thought of this stunt? How did they know it would be so hot? And did Jonathan practice, or does this just speak to his intrinsic level of suaveness?

Should you require more delight: Here he is with Jeff Goldblum discussing the taxonomy of the word “zaddy.” Here he is cracking himself up after making a dirty joke. And here he is in short shorts.

There are two more weeks of this to come. See, not everything in the world is bad.

Chappell Roan Was So Good on SNL

By the time you read this newsletter, a new episode of Saturday Night Live might have aired. But I still need to take the time to rave about Chappell Roan’s musical performance on last week’s outing.

She debuted a new song, “The Giver,” and performed “Pink Pony Club,” the hit that launched her career. Her vocals were the best she’s sounded on TV, a feat especially considering how notoriously bad the sound mixing is in that studio. That she led the audience in a singalong of her chorus—and they all joined in, and loudly—that just doesn’t happen.

If you haven’t seen it yet, it’s definitely worth a watch, especially after Friday’s news that Roan is among the most nominated artists at the upcoming Grammys.

Did I Somehow Manifest This?

It turns out that, once again, I have been unknowingly controlling the entertainment industry from my dreams. I don’t otherwise know how to explain the fact that a new version of Cher’s “DJ Play a Christmas Song,” which was released a year ago, has just been released with Kelly Clarkson joining it as a duet.

Though let’s be honest: If I was really controlling the entertainment from my dreams, basically every new music release would simply be Kelly Clarkson joining the original track.

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The Epitome of Happiness

Hugh Grant has been promoting his delightfully sinister turn in the new film Heretic, including taking the Proust Questionnaire for Vanity Fair. And what is Grant’s idea of perfect happiness? Read it, and join me in cracking up: “Drinking a pint of London Pride while munching Twiglets and reading about Colin Firth having a critical and box office catastrophe.”

More From The Daily Beast’s Obsessed

Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point: Destined to be a holiday classic. (Now in theaters)

Small Things Like These: Cillian Murphy deserves another Oscar for this. (Now in theaters)

St. Denis Medical: “The Office, but a hospital” turns out to be a charming premise. (Tues. on NBC)

Bad Sisters: One of my favorite series finally comes back for Season 2. (Wed. on Apple TV+)

Real Housewives of New York City:I was rooting for this reboot, but, friends, it’s become unwatchable. (Now on Bravo)

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