Sure, you need to start binge-watching House of Cards so you can spend the entire weekend just going to fucking town on season two, and it’s always a good time to catch up on Quality Programming, but as we all stumble through this snowy Hellmouth together, let’s just take a moment and consider our options. Maybe this stuff isn’t a good idea after all.
1. House of Cards
Why You Think You Should Watch: You loved it so much the first time around, and the second season is coming out tomorrow!
Why You Shouldn’t Watch It Right Now: It’s been a year, so maybe you’ve forgotten how horrendously dark that show is. And not like, fun, Walter White “I am the one who knocks” dark, bleak dark. There is no adorable Jesse character on this show to counter the main character’s unchecked ego. (Or maybe Russo was Jesse, in which case now we know why Vince Gilligan decided to keep Pinkman alive through the first season.) Plus, it’s already February, we’re already depressed, do we need to sit on our asses and feel bad about ourselves while watching people way more ambitious than us accomplish a whole lot more than we ever will?
Also, I think people forget this, but House of Cards can have moments of unrelenting dullness. That’s right, you heard me. There’s a lot of names to memorize, a lot of bills and acts and handshake agreements with caucus leaders that basically require you to keep a flowchart to remember who owes who what. (Pop quiz: Which character does Underwood leverage first, Womack or Kapeniak? This is important!) You can’t fuck off on Twitter while watching House of Cards, you have to pay attention in case you miss something, and half the time you’ll miss it the first pass, anyway.
2. The Walking Dead
Why You Think You Should Watch: There’s no better way to keep yourself occupied while snowed in than by scaring yourself shitless with zombie hoards and the hypothetical of whether or not you’d have sex with Norman Reedus if he was (one of) the last guys on Earth. Plus, you figure, the show will give you some great basic survival tips in case this snowstorm turns out to actually be the snowpocalypse.
Why You Shouldn’t Watch It Right Now:
If I wanted to watch a documentary about the end of Atlanta, I would just turn on any other channel/the Internet. Plus, neither I nor the MTA condone this show’s use of IRL zombie scares.
3. Blackfish
Why You Think You Should Watch: No one could shut about this SeaWorld doc on your feeds, so it’s time you sat down and forced your eyeballs to pay attention. And because you support whales, you guess. No, right, you are definitely pro-whale.
Why You Shouldn’t Watch It Right Now: This is no Free Willy. While the story of the trainer killed by a 12,000-pound Tilikum is undoubtably tragic, do you really want to watch a movie about how captivity in small quarters drives animals insane while you are currently reenacting The Shining in your shitty railroad in Bed-Stuy?
4. Saved By the Bell/Fraiser/Dinosaurs/Family Ties/Most 90s Comedies
Why You Think You Should Watch: It’s kitschy! It’s campy! You can go over to Vulture or Buzzfeed and take a quiz about what character you are, or how many freeze-frames you can identify, or whatever! HAHA, YOU STILL KNOW WHAT FUN IS. YOU STILL KNOW WHAT IT FEELS LIKE TO LAUGH. YOU AREN’T DEAD INSIDE!
Why You Shouldn’t Watch It Right Now: You are most certainly dead inside, and what’s more, your entirely too old for such nonsense. When they finally dig you out of your apartment and find your remains glued to season five of Everybody Loves Raymond, you will be memorialized in your own Uproxx blog post for about point three seconds, and that is how the world will remember you. Before they forget you.
5. Dexter
Why You Think You Should Watch It: Meh?
Why You Shouldn’t Watch It Right Now: We hear it didn’t really pay off.
