Adam Smith, “The Work of Leisure” (Local Culture, Fall 2025):
For Snyder the main obstacle to the rebirth of leisure is our devotion to work. We’re so devoted to work that even our play is workaday, since play for us is recuperation for work, and “we are still toiling when we are watching television,” as Snyder notes. Watching TV is a necessary evil, like work. It’s “like recovering from an injury.” Leisure, both for Aristotle and Rousseau, is not the opposite of work; it’s the opposite of the work/play dichotomy, and we’re so committed to that dichotomy that leisure holds little attraction to us: when we say we want more leisure, what we actually mean is that we want more play, which really means that we want more energy for work.
This triggered a realization about why I don’t like contemporary “prestige” dramas: they’re too much work. I’ve said here before that when I watch TV, I want simple entertainment; I don’t want homework.
Perhaps contemporary prestige dramas feel like work because they are by and for those who live the contemporary work/play dichotomy. They represent a play that is meant to be rejuvenating for more work. But because of play’s recursiveness (in this understanding), it must be “bettering.” It is ultimately intended to sharpen the mind dulled by the day’s work, so that it is ready to work again tomorrow.
I’m not saying my preference for simple-minded pleasure—laughs, chills, and thrills—is high-minded leisure. Far from it. But I do suspect the prestige dramas are an artifact of the culture of total work.