We're still gawping at Jerry Springer

How "bad old days" documentaries have their cake and eat it

This is a weekly TV zine. Thanks for reading it. If you don't subscribe already, sign up and you'll get TV chat and recommendations in your inbox on Fridays (usually).

One of the nice things about the Zapper, and perhaps about Substack in general, is that it isn't necessarily fast. The churn of new television can be relentless and overwhelming, but realistically, with streaming, we all watch things at our own pace. Ever on the ball, I've been revisiting season two of Only Murders In the Building this week, which was released in 2022 and already seems dated, while also being the perfect comfort telly. The original idea of this newsletter was to resist the churn, just a little, while also bringing you recommendations to slip into your own churn, in your own time.

So this week, I'm writing about an old show, as in, it came out at the start of January. It is one of those documentaries about popular culture that wags a finger at how we once were. These docs ask you to look at your own behavi…