Why all our favourite TV shows have become so heavy

Television has been heavy lately. Look at the hit show of the summer, Stranger Things, which (big, loud spoiler alert) introduced a loveable new character and made sure we all fell under his spell before ruthlessly snatching him away from us. It was a great season, but it also served as a reminder that in the world of TV right now, we can’t have nice things – or if we do, we certainly can’t keep them.

Next came The Bear, another runaway success, as well as another exercise in bleakness. (Not for nothing did Rolling Stone call this eight-episode marvel “the most stressful thing on TV”).

If you haven’t watched The Bear yet, it’s about a high-end chef who returns to his native Chicago to run his brother’s sandwich place after said brother dies by suicide. And just in case you were hoping, The Bear isn’t a show about how easy and rewarding it is to run a restaurant. It is not a feel-good, getting-back-on-your-feet kind of tale. No, The Bear is a show about a man for whom everything goes wrong, and then it goes wronger. In the first episode, the chef in question (irresistibly portrayed by Jeremy Allen White) has to sell vintage denim in a car park in exchange for cash to pay for the day’s meat delivery. Not too long afterwards, a toilet quite literally explodes in his face. Neither of these comes even close to being the most chaotic things that happen to this character in a given 10-minute increment.

Even the recent Bob’s Burgers movie, based on the usually fairly chipper family show, has surprisingly heavy moments. Again, look away if you don’t want spoilers.

In the film, Bob, Linda and their kids try to save their family’s burger place even as the bank comes knocking, a sinkhole opens literally at their front door, and a murder in town further complicates their lives. By the end, even the ever-optimistic Linda feels like giving up. “I’m tired,” she says, in a moment that will rattle you a little bit if you’re a habitual watcher of Bob’s Burgers. Linda is an optimist. That’s her thing, her brand, the entire dynamic behind her character. Seeing her give up is like the first time you saw your dad cry when you were a kid. It’s a big maybe-there-is-no-pilot-on-this-plane-after-all moment.

Perhaps even light-hearted TV shows are taking this turn because, for years now, the world has felt like one large pilotless plane. There were the Trump years. And then there was the pandemic. And then the Trump years were over, but the far right was still galvanised beyond belief. And then Roe v Wade was overturned. And then global heatwaves confirmed that climate change is getting worse, and those in charge aren’t doing nearly enough to curb it.

Amid all this, the characters on our TV screens have seen their lives implode, too. They remain loveable and funny – but to continue to be relatable, they also have to encounter tragedy on a regular basis. No longer do we tune in to low-stakes sitcoms. Instead, we watch shows that teach us about resilience.

In other words, these made-up stories help us to process the real ones. I watch a chef get hit in the face by toilets. I watch Linda from Bob’s Burgers experience hopelessness for the first time. I watch the kids from Stranger Things experience loss – gory, flamboyant, literally gut-wrenching loss. Some of these characters get saved. Others don’t. Sometimes, it’s those around them who step up to the plate. But things get reshuffled, and they go wrong, and the characters are still there, continuing through the crisis. And there’s something to be said for that.

Yours,

Clémence Michallon

Senior people writer