A Medium That Fits

A journey through my Entertainment Stages of Illness, like self-help but just for me.

As I mentioned last time, I was riding a wave just ahead of oncoming illness to record and release last week’s post. I was off work Wednesday to Friday with energy levels sapped by minimal tasks and increasingly large volumes of emanating mucus as the days wore on.

My wife’s required remedy in such situations is sleep, and lots of it. Mine is TV, and even more of it. I think I’ve divined my own personal Entertainment Stages of Illness, that I’d like to share with you now.

Required Prostration¹

Restful Periods

Brain Reactivation

Return to Normality

Required Prostration

At this early Stage, when lying down is the only order of the day, I’ll be reaching for my Doctor Who: The Collection Boxsets. 70’s Doctor Who on 1.5x speed. Usually only after the beautiful setup of episode 1 at normal speed, because the pace of TV is different now and they had schedules to fill with 7 episode serials that drag on somewhat, but I don’t want to miss the broad feel of watching it all. And really, the aim is to get to the juicy behind-the-scenes stuff; now-neglected actors or their children bitching slightly² about the past, frustrated artists bemoaning lack of time or money, and enthusiasts³ taking a deep-dive into social history or forgotten figures. I can’t get enough of it.

Restful Periods

Once you’ve got the wherewithal to shower and dress, or unload and stack a dishwasher, your body and mind requires something for those post-chore periods. My go-to is a video-essay - short, 30 minutes maximum, and probably dissecting a recent film or TV show. Easy consumption. An episode or two of a favourite sitcom is good, though I’m a stickler for watching my favourites too closely. They deserve a level of attention that this Stage cannot provide, so a new show with less emotional attachment might fit the bill a little better. See the Watching section below for two very reasonable examples.

In this particular illness instance, I went rogue and watched a webinar for a writing competition, see the Notebook section below for more details. This fit the bill reasonably well. Low engagement, information delivered slowly and clearly that I mostly already had, and repeated amusing questions about whether people from London can apply to an opportunity for the regions - they can’t, and it is hilarious how inconceivable that is to people who believe they live in the centre of the universe⁴.

Brain Reactivation

In the morning, your body is not ready for a day of work, as evidenced by the extensive and repeating dropping of soap, cereal bowls and milk carton lids. But by the afternoon, your mind is aching for something to satisfy. The answer? Horror films. Not just any horror film, a well-crafted and solidly reviewed effort that you’ve not managed to catch until now. Any old unvetted monster nonsense from the depths of Netflix would fit better into Stage 2, but a little drop of Prestige Horror will get those neurons firing. See The Autopsy of Jane Doe in the Watching section.

Return to Normality

The least well-defined Stage, and generally the longest. It could take many forms - an obsession with whichever medium or genre struck the tingliest nerve, a return to a show started pre-illness but deemed to require too much attention or engagement during the bout. Or even, god forbid, time outside doing active things. Makes you shudder to even consider it.

I opted for a couple more films, having enjoyed the complete experience in a small package that The Autopsy of Jane Doe gave me. Find out more in the Watching section, with Snow White (2025) and Mountainhead.

This Week’s Notebook

I attended the online webinar for the Channel 4’s New Writers Scheme 25-26 last Thursday, and made some notes about what they’re looking for, presented for you now.

“Genre is good, but write from the heart! Visit the commissioning website and see what the briefs are. Channel 4’s purpose is to take some risks. Must be rooted in drama, whatever the subgenre.

The submission of 8 pages must be the first 8 pages - need to see a great opening and how you grab attention

What makes an application stand out?

• Don’t be unnecessarily unusual, but unusual is fine

• Stick to the brief

• Make it easy for the readers to assess your writing style

• Make sure it is very Channel 4 (understand what Channel 4’s brief is)

• Sense check what you’ve written! Make it easy to read

• Read some scripts for Channel 4 shows

• Channel 4 are keen on character-led shows - establish strong characters

• Be propulsive! Every scene has to move the plot on”

I have until Wednesday 25th June to write 8 pages for one drama idea, and a pitch document for a second idea, plus a CV so far and some low-word-count “why are you the perfect person” type questions that are often the most stressful part of the process.

My plan is to retool two show ideas I’ve had for a while into a Channel 4 Drama style, which they already fit fairly well. They have previously been in a sitcom mode, because that’s always been my ultimate ambition, and might be the hardest format to get exactly right. But these two ideas, and my overall sensibility and writing style, probably align more closely with Channel 4 Drama⁵.

Ideas

1. The Secret - the one about the medium, the vicar and the scientist all keeping their ghostly friend secret from the world. You may have read my character monologues and a few other allusions to this project. A heady mixture of Flowers and The Leftovers.

2. The Accounts - a Quantum Leap style anthology series about an Accountant from afterlife bureaucracy who works to keep fairness in check, but goes back to Earth to stop a human from gaming the system. A down-to-earth The Good Place with more emotional investment⁶.

