I will admit I enjoy watching Foundation and Ted Lasso. Foundation is visually interesting, and there is almost a story I find I want to follow. Ted Lasso is written cleverly and uplifting.
Ted skips the painfully bad set-ups most sit-coms use and lets the viewer fill in those gaps, which is more powerful. Your imagination is better at telling a story. We often imagine more detail with greater emotion than what is real. Brené Brown explains this phenomenon really well, as does Scott Adams, in their various books. What you don’t experience directly, we imagine and with great ferocity.
The best most sit-coms produce is a cringe-worthy set-up to get you to watch the last three minutes of a show to learn the resolution. Ted suggests the set-up, and leaves the audience to fill in the gap. The show does not waste time detailing a situation the viewer can make-believe on their own, giving the show valuable real-estate to tell a better story.
I thought about noting the shows I can’t stand to watch. I won’t list them. Why waste time on bad reviews. There are too many. Better to endorse what is enjoyable.
When my wife or I watch a show the other doesn’t enjoy, we find the show becomes background noise while we do something else. I find I read history and news articles. Or cat videos.