I recently wrapped up the viewing of three recent television series obsessions:

• CNN’s “The Radical Story of Patty Hearst”
• Paramount Network’s “Waco”
• A&E’s “Intervention”

I finished watching all three this week, and I’m still thinking about them. The first two, especially, are stories of enduring mystery because we will never be sure exactly what happened. Did Patty actually embrace her role in the SLA, or was her participation just a way to stay alive? Did the Branch Davidians shoot first at the feds? Did they set the fire in the compound themselves, or was the inferno the fault of the feds?

“Intervention” is hard to watch because of the pain the addicts experience as well as their families. I like watching documentaries and docuseries because I’ve always been fascinated by the drama of real life. To me, the emotions of “Intervention” seems authentic.

But what “Intervention” has that the other two shows lacked is hope. In the most recent installment of “Intervention,” which followed several addicts over the course of many weeks, almost all of the addicts agreed to treatment and at the end of the series most of them were still sober. It was heartening to see them turning their lives around.

Now that these shows wrapped up, I’m on to Hulu’s “The Looming Tower,” which is about the lead-up to the 9/11 attacks. I watched the first two episodes last night. So far, so good. (Fact: The director and writer, Ali Selim, is from Minnesota.)

As I was telling a colleague about my viewing of these dark, tragic stories, he jokingly expressed concern. I told him not to worry, because my antidote will be a weekend of this: