NO relationship can thrive without forcing your partner to watch a TV show only you’re interested in. These box-sets will have them saying ‘I think we should see other people’:
Secret Invasion, 2023
Everyone hated this, even Marvel completists. Subjecting your loved one to 3hrs 43mins of boring, cheap telly with no logic is the perfect test of her devotion. If she’s still there, she’s a keeper, catatonic or dead. Did she even cry out in pain when Emilia Clarke got a stupid CGI arm? If not, sorry. Secret Invasion killed her.
Killing Eve, 2018-2022
Definitely female-oriented with its humorous take on spying, murder and deranged fashion. The considered critical response of most boyfriends was ‘This is shit’, and they have a point. An endless will-they-won’t-they in onesies and tulle that stretches patience, credibility and your loving bond.
The World at War, 1973-1974
A treat that never gets old from the rise of Hitler to 1945, via Stalingrad, Arnhem, and Hiroshima. Rightly considered one of the finest documentaries ever, but very long and girlfriends find chilling with a ready meal and graphic descriptions of Japanese atrocities strangely difficult. She may issue an ultimatum: her or Albert Speer. An impossible choice.
Sex and the City, 1998-2004
The first season will con boyfriends into thinking this is funny. Thereafter the characters’ narcissism gets exponentially more grating and by season four his violent hatred for Carrie, Big, Miranda, Charlotte, New York and anyone who works in publishing will be spilling over. Samantha he’ll continue to tolerate because of regular nudity.
Addicted to Carp, 2018-ongoing
A typical episode of this Fishing TV show features delights such as an ‘epic session’ at the ‘legendary Quarry fishery in Essex’. Is the door slamming your partner nipping to the corner shop for a bottle of wine to enjoy while you watch, or her starting a new life without you? You’ll check after the bait tips.
Strictly Come Dancing, 2004-ongoing
A real challenge for straight men unable to recognise either a good foxtrot or the celebrity performing it. Goes on forever and is always the same. Women also into Bake Off, Love Island and Married At First Sight may lose their partner to a girl who’s into Bravo Two Zero and Sharpe’s Rifles, if one exists.
The Simpsons, 1989-ongoing
Everyone loves The Simpsons, the fun cartoon series about an average Springfield family! But did you know you can love The Simpsons too much? Cataloging all the movie references and minor characters’ lives through all 760 episodes of the bastard? Did you ever think you could hate a man because he loves The Simpsons? You do now.
