☕My top 7 feel-good things to watch this cosy season

Settle down, and get stuck in to any of these comfort shows for an instant mood boost (if you're anything like me).

For some reason, this feels like I’m about to expose a list of my deepest, darkest secrets. Read on and I’ll let you be the judge, I guess.

In my humble opinion autumn, or fall, is the season for guilty pleasures, and diving into things that make you feel oh-so-good (even if they are a bit cheesy, kind of crap, or just downright questionable). This type of warm, fuzzy, weirdness is exactly what we need as the nights draw in and the days get cooler to ✨ warm the soul. ✨

…at least, I’ll keep telling myself that while I write this list of beautiful, questionable, feel-good TV that I find myself returning to time after time, and especially during those darker months.

Grab your TV remote, and let’s dive in.

📺 In no particular order…

1. The Vampire Diaries🧛🏻

A personal favourite - just make sure you struggle past the first few episodes where it feels more like an unbearable tween flick so you actually get to the good stuff. Thankfully the story gets pacy pretty quickly after this, and the world is, in my humble opinion, so easy to unwind in.

Three best things about it?

• Damon; there is nothing about his character I dislike. Apart from when I dislike him, and even then I can’t really dislike him, but no spoilers here.

• The writing; brilliant, 12/10, very satisfying storylines and one-liners to boot. Well done, Team TVD Script.

• The world they create; every time I come back to this show I find myself totally immersed in the world, lore, and characters - and totally invested as well. In all eight seasons there were only a couple of storylines I personally didn’t like, but they were still engaging.

  

It gets an 86% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and a 10/10 cosy rating from me.

2. Outrageous Pumpkins 🎃

A recent find for me, but evidently this one has been around for a wee while! It’s American reality show ‘Outrageous Pumpkins’! I started watching on a slow, exhausted day off as something to just ‘have on in the background’ and I ended up hooked. These carvings are big, bold, and intricate all at the same time.

The premise? Take a load of the best pumpkin carvers in America and pit them against each other in carving competitions for a sizeable cash prize: I mean, what a way to get in the mood for spooky season.

For some very rude reason, Rotten Tomatoes hasn’t rated it. IMDB, however, has given it a 7.2/10, and I give it an 8/10 on the cosy scale.

It loses a point because it made me want to become a chainsaw-wielding pumpkin carver and honestly, I’d probably lose a thumb.

3. Sabrina the Teenage Witch (the OG) 🧙‍♀️

Probably an unpopular opinion, but I started watching the new season and just couldn’t bare it. Bring back OG Sabrina! And… delete whatever that was?

Sabrina was a solid staple of my childhood, and a real source of comfy nostalgia. I was absolutely livid when they removed it from Prime Video just as I was completing a rewatch of all the seasons. In fact, since then, I’ve begun following 1 Salem a Day on Instagram to get my kicks, and then when that became inactive I was forced to name my new dog Harvey. Times are tough, ok?

You’ll love this if…

• You love 90’s TV shows, specifically sitcoms; that is, after all, what it is.

• You’re a sucker for a comedic, talking cat.

• You enjoy feel-good magic, and nothing being taken seriously.

I give this one a solid 12/10, and Rotten Tomatoes avg. popcorn-o-meter rates it at 67%.

4. Twilight - the entire saga 🧛‍♀️

Oh no, more vampires! Yes, more vampires. These ones ✨ sparkle ✨

Anyway, this is such a stupidly easy watch that it absolutely has to feature here. It’s one of my on-in-the-background films, and it’s also one of my ‘I’m having a crap week’ films, or series of - it’s hard to stop at just the one once you start, you know?

Some of the best things about Twilight are actually how naff the films are, in a totally comforting way.

My personal favourite Twilight-isms are;

• This girl doing impersonations of Jasper. Obsessed.

• Watching the wigs. Why are the wigs so bad. Who was in charge of the damn wigs?!

• The Twilight Shitposting group on Facebook. Chaos.

Rotten Tomatoes? 49%, I’m surprised they didn’t aim lower on this one. Audiences hit 72%. It’s almost rating-less to me with how comforting I find it, but I’m giving it a perfect 10.

5. Jane the Virgin 🐣

This should probably be top of the list, as it’s absolutely one-thousand percent a comfort watch. It’s safe, feel-good, everything-works-out (even if it’s not how you want it to!) TV, and I loved it, even though it’s absolutely not my usual type of show.

The premise? A young woman with a religious upbringing ends up pregnant by mistake, feels she has to carry the child to term, and ends up intertwined with the wealthy family who were supposed to get pregnant instead. Admittedly it’s a pretty bizarre concept, but it makes for some phenomenal storylines and leaves you with the feeling that things are manageable, no matter what they might be.

Reasons to watch?

• It’s a satirical telenovela, I bet you’ve not watched many of those.

• Rogelio, pictured above, is probably one of the best characters I’ve seen on TV in a long time.

• If you need a pick-me-up, no matter what you usually watch, this is it.

It gets 100% on Rotten Tomatoes, and for good reason. Just because it’s not my usual, I’ll dock a point and give it 9/10, but I’d watch it again in a heartbeat.

6. Emily in Paris 🗼

Oh it’s so bad. It bares shockingly little resemblance to the real world of marketing, it’s also definitely not that realistic when it comes to the reality of Paris - at least as far as my experiences have gone - but for some reason? It’s very watchable.

In another world, I am Emily. I am in Paris, I am wearing very bougie outfits, and I can create any campaign for any brand that I like with no boundaries, no monetary concerns, and no stakeholders to tell me any part of it won’t work. Ah, c’est la vie.

Reasons to watch?

• You like a will-they-won’t-they romance.

• You love Parisian cityscapes, and landscapes, and food (even if you can’t eat it through a TV).

• You’re into that gossipy-style of show where most of the drama is created through people dynamics and, often, awkward encounters.

It’s a 63% on the Tomatometer and I’d give this one a 6/10 on the cosy scale, it’s definitely easy enough to zone out on the world when you’re watching it.

7. Buffy the Vampire Slayer 🔮

We’re back to the spooky side with Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the 1997 series with Sarah Michelle Gellar. Creepier in places than Sabrina, but still with the fantastic 90’s sitcom style, Buffy is a solid comfort watch. It combines a lot of the cosy aspects of the shows and films I’ve already listed: comforting romances, pacey storylines, simple dramas and problems that always get resolved in the end.

If you were looking for something to get into the mood for Halloween, or even to binge on Halloween, choose this.

My favourite things about Buffy;

• Spike. Whilst infuriating at first, he becomes a really lovable character (imo) and has some of the best lines in the show.

• The witchy element, whilst a side-story, is so well-rounded it adds something much deeper to the slaying antics when we start to see more of it in later seasons.

• I’ve already said Spike, but my final reason is all of the characters because they’re all so rounded, and there’s not one you begrudge coming back on-screen.

Rotten Tomatoes? 85%, with an audience rating of 92%. My cosy rating? It’s a 16/10, but I’m also absolutely biased and in the middle of a re-watch.

So… ☕

That’s my list complete!

Hopefully you saw something you’ve not watched yet, or perhaps something you feel like giving another go, or perhaps a total blast-from-the-past that you’re going to stick on straight away for a good dose of nostalgia (assuming you even managed to read past it).

I’d love to hear your favourite cosy shows and films in the comments (I’m looking for a new fix) or, failing that, your thoughts on which celebrities have since drawn aesthetic inspiration from the character of Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer? I can certainly think of a few…

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