Waiting is underrated as a difficult emotional state. It's not grief or crisis — which at least have their own gravity — it's just suspended animation. You can't fully relax because something is unresolved. You can't fully engage because part of your brain is elsewhere.
It's one of the harder moods to watch television in. Here's what actually works.
The Problem with Waiting
When you're waiting for something important, your brain keeps returning to it the way your tongue keeps finding a sore tooth. You need viewing that is genuinely absorbing — something with enough momentum and stakes that your brain gets interested in those stakes instead of your own. But it can't be something that creates its own anxiety. And it can't be something so low-stakes that your mind drifts.
The sweet spot: shows with clear forward motion, characters you genuinely care about, and enough world-building that you can live in them for a while.
The Picks
For Full Absorption
Succession (HBO/Max)
The gold standard for "I forgot to think about my own life." Four seasons of a billionaire family imploding over who inherits the empire. So much is happening at every moment — the power plays, the humor, the genuine tragedy underneath — that an episode ends and you realize you were completely elsewhere for an hour. That's what you need.
Breaking Bad (Netflix)
If you somehow haven't seen it, or if it's been long enough that you've forgotten the details: now is the time. A chemistry teacher's transformation into a drug manufacturer is one of the great slow-burn narratives in television history. Each episode ends in a way that makes the next one feel necessary. You will not be thinking about your waiting period.
For Something More Manageable
Shrinking (Apple TV+)
A therapist dealing with his own grief starts ignoring his professional ethics and just telling his patients what to do. Warm and funny and surprisingly moving. Episodes are 30 minutes. It has the emotional texture of Ted Lasso — optimistic without being saccharine. Good for waiting periods because it's about people processing difficult things and coming out the other side.
Fleabag (Prime Video)
Six episodes in the first season, six in the second. You can watch the whole thing in one sitting. It's a show about someone who is not okay pretending to be okay, and the way it handles that — with humor, with honesty, with tremendous craft — makes it one of the most comforting things to watch when you yourself are not entirely okay.
What Won't Help
- Shows with unresolved cliffhangers (you will not cope)
- Reality TV (the ambient chaos will feed the anxiety)
- Anything with a slow first season that "gets good in season 2" (you don't have that patience right now)
- Rewatching comfort shows (your brain is too active — it needs something new)
Whatever you're waiting on: it's going to resolve. In the meantime, let us find you the right thing to watch →