6 shows you’ll love to hate-watch

What’s better than binging a show? Hate-watching it—and we’ve got six of them to get you going. 

What better way to start off 2023 than with a snark-filled list? You probably already have shows you’re looking forward to binge this year or you’ve got a backlog on your “My List” that you want to get to. But these shows aren’t merely for you viewing pleasure; they’re for your hate-viewing pleasure. These are shows we think you’ll love to despise (if you don’t already). Or maybe we just secretly love them but we tell ourselves we hate them so we don’t get shamed. That might be something we need to talk to our shrinks about. So if you want to delve into hours of utter ridiculousness and laugh at just how insane these shows can be, snuggle up on your couch and prepare some popcorn (not to consume but to throw at the TV). Here’s a list of shows that are perfect for your hate-watching needs. 

Our picks for the shows you’ll love to hate-watch this 2023

Emily in Paris

This show already has three seasons so clearly, it has an audience. Whether that audience genuinely likes the show or they’re watching it spitefully, we can never know. But Emily in Paris’ cliché-ridden misadventures in trope-filled Paris just makes it a perfect hate-watch series. Don’t get me wrong though, this show is by far the tamest on this list. It’s frivolous at best and ridiculous at worst, but at least it’s also aesthetically pleasing. Plus, say what you want about the titular character, but at least Lily Collins does her pixieness justice. 

13 Reasons Why (Season 3 onwards)

I actually liked the first two seasons of this show. It was definitely controversial but it also got people talking about mental health and raised awareness of it. The first season was adapted directly from the books while the second season was a good expansion of the story that covered the aftermath of Hannah Baker’s death. The third and fourth seasons though were just attempts to make the series give more social commentary except it fell flat. By the last two seasons, the show was just trying way too hard and had evolved into soapy territory but still trying to be edgy. In the end, 13 Reasons Why devolved into just another angsty teenage drama with high schoolers that seem to have way too much time on their hands.

Bling Empire or anything with Bling in it, really

I believe that reality shows exist for the sole purpose of being hate-watched. Bling Empire has the honour of being on this list because it’s the first American reality show with a full Asian cast, though I’m not exactly sure if that’s something to be proud of. Sure, the glitz and glam of how the other side lives are exciting but it’s all overshadowed by the utterly cringy attempts at drama. If you get past the cringe though, it is sort of enjoyable to see all these rich folk do their best to act like cameras aren’t there and put on their next offended/hurt/”OMG I can’t believe that” face. And when you think about just how much botox some of them have, you might actually applaud them a bit for the effort. 

Glee

As a musical theatre lover, I was actually excited when this show first came out. I still think some of their songs were done well and I still have an undying crush on Dianna Agron, but man was this whole show wild. Sure, it did try to tackle conventional issues but that was pretty much overshadowed by the ridiculous plotlines in the show and just how utterly cringy it got as episodes progressed. Seriously, how can we take whatever they were saying about teenage pregnancy seriously when Mr. Schue was performing “Toxic” with his students and Mercedes was busy organiosing a school riot because of a tater tots shortage?

The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (Season 3 onwards)

The creators of Sabrina wanted to make one thing clear when the show was about to be released: this wasn’t going be Sabrina the Teenage Witch. It had “chilling” in the title (not to be confused with this). This was dark, brooding, and serious, and for two seasons, it succeeded. And then for some reason, it decided to go off the rails in the third season and have a musical episode. It was all downhill from there, and much like the show it was inspired from and crossed over with (which is the next one on the list), it became a convoluted mess that took itself way too seriously with an increasingly annoying protagonist. It also didn’t help that actual Satanists sued the show.

Riverdale

Last but not the least, the pièce de résistance, the cream of the crap. From the get-go, Riverdale already had soapy vibes. After all, how serious and brooding can you make the Archie comics? But for a while there, it was able to give just the right amount of soapiness without going overboard. But the writers only seemed to amp it up with each episode resulting in plotlines that involved alternate universes, superpowers, and supernatural happenings. The show also gave us wonderful pieces of dialogue that would put Aaron Sorkin to shame, like the one below. Archie Andrews, what a poet.