Binge From Bed: The Best Shows to Watch Over the Holidays

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This month, the Oxford dictionary officially inducted “brain rot” into its word of the year hall of fame. And that’s exactly what you should be doing between now and New Year’s.

Nothing. Nada. Zilch. After the whirlwind of the holiday season spent celebrating with family and friends, it’s time to let your critical thinking muscles atrophy, baby, along with your real muscles.

This is the time to get as horizontal as possible for as long as possible and enjoy some much deserved brain rot time.

Lounging on the couch? That’s child’s play. For the week between Christmas and New Year’s? Plan to wake up and stay in bed. All day. Every day.

Why bed? Because that means putting a show on your laptop and absolutely zoning out.

On the couch, there are distractions. There’s popcorn to eat. Drinks beckoning from the fridge. In bed, you’ve got your trusty water bottle on the nightstand, your phone buried somewhere in the covers. A cozy comforter covering you. And that’s it.

To accompany you? TV that lets you turn your brain off and, yep, rot.

Below, check out Team SG’s picks for the best shows to watch from bed this season:

Taylor’s Pick: Black Doves (Netflix)

Black Doves is a fun ride. One season, six episodes.

And it’s definitely a boy show, even though I was excited to watch it because it stars Bend It Like Beckham icon Keira Knightley. Where has she been!

Spies. Guns. Vengeance. It’s the perfect holiday treat.

Tess’s Pick: No Good Deed (Netflix)

My husband and I watched together, after my dad suggested it to me. It’s funny and I love Ray Romano.

Lisa Kudrow is also great in it, even though it’s always jarring for me to see her playing anything but Phoebe.

Gabi’s Pick(s): Twin Peaks (Paramount+), Riverdale (Netflix), Search Party (Max), Arrested Development (Netflix)

Well, well, well. Let’s dig in.

I’ll always say Twin Peaks, as it’s my favorite tv show and one that changed television forever. If you love the fashion, you can follow @jawnpeaks on Instagram. So many shows cite it as inspiration, including Pretty Little Liars, which I also binged a few winters ago (incredibly bad in the best way if you love teen dramas with gaping plot holes).

In the same vein as PLL is Riverdale. The entire cast is hot, and they were not afraid to take this show to the wildest corners of creation—suspend belief and succumb to the nonsense and enjoy allllll the references. The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina is in the same universe and I also loved it.

Another wacky exploration I devoured without breathing? Search Party! Come for Alia Shawkat; stay for John Early and John Reynolds and (later) Cole Escola. You would never in a million years guess the ending.

Watching that might also make you want to rewatch Arrested Development, which is also a great binge. My most reused memes are from this show because it’s perfect…if you don’t count that last tacked-on season.

If we’re talking binge-worthy shows we can’t forget Girls. It was amazing when it came out—I had just finished college so I was the perfect viewing age—and it was even better as a rewatch 10 years later. I still reference it constantly.

Highly recommend listening to the HBO Girls Rewatch podcast as you do it. They recently switched to Broad City, which is of course also an excellent choice in binge-worthy TV shows to watch.

Returning to old favorites is a good one—shows pre-cell phone are just better. Seinfeld was my parents’ favorite show and I didn’t get it then but do now. While Larry David is not my age, I do relate to him often and love to binge seasons of Curb Your Enthusiasm. I too am incredibly motivated by spite, and I’m not afraid to admit it.

Megan’s Pick: Matlock (CBS)

What, did you think I was going to namecheck shows to watch that are cool? Hidden gems that are hip and edgy and no one knows about? Nice try.

I am all in on the Matlock reboot on CBS. Kathy Bates is a national treasure. Jason Ritter should be fronting his own show (if not movie franchise!), but in the meantime, I’m happy to see him back on the small screen after his scene-stealing turn in the criminally underrated Parenthood.

Some plot points are totally cheesy (I wouldn’t mind if they wrote the grandson off in season two), but it keeps me watching through the commercial breaks that come with watching non-streaming TV.