We’ve watched the best shows, we’re bored of binge-watching and productions have been put on hold. But there is still hope
It is no great surprise that during the first lockdown people spent more time stuck to their screens. Last year, Ofcom reported that in April we were watching around a third more television and online video than we had been a year before that, and that was when the weather was good.
Netflix and
Amazon Prime have both recently reported record numbers of subscribers signing up over the past 12 months, with newcomers such as Disney+ attracting big audiences, too.
During that first lockdown, I was lucky enough to be able to work from home, and I set myself some TV goals. I would rewatch The Sopranos, because I had not seen it for at least 10 years, and I wanted to know if it still stood up as the best show in TV history. It does, and plenty of people had the same idea: it was one of the breakout hits of 2020. I would catch up with Schitt’s Creek. I would use documentaries to educate myself, probably starting with Ken Burns, and I would make sure at least some of what I watched was not in English, because it’s easier not to be on your phone when you’re watching something Icelandic. (One
Instagram scroll equals several crucial plot-points missed.) I thought there would be a new season of Succession soon enough. I had it covered.