Baby Reindeer/Netflix
I haven’t been quite right since Sunday. There’s an unsettled itching underneath my skin, as if the world has been picked up and moved slightly out of its groove, and when I drift off into a daydream, it winches into a sequence of unpleasant scenes that run through my mind like a flip book animation.
I know it’s exactly why this is – I caved to the storm around Baby Reindeer and watched the entire thing over two days, and now it’s lurking inside me, oily and dark. I knew, KNEW, I shouldn’t have watched it and yet I did. Curled under my blanket, finger hovering on the fast forward button. For those who are halfway through, or for those of you who haven’t watched it, fear not, there are no spoilers because this piece isn’t actually about the show – which is a dark drama about a comedian who gets relentlessly stalked after offering a woman a cup of tea.
It's about the furore that gathers around certain TV shows, building to a pressure point that forces you to watch even though you are almost certain it is not your kind of show, and you will remain imprinted and traumatised by it for days to come. I felt like this about Behind Her Eyes, The Handmaid’s Tale and to a lesser extent Squid Game.
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