The TV Shows That Offer The Most Comfort

Here's why I miss them so much.

By

Kimberly Witt

 
Published February 13, 2026
gif woman sitting down on couch watching old soap operas on tv
AARP (Stocksy; Getty Images, 3; Everett Collection)

When I stayed home sick from school as a kid, I knew I could count on a plastic cup of 7up, Campbell’s chicken noodle soup with saltines and daytime TV. I’d start out with classic game shows like The Price is Right and crescendo to my illness panacea: a block of daytime soaps featuring The Young and the Restless and Days of Our Lives. I immersed myself in the familiar dialogue rhythms, classic theme songs and far-from-age–appropriate storylines.

Daytime soaps were more than just TV; they were a legacy of comfort.

Through my high school years, my mom, sister and I would record our beloved “stories” on VHS so we could catch up together on the weekends, skipping through commercials to get to the juicy stuff: Who was Sami Brady betraying now? Were Nikki and Victor Newman on the outs again? Later, in my college years, the legacy extended to my girlfriends as we gathered in dorm rooms between classes to indulge in our favorite soaps.

Now, as a middle-aged woman dealing with perimenopause brain fog, college tuition for two young-adult sons, and the constant-chaos of daily headlines, I miss the comfort of daytime soaps more than ever.

Soaps Offered Emotional Support

With slow storylines building over years and a rarely changing cast, daytime soaps provided something I could rely on. The plotlines were ridiculously outrageous, but the overarching themes stayed the same: back-stabbing betrayal and long-lasting love. The predictable unpredictability of soaps was as comforting as those skinny Campbell’s noodles in my sick-day soup.

What soothed me about soaps wasn’t just the romance or the drama, but the reassurance that chaos always led back to comfort — even if the endings weren’t always happy. Families would come together when it mattered most, even if their holiday gatherings featured way more wicked slaps and cutting insults than I experienced at my family get-togethers. To this day I am claustrophobic from the time Vivian buried Carly alive on Days of Our Lives, but I also knew she would eventually be rescued.

Soaps also made me grateful for my seemingly mundane life. The scandalous antics of the Abbott family, for example, made my life feel reassuringly boring, even as I bounced between boyfriends and made questionable life decisions during my early college years.

As I grew older and life became more and more stressful and chaotic, soaps provided a feeling of consistency not often present in the real world.

Soaps Didn’t Drain

While I wouldn’t call the escapism of soap operas “healthy,” they offered a far more soothing guilty pleasure than today’s endless cycle of emotionally exhausting reality TV and influencer-saturated social media. The format of soaps provided perfectly timed cliffhangers so viewers didn’t need click-bait headlines or Instagram one-liners to pull them in. Today’s media, in contrast, feels exhausting rather than entertaining.

The heroes and villains — even when those lines were blurred — in the soaps I watched religiously were entirely fictional, and I knew it. No matter how diabolical Stefano DiMera or Sheila Carter became, I trusted justice would eventually be served, at least for a while. Even when a villain “won,” it was only in a made-up world.

Today, we’re bombarded with reality TV stars, influencers, and streamers living as if their lives were scripted soap operas. Outrageous storylines are no longer fictional; they’re marketing, and the constant drama is wearing. Soap operas, by comparison, delivered indulgent escapism without wearing you out.

Because I was immersed in their fictional worlds for only an hour or two rather than the 24/7 exposure we live in today, I returned to the real world refreshed, not drained.

Soaps Created Communal Experiences

Even when my sister was married and we no longer lived under the same roof, we would still catch up on the latest episodes of our favorite soaps — “Did you see what happened with Bo and Hope on Friday?!” — when we talked on the phone. That’s because soaps gave us a shared language of connection. From memories with my grandma, mom, and sister to hours spent with college girlfriends, watching soaps was a communal experience of sisterhood for me.

Today, though, streaming services mean we rarely watch shows at the same time. We’re lucky if we’ve seen a similar show with our friends so we can debrief over dinner. In the prime of my soaps days, however, I knew I could chat about the latest news with John and Marlena with my friend Christa or quickly catch my mom up on the drama from Genoa City or Salem.

Comparing notes on Love is Blind or The Great British Baking Show doesn’t feel quite the same for me as getting caught up in the drama of twins switched at birth, evil doppelgangers, and self-righteous slaps.

I don’t remember exactly when I finally stopped watching daytime soaps, but I know I still feel the loss. The opening bars of the Days of Our Lives theme song, followed by the soothing voice of Macdonald Carey crooning “Like sands through the hourglass,” still give me chills. At 12:30pm on weekdays, I feel inclined to tune in to DOOL, and I still find myself looking for Soap Opera Digest while waiting in the supermarket line, even though it’s no longer published.

And that’s why I miss soaps. I miss the melodramatic midday routine, the emotional catharsis, and the shared legacy with women I love. In today’s avalanche of scandals and gossip, I’d take a good old-fashioned fictional faked death any day.

Kimberly Witt is an Iowa transplant placing roots in St. Paul, Minnesota. Together with her husband of more than 20 years, she is raising two amazing young adult sons born in Ethiopia. An adjunct English professor and freelancewriter, she spends her free time exploring her city and delighting in everyday life. She writes about the messiness of parenting, faith, and middle-agedness.