National Editor
If someone were to EVER spark up a conversation with me, it would end with at least one of my favorite TV series. On average, I have watched all seasons of Grey’s Anatomy, One Tree Hill, The Vampire Diaries, Gossip Girl, and Gilmore Girls more than four times. I am addicted to these five shows, and I can partially blame my addiction on my parents.
Any general biology class says that an individual gains fifty percent of their DNA from each parent. From the fifty-fifty standpoint, my mom, as she influenced my obsession with romantic comedies and love stories. She practically conditioned me into my television-obsessed lifestyle and addictive personality. At a young age, she started me on Little Women and Pride and Prejudice, the staples of period pieces and our conjoined love for Mr. Darcy. And once I start something, no matter what, I have to finish it to see where it goes, or just skip to the season finale. Even with the absolutely atrocious seasons seven and eight of The Vampire Diaries and the final two seasons of Gossip Girl, I trudged through, each time. People might consider it unhealthy, but as I am taking APUSH notes, baking desserts, or sinking into a long bath, HBO Max and Netflix are always on blast. The constant background noise is one of the top ten most comforting noises.
As my other and less influential half, my dad continuously watched The Office and Seinfeld, as those are the repeats on Comedy Central and the cure to all long work days. He absolutely despises it when I recommend a series to my mom because she then puts in her earbuds and remains in a static position until the show is over. My dad has the audacity to claim my shows are boring when, in fact, he’s been watching the same two comedies, laughing at jokes he already knows by heart.
If there were a ranking criteria for my series, One Tree Hill will forever and always take first place. The series truly owns “I Don’t Wanna Be” by Gavin DeGraw with Lucas Scott’s distinct intro walk-up dribbling the basketball into Tree Hill as its introduction. Please, someone, test my knowledge of any of these series, and I can name that exact event and episode, just maybe not Grey’s Anatomy, because I cried for weeks after McDreamy died, and nothing in the show mattered anymore. Now, I understand the reasoning for continuing the series for viewers, but twenty-two seasons is a bit much now, there is such a thing as too many episodes. Meredith Grey just needs to attain her essential ending that concludes each opened plot twist.
I never really disclosed my reasoning for rewatching, but it is fairly simple; it is all part of a routine now. Grey’s Anatomy is the constant reminder of my failure in life to not be in the medical field (my sister took care of that one). One Tree Hill serves as a source of pure nostalgia, Gossip Girl reinforces my desire to one day live on New York’s Upper East Side, the Gilmore Girls is obviously correlated with autumn, and The Vampire Diaries is an off-and-on series for late-night binging.