"Comfort food" TV shows: what do you watch to soothe you in times of high stress/anxiety?

House Hunters International just won’t be the same when I think of all the old folks who were left to die in those apartments...

Golden Girls kind of goes without saying, I suppose. Old game shows on Youtube. 90 Day Fiance for schadenfreude.

Hazel, Bewitched. Anything on MeTV.

I started watching The Young & the Restless again last year because of the new Adam. I'm comforted, I suppose, by the way parts of it take me back to younger days. I stopped watching it after they got rid of Lynn Marie Latham, who made the best version of the show that ever existed. I enjoy the older characters (except for Phyllis, whom I wish someone would kill). I loved this week's scenes between Nikki and Sharon.

But most of it is yutzerim like Duh-VONN, Aman-DUH, LoKySuTh, and the horrid Abby. I FF through a lot.

Bob's Burgers

Bewitched, S1-S5 - the York Years

Little House on the Prairie, the pre-Albert years

Old game shows: What's My Line, Match Game

Hazel, the pre-Steve and Barbara years

The Office.

Frazier

^^^ FraSier, ugh

The first six seasons of American Dad, any Frasier, old Simpsons seasons 2 through about the Hank Scorpio episode, Bob's Burgers, Batman The Animated Series, Police Squad! and Looney Tunes.

My local PBS often airs Downton Abbey on Sundays, 12-5, makes for a nice afternoon.

When Dump45 was "elected" I went into a self-protective bubble and rewatched ALL the seasons of so many shows, just to quell my revulsion/terror and to dull the reality of his existence. I watched 30 Rock, Parks and Rec, Dick Van Dyke Show, Sopranos, The Wire, Mary Tyler Moore Show, Seinfeld, All in the Family, Golden Girls, Peep Show, and probably a few more I can't remember right now. Currently I'm going through Bewitched because I am studying Endora's looks for Mardi Gras costuming ideas, so focusing on episodes with E in them rather than watching all. I feel like doing the same now.

I bet streaming companies are going to profit the most from this stay at home phase.

Frasier. I never saw this series in real time, only in repeats. And now I seek it out. I love the cast, I find them all very comfortable and comforting. I want to live among them...

The IT Crowd. I can’t decide which character I like best.

I second “Parks and Rec.”

I didn’t find it “edgy” enough the first time around, but love it on re-watch. I basically have it in 24 hours a day. I find it very comforting, like being with old friends.

It might make you feel better.

On you tube Escape to the country ( house hunting in the english countryside) and Come Dine With Me ( dinner party competition). These are both escapist tonics for me.

Hart to Hart. I fucking love Hart to Hart.

This will sound weird but I'm watching Generation Kill. It's a short mini-series about the taking of Fallujah by the USMC but the cast is great! Lots of humor -- can't explain why it feels so comfortable for me but it does. Maybe because the men are so fucking manly!

It periodically changes, but I seem to return to Planet Earth (and it's subsequent seasons and iterations).

Family Affair, the bonus being the opening theme music.

I think a lot of the older shows' theme music/songs provide a happy little feeling.

That's because of 9.11, the aftermath of which coincided with Mindy Paige Davis and that home switching redecoration show, OP.

Trading Spaces. The name escaped me for awhile.

The one that always had a hot gay carpenter

Lots of great, comforting shows here! Keep 'em coming. :-)

Also, I forgot about "The Great British Baking Show." That's another one I can rewatch to relax.

I never watched it while it was current, but “This 70’s Show” is actually funny.

The Nanny.

Goodness Gracious Me!

WHET to Ty Pennington and Carter Oosterhouse?

[quote]WHET to Ty Pennington and Carter Oosterhouse?

In my imagination, they've finally confessed their love for each other and are living quietly on a farm in the country building crap during the day and having hot, sweaty sex at night.

DecadesTV, from the MeTV folks - spent the better part of yesterday lost in a Police Woman marathon.

Earl Holliman was one fucking hot daddy. Woof

Ab Fab for me ... esp Seasons 1-3 but Ill watch the later ones in a pinch ...

first and foremost : mothership Law and Order

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

The Nanny

Golden Girls

Fresh Prince of Belair

Frasier

Supernatural

and I just binged The Facts of Life

Facts of Life, Golden Girls, Brady Bunch, Roseanne

I'm actually catching up on the oeuvres of great directors. I've watched four Kubrick films in the last two days. Re-watching "The Shining" right now.

