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4 hours ago
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America’s Next Top Model
When I think of the summer holidays when I was a teenager, I think of watching America’s Next Top Model for hours on end, critiquing each contestant with my sister. The makeover episode was always my favourite: girls sobbing as their hair was cropped short, or even shaved off. At the time, Tyra Banks seemed like a big sister, giving the contestants the tough love they’d need to succeed in a ferociously competitive industry. Now I feel differently. I hadn’t watched America’s Next Top Model since I was young, but like many, I recently watched Netflix’s excellent series, Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model. It was the strangest sensation, rewatching episodes I hadn’t seen in more than two decades. At times I felt almost teleported back. How could I not find these scenes of models collapsing with hunger utterly abhorrent? I wondered what influence watching a show that celebrated eating disorders had on my own brain. I think it had an impact. I think the residual taint of it is still there. I can’t watch America’s Next Top Model any more, nor do I want to. Ironically, it’s all too ugly. Sirin Kale
The Apprentice
Truly, has any show in the history of television had a worse legacy than The Apprentice? The main culprit is obviously the American original, for the way it legitimised Donald Trump, but the British version doesn’t exactly get away scot-free. In terms of values, it preaches the sort of idiocy that should have been torched after the financial crisis; competitive selfishness and relentless greed at all costs. It has also churned nimrod after nimrod out into the media landscape. Plus, it isn’t fun to sit through. Why are people still applying for this mess? Why are any of us still watching? I can’t believe I used to enjoy this show. Stuart Heritage
Good Omens
There are few less complicated joys for me than the writing of Terry Pratchett. In my early teens, I fell for it hard – until that point, I didn’t know books could be that silly, or surprisingly profound, while also featuring a magical orangutan. I spent years diving back into it whenever I needed something to make me smile. So when Prime Video’s adaptation of Pratchett and Neil Gaiman’s Good Omens came out, I was overjoyed. After years of ropey TV adaptations that failed to channel the way Pratchett’s writing balanced goofiness with seismic moments of drama, they’d finally got it right. David Tennant and Michael Sheen’s sparkling chemistry! Gaiman keeping things true to the book! Special effects that didn’t suck! For years, it was TV that I treasured. Until, that is, Gaiman became embroiled in sexual assault allegations, which he denies. I haven’t even seen the finale. This used to be TV that took me to my happy place. Now, not so much. Alexi Duggins
The Office
First things first: I still consider The Office to be a masterpiece. As a satire of reality TV, as a character study, as a gimlet-eyed portrait of turn-of-the-millennium Britain, it remains unmatched. And that’s precisely why it’s so difficult to enjoy a quarter of a century later: it recreates the relentless sexist banter of the era with the same nauseating accuracy it brings to everything else. The wink-wink misogyny might seem quaint compared to today’s manosphere, but to revisit the show in 2026 is to be reminded of a time when tedious yet still threatening jokes about women were part of the rhythm of everyday life. The Office was always uncomfortable – it’s pure cringe comedy – but now it feels deeply disconcerting. That’s not necessarily a bad thing: the best art never ages into a cosily banal comfort blanket. Even so, one rewatch should cure most cases of Y2K nostalgia. Rachel Aroesti
Married at First Sight
Looking for some light relief during lockdown in 2020, I started watching Married at First Sight Australia. The premise of the reality TV show is this: couples are matched by a panel of experts and meet for the first time at the altar. After they tie the knot, they go on a honeymoon, then move in together. Throughout the “experiment”, as it’s referred to, the group meet every week for dinner and a “commitment ceremony”, where each couple talk through how it’s going with the experts and decide if they want to stay or go. From sparks flying between couples to dramatic arguments at dinner, it makes for compelling reality TV. But earlier this year, a BBC Panorama investigation into Mafs UK revealed that there have been allegations of rape and sexual assault on the show, hearing hugely troubling accounts from three women. Meanwhile, female participants on Mafs Australia have spoken out about the vetting process, asking why men with past allegations of domestic violence and abuse have been allowed to take part. It’s another example of safeguarding failures in reality TV, and knowing what’s gone on behind the scenes, there’s no way I’d watch it now. Isabelle Aron
This Life
I was 17 when This Life sauntered on to our screens, all miniskirts, Marlboro Lights and wild shagging. A deeply foolish age, I should have reminded myself, when I also believed in cargo pants and New Labour. God knows why I thought Amy Jenkins’s landmark series would have aged well when the 1990s so bracingly have not. Still, I poured myself a (metaphorical) pint of Stella and geared up for a nostalgic rewatch. Would I still fancy Egg? And want to be Anna? (No, and God yes, I’m only human.) I managed about three episodes before I nearly died of casual sexism, homophobia and boredom. Never again. Chitra Ramaswamy
I’m a Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here!
