God bless the goddamn Onion

I don't want to dwell on the shows I hate, like Girls.

you know what else bugs me, is those posts, usually in the awl, that are in a "conversational" or IM format, with lots of exclamation marks

gah. I'm starting to have opinions about tv recaps

Wait, it wasn't Patton Oswalt, it was Paul F. Tompkins: http://www.vulture.com/2011/01/american_idol_paul_f_tompkins_1.html

PFT is hilarious but im still not gonna read those

so it is just telling people what the plot of an ep was, like it sounds?

jfc

― a phenomenological description of The Eagles (Noodle Vague), Wednesday, March 6, 2013 4:14 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

why is it a thing?

― a phenomenological description of The Eagles (Noodle Vague), Wednesday, March 6, 2013 4:14 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

It's for people who sat through an entire hour of a program and somehow, didn't catch on to a single detail of the plot.

"The episode reached a crescendo when Miss Kitty told Marshall Dillion in the third act that she 'had some girls waiting' for her in Topeka. This marks the first time in the show's history that a direct implication has been made that Kitty runs a brothel in Dodge City. (Editor's Note - Turns out she was talking about her sisters. Nevermind.)"

suspect recap culture is a late symptom of generation-limbo-style credentialized compulsory 'middle class' college education. hunger for INTERPRETATION of culture-consumables. somehow tv-recaps are like the worst version of it, worse than yelp.

― j., Wednesday, March 6, 2013 1:40 AM (5 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Hang on let's not go crazy here

now it's more like a pure joyless consumerist time-filler.

this has to be the description for some board

"some"

you know what else bugs me, is those posts, usually in the awl, that are in a "conversational" or IM format, with lots of exclamation marks

― zero dark (s1ocki), Wednesday, 6 March 2013 14:21 (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah, that recent George Saunders interview, argh. And when writers put "(laughs)" in an interviewee's response.

They were re-capping Arrested Development lately and it seemed odd cos i thought they had already gone through every episode, and were now doing so again.

I read the classic Simpsons ones. They aren't particularly good but I haven't seen most of those shows in years, and having a recap reminds me of a particularly amazing joke that i would otherwise wouldn't exactly come to mind when reading the title "Deep Space Homer" or whatever. Those old episodes are so jam-packed with things going on.

But yeah he is kind of bored, you can tell. At the end of every single episode review he never strays from saying "The next one is ____________. That's a good one, if memory serves."

ok now i really want to read an epistolary novel written in the form of a series of tv recaps.

with important developments occurring in arguments in comment sections.

Yeah, that recent George Saunders interview, argh. And when writers put "(laughs)" in an interviewee's response.

― Chuck_Tatum, Wednesday, March 6, 2013 11:57 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

(laughs)

its great because it shows you made a good joek and they laughed at your joke and you are a funny writer!

show, don't tell

(laughs, thanks interviewer for bringing a ray of sunshine into his life)

(laughs)
(gazes down throat)
(oneness)

The only good tv recapping is when Jon Wurster asks if you've seen the last episode of Archie Bunker's Place, the one they only showed once.

(laughs, but later goes home and cries)

oh i like IM-format articles, so easy to read

also there isn't a single "Laughs" in the saunders intvw

oh sorry there is a [laughter] and a [laughing] but its saunders laughing at his own jokes

the saunders interview isnt even like an IM, it's like a regular q&a

you guys are baffling

[laughter]

(baffs)

Can't spell save a ho without A&V.

i would never ride for av club, im defending the awl here

i like q&as/interviews, particularly with an interesting subject, but when it's two writers riffin' on like, the oscars or something, i hate it

They usually end up making me hate at least one of the writers.

oh i like those almost always, i just skip the ones w/ writers i dont like. i love the sicha/scocca ones and the bustillos/roth ones

television recaps are only good for really terrible shows, preferably near cancellation

the one good thing the av club's tv recap section did: point out the bizarre surrealist final season of "til death"

and apparently that was just an article on their site, not the (god) "tv club." r.i.p.

the AV Club is just horrible, the whole thing can just fuck off

u tell em

Some real haters here

some of the writer are actively awful and the comments are nothing but a sustained horrorshow but it's still miles and miles better than Television Without Pity (except for Potes, Potes is hilarious)

The film part (which is the only bit they's released an app for) is alright - hates fun a bit but who doesn't?

pretty sure every section has an app? I keep getting asked if I want to download the TV app when I browse on my phone

thats the worst

actually o'neal's news coverage is good, the rest can fuck off

Possibly the only one they've released an app in other regions for?

i dont read recaps so their existence doesnt bother me

hth

That's like saying I don't live in Syria so the atrocities there don't bother me

I have a higher tolerance for the avclub than most but I cannot stand the weekly "random minor celebrity tells us what video game they're playing this weekend" thing. I don't even know why exactly, just seeing it on the sidebar makes my skin crawl.

i'm fine w/ avclub really, some of their writers i like a great deal (tobias, murray, bowman)(admittedly weird personal reasons for this), several problems w/ recaps at avclub and recap criticism in general but i think the main one is that very very very little tv is worth examining w/ this kind of scrutiny. and also that then the type of worthwhile scrutiny that can be yielded from these few shows is very difficult to churn out a half hour after endcredits. i think this (as much as general recapping, which dates back to mightybigtv as attraction anyway) is maybe the big negative sepinwall influence, that ppl could come to expect that take within the hour after the show ended and that then that standard - 'what someone can whip up an hour after a show ends' - becomes the bar. when you combine this w/ someone writing about big bang theory or whatever ye gods. what's disappointed me about them lately (and part of me wonders how much of this is change in personnel - they changed editors recently i think and i know they've had writers poached by other surely better paying outlets, grantland etc) is that, going back to the 90s even, they used to have clever ideas for arts features, random roles the obv example, and lately they have the laziest stuff like 'watch this'.

tv writing these days is really pretty bad, particularly "recap culture," which i find kind of odious for some reason

― zero dark (s1ocki), Tuesday, March 5, 2013 10:15 AM (10 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i raise you amateur behind-the-scenes-ism

― lag∞n, Tuesday, March 5, 2013 9:14 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah, 100%. i think u said something about that on some other thread, basically i long for the days before people knew the term "show runner"

― zero dark (s1ocki), Wednesday, March 6, 2013 1:17 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^^^

It's funny what a fine line this is, for me, cause I am totally with you as far as AV Club reviews go, but then I also totally dig things like the RedLetterMedia reviews for their attempts to break down what works/doesn't work at these kind of "one step halfway behind the curtain" levels that do have to do with "arcs" and "blocking" and so on. I don't know what it is that things like AV Club are missing here - maybe it's just not a lesson that needs beating in over the course of hundreds of episodes of dozens of shows.

xpost totally agreed re: the difference between a clear premise for a feature and "say something about this show." Dunno how much of it is that TV doesn't hold up to commentary - I think the "within the hour after the show ended" is the problem, or more specifically the "for each and every episode." I'm sure whatchajiggy could pull together a really interesting piece about, you know, an entire season of the Simpsons, or even various episodes from that season pulled together to illustrate overarching themes, changes going on in the undercurrent of the show, characters coming into focus over time, who knows what it would be but it would be a story with an argument and you could leave out shit that didn't relate to it. But then there wouldn't be a billion words a week to dump in between all those ads, I guess.