10 TV Shows You Love To Hate-Watch, If You're Anything Like Us

Few things grind my gears like helplessly watching other women succumb to the insanely expensive pressures of the wedding industrial complex in a culture that has conditioned them to place such high value on a single day of celebration that they don't even question why they need to look like a buttercream cupcake smothered in tulle. Oh, but then I get to judge some gowns. So I watch. -- Sara Boboltz

I love/hate-watch "Say Yes to the Dress" compulsively. It's sort of mind-numbingly boring -- every episode is basically the same, nothing particularly interesting ever EVER happens -- but that's also the reason it's so easy to keep watching: There's very little new stimulus or information being thrown at you. It's like a gentle murmur of background noise. But what really sets it apart from all the other mediocre reality TV shows out there, for me, is how it puts the gender binary and women's objectification on display in a mostly female space. We see how women talk about each other's bodies and problem areas, guide them to feel like they'll only look "beautiful" if they wear certain silhouettes or hide certain parts of themselves, and how emotionally they return to deep-seated patriarchal narratives like the symbolism of a white wedding dress or a veil or "feeling like a princess." When men join the entourage, the weight of the male gaze can become more pronounced (as when one possessive father insists on buying his daughter a wedding dress that looks just like her sweet 16 dress, preserving her youthful innocence in his mind), but it's hovering in every episode, reinforced by all of us.

Also, I love looking at pretty, pretty dresses. -- Claire Fallon

I love to hate-watch "Sister Wives." I have never been more mesmerized by a show, ever. But the thing that was a hugely surprising factor for me was how open-minded, honest and vulnerable all of the women are and the way they treat each other. The show (and obviously not the polygamist dude) would never explicitly admit this, but their whole set-up is a low-key matriarchy. He kind of just bumbles around and makes mistakes when all of the women just calmly fix things and run s**t (even their "businesses"). I am also amazed by all of their children and how they're growing up super well-adjusted but very agnostic and/or against the polygamist lifestyle. But then I stop myself and think about how wrong it is for TLC to exploit this family and lifestyle. -- Melissa Radzimski

I knew watching "Job or No Job," a show on Freeform where millennials receive life-coaching while going on their first post-college interviews, would make me crazy -- so I watched the whole first season in about two days. I cringed at the life coach's tough-love platitudes, cringed harder when I saw the grads screw up their interview (though, I have to say, some of them seemed like genuinely nice and hardworking people) and just about self-combusted when one of the show's subjects asked herself something along the lines of, "Do I want a boss, or do I want to be the boss?" It reeked of the handheld I-am-special entitlement that millennials are often portrayed as having, when -- as someone of this age group -- most people I know IRL aren't walking stereotypes like this. -- Jill Capewell

At this point, I'm hate-watching "Pretty Little Liars." I've never actually wished that a show I watch gets canceled, but after six seasons of dead-end plots, red herrings and nonsense, I'm ready for it end. But I still can't look away. -- Stephanie Marcus