Wait, haven’t you watched that already?

Watching a TV show more than once might actually sound like one of Dante’s circles of hell for some people; to others it’s simply tedious.

So, why is it that some people would teleport to the nearest couch, remote control in hand, at the mention of marathoning their favorite show, when others are left yawning and painfully uninterested? Why does one rewatch things? Why do we go back to stories we’ve seen played out time and time again?

For me, it symbolizes a need that is wanting to be met; a feeling I’m struggling to address directly and an outlet to express it through a fictional Other; a chance to make meaning out of purposelessness and find power within helplessness; or simply, a need for comfort. Or a laugh. Or a good fucking cry. And the shows that have stuck with me through the years have offered me all that and many more.

Rewatching can lead to a whole other level of actively emotional engagement with the characters and their journeys. Their motives, aspirations, flaws, challenges, dynamics, all become more complex yet more clear, aka more real life-like. And to my cylon toaster heart, rewatching a show means reacquainting myself not just with the material in a deeper, more meaningful way, but also with the person I was when I first watched it.

Do I still care about the same characters? How do I feel about particular plot lines? Does the thing that made me cry when I was 17 still make me ball my eyes out? It’s interesting to periodically review those little snapshots of oneself engaging with the same characters and the same story; sometimes nothing has changed, and sometimes my point of view has changed so much that the dissonance demands some sense-making of the situation that satisfies both past and present selves. It is that contact between who I was and who I am, through this medium, that has allowed time and time again for my thoughts about myself, my relationships and the world around me to grow.

How that is achieved primarily is through identifying with a specific character, or parts of that character. And that’s a pretty intricate and fluid process; rewatching adds some perspective to the degree of identification and differentiation I have had with characters over the years.

For example, I‘ve always had strong pro-Britta feels, and I rush to her defense every time people not-jokingly claim she’s the worst. It wasn’t until a few years ago though that I realized I feel strongly about Britta because I kind of am Britta. I, too, can be needlessly defiant. I cut and run. I Britta things all the time. I’ve explanabragged. I’ve danced and sang about pizza more times than I can count. But it’s most importantly her balancing act between her selfishness and selflessness, her hardness and softness that has consistently struck all the chords with me.

I also remember I used to hate Buffy. Like hated-her-with-the-fire-of-a-thousand-suns hated her. I didn’t see why she had to be so girly and care about fashion and stuffs when she had to, you know, save the world. I used to think those two were mutually exclusive because, internalized misogyny. After rewatching Buffy for maybe the 10th time, I realized how much I relate to her in her way of relating to others. I saw myself in many of the conversations she had with her partners and friends, and I saw common patterns in our varying degrees and ways of engagement with and disengagement from people in our lives. Also, rewatching season 6 and season 7 in a very pivotal time in my life proved cathartic beyond words. The entire season 6 arc, Conversations with dead people, the cookie dough speech, (+all the Andrew scenes)- gave me LIFE.

Rewatching is not just a way of connecting to oneself through the course of time, but to others who have had similar multifaceted experiences with the same medium. Sharing both an uninhibited, unapologetic passion and unabashed childlike enthusiasm for things as well as a deadly serious, wildly curious, critical, meta view on the same shit can bring about a very special kind of indirect self-revelatory connectedness. Also, watch something enough times and you can quote it! reference it! do cross-overs! write meta! and fanfics!

“Being a geek is all about being honest about what you enjoy and not being afraid to demonstrate that affection. It means never having to play it cool about how much you like something. It’s basically a license to proudly emote (on a somewhat childish level rather than behave like a supposed adult). Being a geek is extremely liberating.” — Simon Pegg

One of the key players though in rewatching is none other than good ol’ nostalgia. It’s not just the act of re-remembering the material and past selves that can be an incredibly potent experience; “it’s a twinge in your heart, far more powerful than memory alone”. You see it in the revival of shows like Prison Break, Full House, Twin Peaks, and in that of large franchises like Star Wars. “There’s the rare occasion when the public can be engaged on a level beyond flash, if they have a sentimental bond with the product.” Having brands that are already so loved significantly reduces marketing costs and has everyone hyped and ready to invest their time and money on them.

Take Sterling Cooper’s bet on nostalgia. The carousel scene. A++ on selling nostalgia. The whole show is basically selling nostalgia. It also demonstrates how illusory the potency of nostalgia can be, how memories are molded again and again, reconstructed constantly, in an effort to make sense of the present. We can assume that’s Don’s goal in marketing those idyllic family scenes- to invoke that collective (white) nostalgia for the 50’s life, and to take those snapshots of his family, which currently hardly resemble his life with Betty and the kids, and recreate their narrative under a more favorable light, for himself and their clients. The carousel allows Don and us “…to travel the way a child travels; around and around, and back home again, to a place that we know we are loved.”