What is The Zapper?

The zapper is what we called the remote control when I was a kid.

I love TV. I watch a lot of it. I write about it for a living, mostly for the Guardian, here. But there is a more personal side to television and it can be difficult to write about that in a more formal setting. TV is an intimate thing, beamed into our brains, inside our homes, through our headphones, to us and to our families and friends, and the conversations it inspires can be very personal. I want to have more of those conversations.

There is a lovely, air-punch scene in Russell T Davies’ 2023 miniseries Nolly, about soaps and the glory days of cardboard sets and smoking on buses, in which a running joke about TV snobbery comes to a head.

“I only watch TV for the news and the wildlife,” yet another stranger tells TV queen Noelle Gordon (Helena Bonham Carter).

“Well then, you’re a fucking idiot,” she says.

Why subscribe?

For essays and oversharing inspired by television, old and new TV recommendations, and more French and Saunders than is dignified, for any of us.

What do I get?

The Zapper, for free, for now, every Friday.