One of the defining words of 2025 has been slop . Coined, ironically, by someone on X (formerly Twitter), it refers to the sort of online content that’s destined to be consumed passively yet addictively. A video of raccoons behaving foolishly, say, or teenagers ringing a doorbell and running away.

Those of us who’ve managed to resist doomscrolling are finding little more depth in traditional entertainment. Netflix’s original programming, in particular, has become a den of slop: the result of a commercial push to treat screenplays like algorithms.

Country Life staff have been mulling this over in various team meetings (it is work, we promise) and with slop coming at us from all angles, we feel the best solution is often to revisit the classics. Campion , the BBC drama about a private

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