How stories bring us home
It's more than a comfort show
"Not my home, but I know my way around," is a caption that made its rounds on the internet recently, accompanied by a set photo from the person's favourite TV show.
There were pictures of Monica's apartment from Friends and Stars Hollow in Gilmore Girls. For me, it would be Will and Jack's neighbouring apartments in Will and Grace or the offices from shows like 30 Rock and Parks and Recreation. It got me thinking about how fictional places are not just instantly recognisable in pop culture but also such a source of comfort to fans.
These spaces are more than the fictional living and working spaces of our favourite characters. They've become an extension of our own homes — the places we can turn to for the comfort and ease that comes with familiarity.
In sticking with the theme of returning to past joys, I began a rewatch of what is probably my ultimate comfort show.
Parks and Recreation isn't the sort of show I can return to by watching only one or two favourite episodes at a time. It always requires a full rewatch from its pilot all the way to its finale seven seasons later. Now that I'm around two seasons in, I'm realising that this experience feels much deeper than just returning to a show that brings comfort.
Revisiting this sitcom – which I first saw during high school, again as a university student, and now as an adult trying to figure out my twenties – has been more like a feeling of coming home.
I might not know Parks and Rec in the same way other people know their favourite shows. I can't give you line-by-line re-enactments of the funniest scenes or break down the details of every character arc. Nonetheless, reconnecting with these characters has felt like meeting up with a friend after years of not seeing each other and being reminded of old stories and inside jokes we both thought we'd forgotten.
These spaces of our favourite shows can hold so much more than the fictional events experienced by characters on-screen. They can also hold the memories we made while watching their stories play out. Like walking into a childhood bedroom, it's a recollection of who we were at that time and who we became during the time apart.
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