Maybe we’re nostalgic for simpler times. Maybe we want to share our old favorites with our kids. Maybe we’re multitasking on several screens, so having something familiar that we can focus in and out of makes total sense. We have instant access to an endless supply of new, high quality TV shows, yet we seem to be spending all our time watching re-runs of old shows. The Guardian: The age of comfort TV: why people are secretly watching Friends and The Office on a loop. “It seems that, in this time of unprecedented choice and quality, the so-called golden age of prestige television, most of us still want to watch half-hour shows about vaguely likable people in which everything turns out OK. Ideally from the 90s, but maybe the 00s. And preferably something that we have seen many, many times before. Welcome to the age of non-event TV.”

+ Vox: In defense of reading the same book over and over again.