As for TV shows, I love old Japanime cartoons from the 80s. There are entire series of Alice in Wonderland, The LIttle Prince, Hello Kitty and Strawberry Shortcake. The Smurfs are super-comforting, too. And claymation! The Wind in the Willows is fantastic.

I don't watch a lot of TV, but I do enjoy watching people build and fix things on YouTube.

Brooklyn Nine-Nine was pure fun and had LGBT characters. I miss it.

Person of Interest - I'm streaming it now.

Yes, R16, I came here to post "Escape to the Country," too!

Pet rescue and vet shows. I particularly recommend Dr T Texas Vet and Dr. K’s Exotic Animal ER.

Futurama for me. I didn't watch it when it was first on but it's a great show to chill out to. So are Bob's Burgers, The Simpsons, American Dad, and other cartoons made for adults.

30 Rock. Mad Men. Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee. Portlandia. It's been a while since I re-watched all of the Hannibal TV series, so I think that's next in line. It might not be comforting, but it's engrossing, and I need the distraction.

I'm going to physically queue up a lot of old movies on DVDs, too. When I was younger I re-watched my favorites on VHS and then DVD, almost daily.

Brothers & Sisters seasons one and two. Can’t get enough of Nora’s kitchen. And all the wine drinking.

What’s My Line

Cooking shows - any of them

Jeeves and Wooster

Colombo, the various iteration of Secrets of the Zoo, anything soothingly voiced by David Attenborough.

Ugly Delicious on Netflix.

Mama’s family

Back in the say I found Sister Wendy talking about great paintings quite soothing. But I cannot find her anywhere now.

It's still on, R35! They're in the middle of the current season right now! Still on Hulu, too.

Grey's Anatomy, That '70s Show, Unsolved Mysteries

R46 there are several good quality Sister Wendy Playlists on YouTube right now. Thanks for bringing her up she was lovely.

The real housewives franchise. I just love the clothes and the one liners and the fights. It relaxes me as it numbs my brain.

For R46.

As R49 mentioned, if you search for "sister wendy" on YouTube, you'll find her. :-)

Star Trek The Next Generation

Thanks for those suggesting Sister Wendy on YouTube! I have missed her.

plain air popcorn...I dont want to get fat doing quarantine

Oh, forgot that I also watched Mad Men again, also love the British Bake Off----sooooo relaxing!

^^^because Im dyslexic and read upward, air pooped popcorn while watching 90 Day Fiance ^^^^^^

MST3K

Has anyone watched the Great Canadian Bake-Off? Is it as good as the British show?

Ty did Extreme Makeover Home Edition for 9 seasons. I can't watch that show because it makes me cry every time.

Criminal Minds - I fast forward thru the scenes of the killer of the week to avoid unpleasantness. The rest is F*R*I*E*N*D*S in the FBI.

Any dog shows - did a big run of Pit Bulls and Parolees. Also love Lucky Dog.

Gene Roddenberry insisted that there be essentially no conflicts among the core crew in the plots of Star Trek TNG.

It makes the episodes anodyne yet comforting- they all get along!

Forensic Files. The bad guys always gets caught in the end.

[quote]Has anyone watched the Great Canadian Bake-Off? Is it as good as the British show?

Yes, I've watched it. The first seasons, w/ Dan Levy co-hosting, were good, but one of the judges (Rochelle Adonis) was bad. All she ever said to people was a variation on "well done." The actual show itself is very much a carbon copy of the original, format- and tone-wise. I find it just as relaxing.

Bruno, the only original cast member to stay in the most recent season, is good, as is the new judge (Kyla Kennaley). The new co-hosts (Aurora Browne and Carolyn Taylor) are not bad, trying their best to be GBBO's Mel and Sue.

And the casting team has done a pretty good job of finding interesting and diverse bakers.

Give it a shot!

"Forensic Files. The bad guys always gets caught in the end"

DAMN YOU! Why didn't you post a Spoiler alert?

Father Brown

For fans of vintage British TV comedy, Blackadder III, III and IV, Father Ted, and Yonderland if you can find it. Also anything by Stewart Lee or Victoria Wood.

Perry Mason

Night Court

I favour European & British soaps from the 1990s & early 2000s; that specific period before smartphones laptops & tablets & Amazon/Apple/Google tyranny, but after the ubiquity of satellite telly and PCs and personal phones. I suppose shows of that era take me back to that simpler time, still in living memory for most people but not far removed from our own current reality. Those days seems less stressful and miserable somehow, but maybe that’s just a trick of memory. I like foreign soaps especially because the dialogue is interesting to my Anglophile ears, and because Euro culture is so much more relaxed and social and civil (or at least, it was back then..)

