What's your favorite whump tv show?
Okay great question but I have a terrible answer. I feel like my whump taste is so specific that I don’t have one specific show that fulfills it… instead I zero in on little tiny sections or characters and it’s so oddly specific… I’ve provided an odd list below and my little visual vibe boards bc I love making those:
Vienna Blood- I can’t say this one is an ultimate favorite but it does provide some tasty turn of the century psychiatrist and hospital scenes from time to time as that’s what the main character is when he isn’t solving mysteries for the police, but I love the main character max who often finds himself in hairy situations (he’s my face claim for alfie and in the show he’s so sweet and I love him)
Mädät Omenat- a Finnish show (I watched it on my PBS/ BBC subscription) where a “Student activist Onerva is abducted and sent against her will for treatment at a mental hospital on a remote island; to her horror, she finds that there is something wrong with the care of the women kept on the island.” So it’s a bit of a conspiracy but lots of good psych whump and I love the setting of a Finnish island in the summer in the 1960s it’s very pretty WHILE being unnerving. But I also like Scandinavian shows bc my background is that so it’s fun seeing all of these people that I look so much like.
White collar- this isn’t that whumpy and has like two psych scenes in the entire show but I love Neal and how he is talented and smart and valued by those around him but still a prisoner throughout with that hanging over him and always being treated like he can’t be trusted and like a kid etc, and all the stuff that happens to him like getting kidnapped from time to time… This was my original whump show when I was about 11 and still my comfort show to this day. I know every line every camera angle everything lmao.
Sherlock- okay I know I know it’s so old at this point and over obsessed over BUT hear me out. Rewatch it after reading this, (The Box by Kate221B) AMAZING fic about Sherlock being very mentally ill as a child/ young teen and in hospital for it and the show gets so much better. I liked the show before but the background of him not knowing his planets and things because ECT has literally deleted most of his childhood memories against his will bc he was so unwell… PERFECTION to me. Such a perfect background to his character. I reread this fic ALL. THE. TIME. for years now. And gives so much more context to his drug abuse too later and so many tiny character quirks, idk I love it so much. Just read the tag warnings for what it contains bc it’s obviously Not Light.
Then I have lots of other shows that aren’t that good or I really don’t care about or know nothing about but have good whumpy parts that I go back too a lot…like sg 1 with Daniel or iron fist with Danny Rand in the psych hospital in the first few eps.