So bad it’s good? Our favourite TV shows to hate-watch

3 months ago 9

The reviews of Ryan Murphy’s new legal drama All’s Fair were brutal. In his one-star appraisal, our critic Craig Mathieson called the Kim Kardashian series “at best awkward and at worst atrocious”. Elsewhere, in a rare zero-star review The Guardian, the show was labelled “fascinatingly, incomprehensibly, existentially terrible”. Be honest: it almost made you want to watch it, right?

Though there’s no shortage of genuinely great TV out there, there can be a real pleasure in cosying in to a pile of trash from time to time. Here are some of the best.

Camila Mendes, KJ Apa and Cole Sprouse in Riverdale

Riverdale (Netflix)

There has been a lot of debate about what Nietzsche meant when he said, “If you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you”, but it’s now clear that he was talking about watching Riverdale. If you watch it for too long, your sense of reality, continuity and ability to tell good writing from bad all begin to crumble.

In theory, it is about four friends who live in the titular town of Riverdale where strange things happen. It’s the ’50s! But also modern day! It’s our world! But not! There’s a hotel called the Five Seasons, and you pay your bills with an American Excess card.

Trying to describe the seven-season series – inspired by the Archie comics – is like trying to explain a dream you’ve had after a period of severe sleep deprivation. Sure, it made sense in the moment, but as you listen to the phrases coming out of your mouth (“evil version of Dungeons and Dragons”, “cursed doll”, “teenage prison fight club”, “jingle jangle” and “after-school vigilante gang”), the more unhinged you realise the whole thing is. It’s neither good nor bad – it simply is. More TV should be this nonsensical. Elizabeth Flux

Reese Witherspoon, fresh from outer space, returns in season four of Morning Wars.

Morning Wars (Apple TV)

The phrase “jump the shark” was made famous in Happy Days, when Fonzie leapt over a shark on waterskis. It marks the moment a show runs out of natural momentum and resorts to something absurd to get viewers back. And its modern equivalent has to be morning news anchor Bradley Jackson (Reese Witherspoon) casually getting launched into space.

The season three premiere of this star-studded series (Jennifer Aniston! Jon Hamm! Greta Lee! Marion Cotillard! Jeremy Irons!), which started as a seemingly prestige #MeToo drama, shifted the show into all-out farce. Our favourite breakfast presenters have since become embroiled in the January 6 Capitol insurrection, the eco-terrorism of a group trying to unveil a deadly cover-up at their company and the accidental defection of an Iranian nuclear scientist.

It’s insane glossy slop, but it has got me hooked. I love that I have literally no idea how the fourth season will end this month, and that we’ll probably see even more A-list actors join for season five. Meg Watson

Emma Hernan and Chrishell Stause in the recent season of Selling Sunset.

Selling Sunset (Netflix)

You’ve probably heard people say they watch Netflix’s Selling Sunset for the real estate. They’re lying. The real reason we’re watching this highly manicured trash is because we love to watch people hate each other.

Each episode of this reality series, which ostensibly follows a luxury real estate brokerage in LA, delivers some form of pointless conflict, like fights over how short one agent’s skirt is (it was very short) or whether another did cocaine 20 years ago. It’s the epitome of style over substance, with the entire cast dressed as if they’re about to strut a catwalk rather than sell a house to the world’s wealthiest. The show recently dropped its ninth season, featuring so much conflict that arguably the show’s most level-headed character has quit. But I’ll still be tuning in for season 10. Nell Geraets

Che Diaz (Sara Ramirez), the most maligned character in the already maligned And Just Like That.

And Just Like That... (HBO Max)

RIP And Just Like That... And RIP my weekly brain rot as I obsessed over the choices that Sex and the City showrunner Michael Patrick King made for his iconic characters in this poorly executed sequel series.

Level-headed, independent lawyer Miranda Hobbes (Cynthia Nixon)? A bumbling alcoholic falling all over the world’s most unfunny nonbinary comedian. The stylish Charlotte York-Goldenblatt (Kristin Davis)? Mostly just reacting to her husband’s penis troubles. Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker)? Pissing herself in bed and then spending a full season faffing about in the world’s most annoying long-distance relationship. Samantha (Kim Cattrall)? Smartly, MIA.

This series was maligned from the start, first for its cringeworthy attempts to explore “woke” culture, and then for its general inertia. Fans hung on to glimmers of hope, but the writing was so consistently bad it always paled in comparison with what came before. I felt a sense of duty to see it through to the end, but truthfully, I came to savour the terrible moments, too (or at least the many memes they inspired). MW

Joe and Madison in season nine of Love Is Blind

Love is Blind (Netflix)

There are some genuinely successful marriages to come from this “social experiment”- style reality series, in which people get engaged “sight unseen”, but I don’t care about any of them. I’m watching for the fights and the dysfunction and the woman who paused during a serious conversation about her future to inexplicably give her dog a sip of wine. (It’s been five years. I’m still thinking about it).

Many viewers have criticised this latest season, the show’s ninth, for a lack of lasting connections. But truly, I don’t mind. It gifted me some of the most incompressible arguments ever put to screen, a drunken diss for the ages and the most likeable man of the series making a “protein drink” out of a packet of powdered lemonade and a baked chicken breast.

Is all this good for my brain or society at large? Of course not. But after a long day of work and parenting and controlling the chaos, sometimes you need to let loose watching a grown man drink a chicken smoothie. MW

The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives follows a group of Mormon mum influencers caught in the midst of a swinging sex scandal.

The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives (7Plus, Disney+)

It all started with a swinging scandal involving Mormons. Mormon husbands and Mormon wives and Mormon neighbours in a big ol’ Mormon orgy. The scandal spilled to social media, cameras got involved, and that’s how you get the most depraved (Mormon) reality show on TV.

The cast at the centre of the show – for the most part (I will not blaspheme against the gentle queen Mikayla Matthews) – are your standard collection of clout-chasing attention-seekers concocting drama and airing dirty laundry in a desperate bid for an increased online following and eventually sponsored content opportunities out the wazoo. It should make me feel dirty watching this show – and sometimes it does, like when Jen Affleck’s battle with postpartum depression was milked for screen drama – and yet, they’re also, kinda, heroes?

These women are basically a bunch of Mormon Emmeline Pankhursts, who do sexy dances on TikTok while tearing down the Mormon patriarchy and busting open sexual taboos in a way that’s making the church more progressive (to its leaders’ continued annoyance). Sure, they’re doing it in a grossly capitalistic way that is completely antithetical to my morals, but it still counts. Robert Moran

What’s your favourite show to hate-watch? Let us know in the comments below.

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