One upshot of existing in the here & now, though, is getting to enjoy these soaps over again in an abridged gay-centric format I.e., via streaming playlists that only focus on certain storylines so viewers don’t have to watch filler and full episodes all over again. I’ve rediscovered characters and arcs I loved as a youngster without needing to sit through hundreds of hours of chaff that I didn’t like or care about the first time around in order to get to them.

Currently I’m rewatching the little-known but very charming Swedish youth soap ANDRA AVENYN, with a teen Alicia Vikander in her first major screen role and the very adorable gay pinup Jonas Bane. Before he trained as a Shakespearean actor, Sven Boräng was in a few episodes of the second season also playing a gay role. There’s a sexy moment of him & Jonas shirtless kissing on a piano in the compilation below.

I can binge through all the seasons of Top Chef and then start back from the beginning and do it all over again.

I used to also find an odd comfort in watching the NBC show, "American Dreams," but it's pretty much no longer available anywhere.

Why isn't "Night Court" available for streaming?

I’m rewatching 30 ROCK

How it's Made on the Science channel. It's video Xanax.

[quote]I used to also find an odd comfort in watching the NBC show, "American Dreams," but it's pretty much no longer available anywhere.

I used to LOVE that show!!!! And I, too, have tried to find it in recent years, to no avail.

[quote]I used to also find an odd comfort in watching the NBC show, "American Dreams,"

[quote]I used to LOVE that show!!!!

It was JJ. Watch Will Estes on Blue Bloods (which is still accessible).

I just started watching The Repair Shop on Netflix, definitely a stress reducer....and Will is super handsome.

R75 I had it on TIVO which I then transferred to DVD... but I have no idea where those discs are now. I think they released the first season on DVD but couldn't get the subsequent ones distributed because of the music licensing.

Did you ever see the 10 minute epilogue they filmed to tie the series up?

Midsomer Murders, re-watching The Windsors, any funny series or movie, and melodramatic Lifetime for Women types of movies that are too melodramatic and silly to stress me out, and entertaining. Nothing heavy or filled with doom storylines.

Eddie and Pats!

Antiques Roadshow

[quote]Did you ever see the 10 minute epilogue they filmed to tie the series up?

I don't think so! Or maybe I just can't remember it?

R82 it was filmed and only shown at like some event. It eventually made its way to Youtube.

Get a tissue!

Comfort food TV means only one thing: Ina Garten!

George to the Rescue.

He seems nice and I want his load.

OMG, R83, THANK YOU! No, I'd never seen that before, and it brought back so many memories! Sam, Roxanne, Will... wow.

And you're right: I totally teared up watching that. Thank you, again!

Supernanny

Another vote for MST3K. Thankfully there are a ton of them and they can be watched multiple times.

R83 and r86 Why didn't the Pryors run down off the porch to hug Meg? I know her father was an asshole, but her mother?

JJ lived, right?

In the series finale, Meg chose to leave the family with Chris (played by Milo Ventimiglia!), and Jack (her dad) said he'd disown her if she did. Hence the reserved reaction to her return three years later. My guess is Helen (her mom) was just taking her cues from Jack, but you could tell she desperately wanted to go hug Meg. Jack probably did, too -- he wasn't really an asshole. Just tough.

Such a great show. *sigh*

I thought Jack not rushing to hug Meg and her mother waiting for Jack to leave was perfectly in character for how they acted the entire run of the show.

Jack never addressed anything going on but instead, moved on in silence and would act as though nothing happened. Her mom always took her cues from Jack and did everything after he left the room.

R88 riffs are great for keeping the spirits up. I like Rifftrax & WeHateMovies, too.

The X-MEN 2 Rifftrax has been giving me the best chucks for fifteen years.

[quote] (As a fight between humans and Xavier’s students threatens to break out in a crowded mall food court, Professor X uses his powers of mind-control to stop everyone's movements) Mike Nelson: Look, if they start walking backwards and stabbing themselves, I'm leaving.

Thanks, r90. But Jack was an asshole.

Damn you R83! I forgot about that show. Had no idea other people on DL would remember it.

I dont know what it is about that show but whenever I watch it or see clips I want to just start bawling. Maybe it has something to do with the soundtrack but it was an excellent show.

They definitely used music really well, R94. It was one of the best dramas NBC ever produced.

White Collar

West Wing

Pickers

British Bake Show

British documentaries on former Royals and castles, etc

You can watch all the Rosemary and Thyme mysteries on Youtube in good quality.

o! 3rd Rock from the Sun

Great British Bake Off is the very definition of comfort television.