To be clear, it was only ever the guiltiest of pleasures. But for many years, I found I’m a Celebrity mindlessly enjoyable as a vicarious adventure holiday and a schadenfreude-laden Z-lister hazing ritual. Ant and Dec’s gentle but pointed teasing of the participants was inclusive: it felt as if we were all in on the joke. Everything changed in 2023, when Nigel Farage signed up. Suddenly, the joke was on us. Mainstream political figures were tiresomely tolerable. Farage, though, seemed a different kettle of witchetty grubs: a poisonous figure, trading on the electorate’s worst instincts and being allowed to massage his image in primetime. Clearly, I wasn’t going to watch that – and I never have again. Fortunately, The Celebrity Traitors has arrived now, offering a far more palatable version of challenge-based famous-people foolishness. Phil Harrison
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The Great British Bake Off
Bake Off was ruined for me like a cake left out in the rain when the rights to the show were dramatically bought from the BBC by Channel 4. After seven ad-less series on the BBC, negotiations over production costs saw the baking competition jump three doors down. In an act of solidarity, the show’s presenters Mel Giedroyc and Sue Perkins – along with its resident cake expert Mary Berry – decided not to follow the hit show. Bread baron Paul Hollywood, however, stayed, and a new cast of talent have endured his stoicism and personal brand of handshakes since. Not me, though. The betrayal soured my taste for village fete chumminess. The cutthroat affair was incongruous with the show’s image of wholesome Britain. It taught me that sometimes, under the layers of zingy fruit and flaky pastry, there’s a soggy bottom waiting. George Francis Lee
Entourage
The male Sex and the City™ was kind of fun for a while back there in the 00s but Entourage has aged appallingly. Based on executive producer Mark Wahlberg’s life, it followed a movie star and his posse of hangers-on as they navigated Hollywood. This mainly involved chasing women around LA while fetishising cars and money. Potty-mouthed agent Ari Gold (Jeremy Piven) was a workplace bully whose treatment of his assistant Lloyd (Rex Lee) was racist and homophobic. Over eight seasons and a flop film sequel, it went from insider satire to douche-bro fantasy. I saw it pithily described online as “toxic masculinity – the TV show”. Creator Doug Ellin has accused HBO of burying the show due to “righteous PC culture”. Let’s not hug it out, actually. Michael Hogan
Euphoria
I’ve felt torn over watching the final season of Euphoria. On the one hand, I was up for Rue’s spiritual awakening and Maddy’s career as a perma-eye-rolling talent agent assistant – plus who wouldn’t want to watch Sydney Sweeney and Jacob Elordi get hitched? But I’m not the only one left disappointed by Rue’s evolution into a horny drug mule, Cassie’s cam-girl aspirations and the fact that Kat (Barbie Ferreira) was entirely MIA. It wasn’t the life I’d dreamed of for my favourite debauched TV teens – and the online discourse calling out Euphoria for its male-gaze misogyny and descent into “fetish slop” didn’t make watching any more fun. Did I enjoy Jules’s turn as a sugar baby? Sadly, no. Leah Harper
Coupling
I first watched Coupling when it aired in 2000, I thought it was a riotous comedy that was bitingly honest about dating, sex and relationships. During a rewatch recently, I couldn’t get past the vacuous characterisation of many of the women – among the group of friends we have Jane, a manipulative stalker, and Sally, whose main focus in life is not getting wrinkles. What I remembered as edgy humour was in fact puerile “jokes” branding women who refuse to be dumped as “unflushables” and about how getting your mate’s porn collection when he dies is a bonus. Then there’s the episode where Patrick is revealed to have a cupboard full of sex tapes after recording his exes without their consent. It was like watching a sitcom written by Nuts magazine, and every bit as sexist and unfunny as that sounds. Ann Lee
House of Cards
House of Cards didn’t work when it tried to continue without Kevin Spacey as scheming politician Frank Underwood. But with Spacey now cast out, the earlier seasons are unwatchable too. That we liked Frank when we really shouldn’t have, because he was honest with us in his asides to camera – and because, dammit, he was good at lying and killing, and some of his victims deserved it – was a unique thrill, a forbidden suspension of our moral codes. The allegations about Spacey’s personal conduct make it impossible to keep that self-deception going. Jack Seale
