In Indonesia, we have a phrase called “Ibu-ibu Sinetron” for stay at home moms who’s always watching local TV series. “Sinetron” is the way we call “soap opera” or “TV series” here. I’m not a stay at home moms, but I’m definitely one of them.

Same like movies, I watch a lot of TV series. I think it came (again) from my father. My very first TV series were Dawson’s Creek, Charmed, Popular, Saving Private Ryan, Friends and Dark Angel. Growing up, there’s always TV series I follow every year. I watched How I Met Your Mother, Grey’s Anatomy, Prison Break, Flash Forward, Community, Private Practice, Brothers & Sisters, The Americans, and I think there’s still a lot of it but I just forget. Even nowadays, especially after Netflix becomes hit. From that OTT only, I watched Stranger Things, 13 Reasons Why, Marco Polo, Crown, Sense 8, Peaky Blinder, Luke Cage, Daredevil, Iron Fist, Jessica Jones, Defenders, The Punishers, Locke & Key, You, Umbrella Academy, Money Heist, Narcos, I’m not okay with this, Sex Education, Snowpiercer, Orange is The New Black and, believe me, many more. Currently I’m watching CB Strike (BBC), Perry Mason (HBO), Mandalorian (Disney+), Dark & Suits (Netflix). Of course I watched that globally acclaimed series, such as Game of Thrones and Breaking Bad as well. The watch list is still long, trust me.

But why? Why TV series? Aren’t you got bored waiting or have to binge-watch for hours to find out the ending of a story? And how can you wait for a year to know the next season, especially after you finished the previous season only in 10 hours? I always binge-watch Stranger Things and Umbrella Academy. I waited for a year, to finish it in a day. Why?

The answer is…characters. I’m a people person. To get to know about many characters is one of my favorite activity, if not so called learning. Every person is unique for me. One of short get away to meet a lot of characters in the world is by watching TV series. Sometimes, believe it or not, we can meet a real person who has the same characters from the series we watched. I can get too attached with some characters in TV series. When my fav character died in a series, my mood will drop. For me, the cinematography technic is not important. As long as it has an interesting characters in it, I’m in (well, of course when the plot is getting weaker, I sometimes gave up finishing it until season finale).

So, If I’m asked what my fav TV series is, I don’t have one. But may be you can asked me which TV series characters that I’m most emotionally involved with. It’ll be another long story indeed.