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A hard day is helped along by a few creature comforts: a good meal, a few friends, the right show to unwind with. So we asked The Atlantic’s writers and editors: What’s your go-to feel-good TV series?
Bones (streaming on Hulu and Peacock)
A proper feel-good TV show must be bingeable and must require little mental exertion. It ideally walks a fine line between earnestness and cringe, with a slight bias toward cringe. Almost by definition, these are shows that Serious People who read Serious Books and watch Serious Television admit only under duress to watching, with hemming-and-hawing caveats and a dose of performative embarrassment. For me, that show is Bones, an investigative drama centered on a team led by an Army-veteran FBI agent and a socially challenged forensic anthropologist from a Smithsonian-style institute. The series ran from 2005 to 2017, and although it is certainly a product of its time—it is cask-strength copaganda and a bit too credulous about the Iraq War—it also has plenty to say to our own era of federal-research cuts. Beneath all the gore and disinterred remains, Bones is an uplifting love letter to public service, animated by the twin beliefs that justice is achieved through the pursuit of scientific knowledge and humanistic wisdom, and, equally important, that the federal government should provide (and pay) for both.
— Tyler Austin Harper, staff writer
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Hannibal (streaming on Prime Video)
It’s got to be NBC’s Hannibal! Fundamentally, Hannibal is a show about people commuting to work in and around the D.C. area in the most ridiculous ways possible, who also, somehow, find time to cook dinner from scratch. Hannibal’s premise is that FBI special agent Will Graham travels to Baltimore weekly from Wolf Trap, Virginia, to get therapy from “the late, great Hannibal Lecter.” (That’s roughly one hour and 15 minutes each way! Will has seven dogs. Those dogs must have bladders of steel.)
Eventually, Will realizes that Hannibal is not sourcing his meat ethically, but that revelation takes one whole season, which is fair because so many other things that happen on this show are equally suspicious. Nobody owns a TV, but Hannibal owns a harpsichord and a theremin and has time to compose on both. There is a character named Bedelia Du Maurier. Bedelia Du Maurier! She is played by Gillian Anderson, another point in the show’s favor. At one point, Will even cooks a special homemade dinner for his dogs, like those people from the TV commercials. Hannibal is a show about what I imagine I would be able to do if commuting took no time at all and I did not spend my entire life staring at my phone. Also, there is cannibalism. I would not do the cannibalism.
— Alexandra Petri, staff writer
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Season 3 of The Office (streaming on Peacock)
Calling The Office a feel-good show is strange considering how the first season or two could be so uncomfortable to watch. Michael, the incompetent boss, was often cruel and offensive; Pam was in a miserable relationship with her long-term boyfriend; Jim futilely (sometimes pathetically!) pined for her. Season 3, though, is when the show starts to feel good, in part because it eases off some of its cringiest elements: Jim moves away and gets a new girlfriend, which makes him seem not so pathetic. Pam summons the courage to make big changes to her life. Michael is still Michael, but we start to see glimmers of his sweetness and humanity. I’ve watched this season so many times that I know many of the episodes by heart, and the image of Pam’s face at the end of the final episode is imprinted on my mind’s eye; she may be the happiest person ever to sit in a conference room.
— Eleanor Barkhorn, senior editor
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Parks and Recreation (streaming on Peacock)
I recently found myself on a flight with no Wi-Fi and only a handful of viewing options. Passing up the opportunity to rewatch Wayne’s World or Chicago, I opted for the three available episodes of Parks and Recreation, and my family has been bingeing it ever since. Parks shares much DNA with its mockumentary forebearer, The Office, but diverges in ways that make it ideal for multigenerational viewing.
In the 10 years since its finale, the show has proved to be both evergreen and endearingly of its time. Parks Department Deputy Director Leslie Knope (played by Amy Poehler) is a goofy and lovable good-government workaholic, a pre-rejoinder to the DOGE caricature of the lazy bureaucrat. The series brims with catchphrases (“Treat yo self!”) but derives its humor from its characters. And what characters! The cast weaves together stars reinventing themselves (Rob Lowe as a hyper-optimized cheer robot, Poehler as a Hillary-wannabe girlboss) and actors on their way to stardom (including pre-swole Chris Pratt and goth-baby Aubrey Plaza). And, of course, Li’l Sebastian, RIP.
— Boris Kachka, senior editor
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Portlandia (streaming on Sling TV and Philo)
If we’re talking screen time, Sex and the City is my most-watched show. But when I think about which series has produced the most bellyaching laughs and quotable one-liners, it has to be Portlandia. If you aren’t already privy to the art that is this show, you’re in for a treat. Carrie Brownstein and Fred Armisen star in outlandish sketches set in Portland, and the result is something both deeply satisfying and weird that ran for eight seasons. Watching Portlandia is like sitting in on a master class in comedic timing. My personal favorite sketch? A recurring one where Armisen and Brownstein own a feminist bookstore called Women & Women First. It’s just great television, and the best part is that there’s essentially no storyline to follow. So pick an episode, any episode, and thank me later.
— Annie Joy Williams, assistant editor
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