Southland

Major Crimes

Frasier

Regular Show

Another one here for British Bake Off. Mary Berry is my personal hero. A lot of sitcoms. A lot. Wouldn’t be surprised if film and tv production quadruples after this. Netflix and streaming shows are keeping people sane and occupied right now.

R33 where are you watching those shows? I loved the Smurfs! The original animated Tintin series is on Prime and that’s also been working for me.

r68

Perry Mason was great. I used to watch reruns on some UHF / Cable Channel. Recently, I got it on Amazon Prime and was blown away by Burr's performance, the writing and noir art direction in the first season. Della and Perry were SO doing it, something the actors did not convey overtly, but displayed a familiarity in their body language that implied much more. After the 1st season, they cooled it and she acted as his secretary. Interesting...

I think I am going to start Poirot over from the beginning.

I'm watching Poirot AND Lord Peter Wimsey

Latino porn. Then black porn.

Bumping to keep the recommendations coming ('cause we might need a lot more comfort-food TV in the coming weeks). :-)

Match Game reruns on the Game Show Network.

Brett Somers and Charles Nelson-Reilly can make even a pandemic seem bearable.

Yus, my Dear.

Let the intro do the explaining.

fine, I will give my embarrassing ones.

scrubs

how is the met your mother

real housewives of various locations

“Psych,” of course!

So silly. I just love it.

Any hints on how we in the USA can watch the Great Canadian Baking Show? The apps store won't let me download it.

Quarantine Coffee with Jonathan Bennett and Jaymes (the Y is silent) Vaughan. On youtube.

Frasier and The Simpsons

I think you'll like this one OP. It's literally about people and their favorite dish at the Midnight Diner. So soothing.

Mama's Familu

Kath and Kim

I'm obsessed about shows involving serial killers and murders. It's not just me, entire cable channels devoted to this and has been the case for decades.

The Flintstones and The Munsters. I haven't seen them in so long that I've forgotten the plots and every episode seems new.

I love the one where Lily puts Herman on a diet R116.

"As Time Goes By" with Dame Judi Dench and Geoffrey Palmer ! Very calming and very funny.

I use the AppleTV module to access most all of what I see on TV which aggregates Netflix, YouTube, and a lot of other channels. I like the (mostly British) historical documentaries hosted by historians Lucy Worsley, Suzannah Lipscomb, Helen Castor, and Dan Jones. They're available on YouTube. I could watch them all day.

Joanna Lumley (Patsy from "Absolutely Fabulous") has done a series of very entertaining documentaries on her world travels as well, most of them watchable on YouTube. Her calming voice is wonderful at bedtime.

Also, the various "Who Do You Think You Are" series (USA, UK, Australia versions) and Rick Steves's travel documentaries are good for calming the nerves, whether you actively pay attention to them or just let them run in the background during whatever else you're doing with your day.

I also love to binge on old clips from The Carol Burnett Show that are now on YouTube.

"The Vet Life"

"Lucky Dog"

"Cold Case"

"Alfred Hitchcock Presents"

tiny animation clips of "Mikan Seijin" (YouTube search for "Mikan Seijin")

"Pee-Wee's Playhouse"

clips of Korla Pandit at the organ

"Temperatures Rising" (also on YouTube)

"The Monkees"

R110, not sure if this'll work as it may not allow access outside of Canada, but you can try watching TGCBS directly from the CBC website.

Designing Women

Star Trek The Next Generation was on my list so I started rewatching a few days ago but didn't realize how many episodes revolved around dealing with deadly plagues. Not very comforting after all.

The Great British Sewing Bee is available on you tube. Much less glitzy and far more authentic than Project Runway, with the added bonus of the dashing Patrick Grant as the host.

Thank you, R122, but it wonk work for me. Appreciate it, tho.

THE LOVE BOAT. I love seeing the old stars, and the old, old, old stars. And seeing which color jacket Isaac will be wearing (I like him in blue).

There will never be a better Saturday night line up than The Love Boat followed by Fantasy Island R127.

Excuse me, R128?

Gimme A Break!

The Facts of Life

The Golden Girls

227

Hunter

We're streaming a lot of Great British Baking Show and MST3K lately.

I found the most hilarious tv show yesterday, called The Golden Girls.

you should start a thread about that r131, i know i would be interested in learning more about such a show. is it new?

It’s about 4 older ladies living under one roof in Miami.

Mary Tyler Moore. The writing holds up and it's genuinely funny.

And these two.

The Bionic Woman

King of the Hill