The Best And Worst TV Shows To Watch During Maternity Leave

Exactly 14 weeks ago, my life changed in a very major way: My husband and I welcomed our first child, a baby girl. She arrived in mid-July with a full head of hair, an unbearably precious button nose, and a powerful set of lungs. She’s the best.

I was away from my job on maternity leave for three months afterward, and every day of those 12 weeks brought some new and unexpected experience — usually involving this little human’s bodily fluids. But thrust as I’d been into such an unpredictable chapter, one thing stayed the same: I was still watching a lot of TV. A lot of TV. And only some of it was good.

I’d hoped, of course, that I could use my work hiatus to catch up on buzzy, high-quality series that had fallen through the cracks of my watchlist. Netflix’s “Adolescence” came and went from the zeitgeist before I could tune in. I’d accidentally abandoned Showtime’s “Fellow Travelers” after two episodes and wanted to go back. Apple TV’s “Dope Thief” had been on my radar for months.

But, as it turns out, the haze of new parenthood is not the time to give “Shōgun” and its many subtitles your full attention. Instead, our countless hours of bottle feedings and diaper changes were accompanied by addictively mindless reality shows, a few scripted newbies with easy-to-follow plots, and a couple of old favorites that brought warmth and familiarity to some long and daunting nights.

Below, using entirely subjective metrics like show quality, entertainment value, and nostalgia factor, I’ve ranked my small-screen experiences of the last three months. After you’ve perused my list, tell me: Which of these shows have you seen and/or loved (or hated!)? And what TV series have kept you company during big changes in your own life?

For every series I watched start to finish, there was another I only caught in passing — too brief a brush to really rank them appropriately. Among the odds and ends: the Season 2 premiere of NBC’s “Brilliant Minds,” which auto-played after catching up on “The Voice” (why’s that hospital so dark?); a few episodes of Apple’s “Foundation” while my husband caught up on it (yay, Lee Pace!); and two episodes of “Columbo” on some vintage-TV channel we stumbled across once and never found again. Roll your eyes at my ignorance if you must, but I had no idea “Columbo” outings clocked in at 90 minutes. Wild.

The standout from the miscellaneous pile, though, was easily Apple’s “Silo,” another show I occasionally eavesdropped on. I’ll have to go back for a more thorough rewatch, but I can confidently say the freshman finale was one of the best season enders I’ve seen in a long time. (Here’s what series star Rebecca Ferguson told us about the episode at the time.)

For reasons unknown, the love I had for the Game Show Network as a geeky kid was rekindled during my time off — but there is no love for “Master Minds.” The show pits three average contestants against three trivia experts, and they all collect points for answering questions correctly. Eventually, at the end, the winning amateur faces off against the best-performing expert from the episode. But the format is very stop-and-start: After every question, the host reveals which amateurs got it right, then reveals which experts got it right, and then it’s time for another question. There’s no real energy to it, and in most cases, the amateurs seem to do just as well as the experts, if not better. So… where’s the drama?

Listen, I watched a lot of dopey dating shows, and more than one of them involved contestants in the buff. I have no good explanation for this. Just be glad I didn’t include a screenshot of the U.K.’s “Naked Attraction,” in which singles choose a date based entirely on how they look nude. There are close-ups on things we don’t really need close-ups on.

Anyway, despite its initial conceit, “Dating Naked UK” is surprisingly dull. Once you get past the nudity — and, strangely, you do get past it — it’s just another show where twentysomethings canoodle in a villa. I am fascinated, though, by host Rylan Clark and his well-manicured beard.

We can also file this Hulu dating series under Shows I Thought Would Be More Interesting. “Are You My First?” brings a group of virgins to a tropical paradise, where they search for love, passion and, perhaps, their first time. I give the show kudos for hosting honest conversations about intimacy, but there’s just not enough going on with these people in each episode to warrant a binge; in fact, the looming question of whether or not these people might finally lose their virginities to one another started to make me feel icky. Meanwhile, “Bachelor”-verse veterans Colton Underwood and Kaitlyn Bristowe have zero chemistry as co-hosts, and the show could do without the duo’s cringey voiceover jokes.

I am painfully aware that I’m not the target demographic for this show. I’m 33, and I have no stake in the Belly/Conrad/Jeremiah love triangle. And yet, here we are. I watched it all. And though it was inevitable that — spoiler alert! — Belly and Conrad would end up back together, Belly’s 11th-hour confession of love on that train felt awfully rushed, especially when the show had more episodes than ever (and longer runtimes) to play with. I suppose it’s good, then, that “The Summer I Turned Pretty” is getting a wrap-up movie… but I might just check social media to see how it all ends.

