The favorite program can provide a shared hour to people with little else to discuss that day.

Shared attention can carry a relationship through a thin week. Two people who have run out of news still have something to sit beside each other for, and the hour does the work that conversation cannot manage just then. It is not avoidance. It is a way of being together when talking would be effortful.

If a relationship feels quiet at the moment, find something to do alongside each other rather than forcing a conversation. A programme, a walk, a job in the kitchen. Company built on shared attention usually opens the talking again by itself.