Obama spent the past year or so bingeing The Boys and Watchmen, just like the rest of us

Much like the rest of us, President Barack Obama has also been turning to television for when he needs a break. And as he tells Entertainment Weekly in a recent interview, his choice of viewing may not be all that different from the rest of us — especially when it comes to some of this year's most talked-about television series, at least two of which have come to a close since. (The third has been renewed for another season.)

The former president cited both HBO's Emmy Award-winning Watchmen "adaptation" and Prime Video's record-smashing The Boys as some of the series he puts on when he wants to unwind. He's also not averse to a little high concept afterlife-set comedy.

"The Good Place [is] a wise and sweet combination of goofy comedy and big philosophical questions," answered Obama as part of a feature focusing on the popular culture he consumed while working on his most recent memoir. "And Watchmen and The Boys, for how they turn superhero conventions on their heads to lay bare issues of race, capitalism, and the distorting effects of corporate power and mass media."

This isn't the first time Obama has mentioned his interest in genre-based popular culture. In 2018, he included Marvel's Black Panther on his yearly end of year favorites list, as well as Alex Garland's acclaimed adaptation of Jeff VanderMeer's science fiction novel Annihilation. The former was Marvel's most thematically ambitious film, featuring an allegory for the civil rights struggle in America, while the latter delved into themes of grief and posed questions regarding biology and other forms of life that might exist on our planet.

And if his love of science fiction weren't already obvious, the adaptation of Andy Weir's bestseller The Martian made his list of favorite films in 2015, with the White House also hosting a special screening of The Force Awakens that same year, which Obama mentioned he'd be attending. No news yet as to how excited he is for The Boys spin-off or if he too has succumbed to the power of Baby Yoda Grogu over on The Mandalorian.

Naturally, when some of the series' creators and stars heard of their presidential fan, they had a few things to say:

The first two seasons of The Boys are now streaming on Prime Video. Watchmen is available to watch on HBO Max and all four seasons of The Good Place can be found on Netflix.