It’s a lot of work to get it done in the evenings remaining to me, but it’ll give these projects more brain-time regardless of the outcome. Wish me luck!

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Televigion Update

Watching

• St Denis Medical, Series 1: 1. Welcome to St Denis (iPlayer) - A new hospital-based sitcom from the creator of Superstore, both sitcoms that will set no worlds on fire. Superstore was my “COVID lockdown with a new baby napping on me” show. When I’ve gone back to it for comfort, it’s been odd watching it with sound and no subtitles, somehow it feels like a different and less funny show, which probably means I enjoyed the writing more. This new one has set the sitcom machine up very nicely with a group with plenty of scope for bouncing off each other, and the newly appointed Supervising Nurse Alex is played by the wonderful Allison Tollman, the heart and soul of S1 of Fargo. Easy watching, but probably easy to forget to watch too.

• North of North (Netflix) -The sitcom story of Siaja, a young Inuk⁷ mother who tries to reinvent herself after escaping from a stifling marriage in a small community. As I mentioned last time, I enjoyed the opening episode, and have watched another two. It’s got a little more bite and uniqueness than St Denis Medical, purely by virtue of the setting that I’ve never seen in sitcom before. The story of a woman finding her independent way is more well-worn, but I hold out hope for this show.

• The Autopsy of Jane Doe (Netflix) - A father and son coroner duo undertake⁸ a post-mortem on a mysterious young girl. The film was exactly what I needed on an illness-recovering afternoon in Stage 3 - Brain Reactivation, but faltered a little on its early promise. The first hour or so is wonderfully creepy and mysterious, and then it all gets a bit overt and generic. It made me want to write a better film from the concept, which is all part of Brain Reactivation I suppose. If you’re a horror fan and haven’t seen it, it’s a good time.

• Snow White (2025) (Disney+) - I think we all know what this is⁹. It’s not had a great time getting to the screen, and was not well-reviewed. But my family and I loved Rachel Zegler’s performance in Spellbound, and we needed a film for Saturday night. Our daughter asked us to move on to something else after 15 minutes or so¹⁰, but the Televigion Wife and I persevered after bedtime. We both agreed that Gal Gadot was the weakest part, and I’m not certain she has much to offer other than Wonder Woman. And we warmed to the Seven Dwarves, who might just be magical creatures now, particularly Dopey whose animation was endearing. But it veered and swerved in tone from faithful recreation to modern adventure tale. If it had picked either lane it might have worked better. Hard to recommend, but easier to make it through than the live action The Little Mermaid.

• Mountainhead (Sky Atlantic/NowTV) - The creator of Succession spends two hours with tech bros during a world crisis they have inadvertently created. This felt like a lovely little hit of Succession’s magic, and shows how great Jesse Armstrong is at gathering some easily understandable characters into a situation and letting them bounce off each other. I wonder where he learned that sort of skill? Yes, it’s a two hour sitcom about awful billionaires and yes, it is utterly engaging and horrifying and hilarious. The four leads are pretty perfect at portraying their wonderfully defined archetypes, and the story goes in well-chosen directions to mine the comedy. I probably wanted a more satisfying conclusion to the whole thing, or the real world to come crashing in. But still, very highly recommended.

Intending to Consume

• A Guardian article on the best TV of 2025 so far, reminding me to get to The Change S2 (Channel4), Mo (Netflix), and The Studio (AppleTV)¹¹

• An interview with Kat Sadler about her rather good¹² BBC sitcom Such Brave Girls, which is coming back for series 2 on 3rd July. And a blooper reel below.

Questions/Prompts

What trends do you notice in your watching? Are there seasons or months for comedy or horror? Does sci-fi only exist in February? Cosy crime after 8.20pm?

Footnotes

1. The medical rather than religious definition

2. Or endlessly if it is Peter Davison.

3. Your “Toby Hadoke”s, your “Matthew Sweet”s.

4. They did also refer to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland as regions of England, but you can’t win them all.

5. Comedy-drama is allowed, as they said multiple times in the Q&A.

6. I would be very happy for Ted Danson to be involved.

7. The singular form of Inuit, a lovely bit of learning while writing this post.

8. It means two things.

9. Cynical cash-grabbing, IP-updating nonsense that Disney will never stop making because everything is based on toys and merchandise. Or modern retellings of classic stories to share with the family. You pick.

10. She opted for The Incredibles, which looks surprisingly rough as animation nowadays, but it’s greatness is not otherwise diminished.

11. But only if I can be bothered wangling an AppleTV trial again, it’s the easiest streaming service to ignore.

12. To my mind, superb writing and a unique voice just about bypasses how horrible the characters are as people. The show knows they’re horrible, but it clearly helps that it is all written from true experience, as the interview says.