Let's talk about Bedtime TV

Because I need some new recommendations

It’s time to revisit the topic of Bedtime TV because, frankly, I’m in a rut and need a few new ideas, and the streaming landscape has changed vastly in the past few years! Whither all my old favorite movies?!?!

Here’s the backstory, as I originally wrote back in 2023:

As someone with Night Anxiety, I have used my iPad as a bedtime crutch for years.

(I know, screens and blue light in the bedroom are terrible, I’m doing damage to my sleep cycles, etc. To which I answer: if I can’t sleep at all, how much more damage can I do?)

To be fair, this started in college, when I would play my VHS tapes of favorite movies like That Thing You Do!, Austin Powers, Billy Madison, and Empire Records over and over to block out the ambient noise from my dorm neighbors.

But now that we have streaming subscriptions, I have a bigger library to work with. And I’ve refined the types of entertainment I need to watch at specific times to keep my brain occupied in specific ways.

So that’s the gist.

When I’m on the couch for Evening Entertainment, the full buffet is available to me and I can watch pretty much anything (except scary/bloody content — that’s always a dealbreaker): movies or shows that require brainpower, stuff with loud noises and explosions, documentaries on pop culture figures like the affecting recent release Pee Wee as Himself, highly anticipated “treat shows” like RuPaul’s Drag Race or Bridgerton — it’s all welcome.

But then… when I snuggle into bed, this is where things have gotten dicey.

I don’t know if perimenopause is finally kicking in or if my brain chemistry has changed in general as I age (likely BOTH!?!), but the Winding Down to Sleep Hour (9:00-10:00 pm) can no longer support me watching as-yet-unseen but not-too-taxing movies and shows.

This means that lite fare like Next in Fashion or Jury Duty are out and I have to go straight into Rewatch Territory, a space formerly only entered during the Middle-of-the-Night wake-up phase.

I used to be able to watch stuff like the entirety of both The Bob Newhart Show and Newhart during this time, filling in gaps in my Classic Tee Vee history. Now that I have to resort to shows I’ve already seen, my options have shrunk.

When will I finally be able to watch every episode of Cheers?! Or Murder, She Wrote??

But a good rewatch starts to put my brain in the sweet spot of familiarity so it stops ruminating and thought-looping, which is the key. Lately I’ve been drifting off to episodes of Friends, but anything you’ve seen before would probably work.

Shows like Gilmore Girls or Parks and Recreation, Disney movies (come on, you know Frozen and Moana intimately, don’t lie) or all those movies you watched in college, anything you could easily quote to me right now. That’s the stuff.

(Important point: Streaming is basically built for the moment you realize you accidentally slept through an entire episode. Just start over again!)

Then I usually wake up again in the wee hours.

During this time (anywhere from 1:45-4:00 am, usually) is when we reach the Sleep Watch stage of Rewatching. What is this weird designation? It’s when I fire the iPad back up and “watch” with my eyes closed.

Yes, this is one of my favorite strategies: listening to the show as it plays like a podcast, because I know most of what I’m watching by heart anyway. In fact, a New York Times editor wrote about how she would stick her phone under her pillow to listen to Seinfeld during the pandemic.

The goal is to lull the brain back into dreamland as quickly and gently as possible, so it has to be something quiet and soothing. It cannot have a loud theme song that jerks you awake every time a new episode begins (Brooklyn Nine-Nine and Parks, I’m looking at you).

So I’ve been sticking to one of the most soothing and British things I can find, cycling through all of Downton Abbey over and over. Occasionally I’ve been branching out with The Crown — possibly the most boring thing one could put on to conk themselves out.

TV has always been my babysitter, I guess.

I’m frustrated that this is my nightly habit, but also sort of resigned to it after all these years. I don’t do podcasts, so that’s not an option, and I’ve tried all the expert techniques: cognitive shuffling, box breathing, EFT (tapping), getting up and reading, etc., etc.

Nothing, I must admit, works as well as the soothing sounds of televised entertainment.

So what do you do when you can’t get back to sleep in the middle of the night?