Ah, a throwback. When “Supernatural” first premiered in 2005, I was obsessed with it in the way only a 13-year-old girl can be fixated on something. But I fell off with the show when I went away to college and, aside from the 2020 series finale, I haven’t revisited it at all since then. I’m not sure how deep we’ll get into the 15 (!) seasons that aired — we’re only just wrapping up Season 2 — but it’s been tremendously fun to go back to those early years, cheesy special effects and all. I’m especially pleased to report that the Season 1-ending cliffhanger still holds up; I knew That Thing was coming, and it still gave me a shock.

Season 27 of “Big Brother” seemed like a dud for a while. The Mastermind twist wasn’t really going anywhere, the Blockbuster competition went on way too long, and Rachel Reilly’s shocking ouster via random competition threatened to drain the season of its remaining energy. But then it got messy in that house, and I couldn’t look away. Morgan emerged as an all-time great “Big Brother” player, underdog Ashley gifted us with an extremely entertaining finale, and — hoo boy — we watched in real time as Vince emotionally cheated on his real-life girlfriend with Morgan, with those two becoming a fantastically toxic power couple. Vince and Ashley’s expressions in the photo above perfectly encapsulate how I felt watching the Season 27 endgame, and even the Mastermind twist was redeemed by the surprise arrival of Eric Stein. A “Big Brother” season that pulls out of a nosedive? Expect the unexpected, indeed.

Reboots, revivals and sequel series rarely get it right, and Peacock’s last-minute decision to binge-release all episodes of “The Paper” felt like a neon sign flashing Creative Misfire! in all of our faces. I was delighted, then, to find that the streamer’s “The Office” spinoff was actually quite solid. Domhnall Gleeson, more recognizable for his dramatic work, is terrifically funny as Ned Sampson (with a convincing American accent, too!), and I appreciated the show’s approach to working in original “Office” characters and history. It wasn’t a flawless first season, but it certainly exceeded my expectations, and I’m jazzed it will be back for Season 2.

It feels deeply silly to say that a show like “Love Island USA” holds a special place in my heart — but it was the first show my husband and I binged after coming home from the hospital, and that can apparently make me feel warm and fuzzy for even the most brain cell-depleting programming. But setting aside the embarrassing emotional attachment, “Love Island USA” would still have been a hit in our household. The Season 7 cast was stacked with memorable personalities (Huda!) that made the show impossible to quit, and anytime the pace started to drag, Ariana Madix would come bearing another cutthroat twist. Did I hate myself a little for caring so much when Nic and Olandria were thought to be booted? Yes. Did that stop me from watching more? Not for a second.

I am not the TVLine staff member most well-versed in CBS procedurals, nor did I watch “The Good Wife” or “The Good Fight” when they aired. So there was little reason for me to give “Elsbeth” a try — but when I did, I was instantly in. I’m a sucker for any TV series whose pilot doesn’t feel thoroughly pilot-y, and “Elsbeth” managed to avoid all of those groundwork-laying tropes; it’s only improved throughout its run, nicely balancing the procedural format with compelling larger arcs about Elsbeth and her deeper psyche. The show is fun, warm and a little kooky — not unlike its protagonist — and Carrie Preston shines in every frame she’s in.

One of the greatest discoveries of maternity leave? That the Game Show Network airs a back-to-back-to-back block of “Jeopardy!” from 2:30 to 4 p.m. on weekdays. They’re not, unfortunately, vintage episodes hosted by Alex Trebek; they’re from only two years ago, but “Jeopardy!” is “Jeopardy!” and those 90 minutes were a comforting daily reminder that I do know other things besides the correct amount of formula to pour in a bottle. That said, the questions on “Jeopardy! Masters” were way out of my league. It felt like that tournament was mocking me.

Forgive my sentimentality on this one, but “Gilmore Girls” was always going to take the top spot here. As is the case for so many “Gilmore” viewers, the show deepened my bond with my own mother when I first discovered it as a teenager, and I took great pleasure back then in comparing my life to Rory’s, matching up all the characters from my own small-town existence with their Stars Hollow counterparts.

After my mom passed in 2015, rewatching “Gilmore Girls” lost its luster for some time, and it wasn’t until last fall that I dusted it off again — only now, I was Lorelai’s age, and I’d learned I was expecting a little girl of my own. The months of pregnancy passed — full of nerves, anticipation, joy, and third-trimester carpal tunnel syndrome — and the show became more of a comfort than it had ever been. Watching it, I felt close to the daughter I hadn’t yet met. I felt close to the mom I had lost and deeply missed.

These days, there’s not much time for endless “Gilmore” rewatches. The fall TV season is in full swing, and I’ve got a backlog of shows I’ll be writing about for TVLine. But just as it did when I was a teen, “Gilmore Girls” has once again dovetailed with a pivotal chapter in my life. It’s been the soundtrack of nursery decorating, baby clothes folding, and many, many midday contact naps. In fact, after months of exposure to “Gilmore Girls,” our little lady will stop crying upon hearing the theme song. For a new parent, that’d catapult just about any show to the top of the list.