God bless the goddamn Onion

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.

redlettermedia works (when it works) as comedy, as criticism it's garbage really. funny youtube eviscerations of fanboy garbage ain't exactly manny farber.

it's weird to think that the smart kind of macro tv crit like tom carson or james walcott do or did (or even stuff like j hoberman on the honeymooners, which really changed the way i viewed a show i already knew and loved, the hallmark of good crit imo)(and PAULINE KAEL'S FWIW) is less possible now despite tv crit being bigger than ever (seriously is there a music crit now as big as sepinwall? one that could self publish a book on amazon, about his field, and have it succeed like that?). avclub does halfheart gestures at this from time to time but it's clearly beyond there reach, just totally out of there comfort zone. vaguely reminded of when gawker does their longform things and you're like 'guys, this would fit in the readings section in harpers. step it up.'

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

― zero dark (s1ocki), Thursday, March 7, 2013 12:18 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

they dont tbh

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.

yeah. i dont buy that only a handful of shows 'deserve' scrutiny, but the problem with recaps is the turnaround is too rapid for them to say anything interesting - about subtext, about filmmaking, about storytelling. they can only, well, recap. and if the writer is sharp sometimes you get some kernels of insight, but it's a thin reward for reading every week

quality tv

If nothing else at least we can thank the AV Clin for unleashing the inimitable ZODIAC MOTHERFUCKER on the Internet.

http://www.ifc.com/fix/2009/11/in-praise-of-zmf

Not saying anything one way or the other about the quality of RLM's criticism - just saying that I find some edutainment value in the little bits and pieces of film school 101 (or summer camp before film school) that they throw around, or how they made me able to articulate all the ways the Star Wars prequels were bad beyond the obvious stuff I'd been citing for years. And this is an edutainment value that I don't find in the AV Club stuff. That's all.

Their piece on how Adam Sandler movies are basically working as piggy banks for him was pretty smart too. Yeah yeah low bars, but Youtubes that cost $5 to make have possibly not found their Kael just yet.

The song hating section is one of the most repeatedly obvious things ever. I would have never guessed dudes in supremely hip bands don't like Nickleback.

A number of the heavier dramas send screeners out to the recappers for each episode, except perhaps the finale (which often leads to a significant delay in the posting of the recap). They've usually written it before the episode has even aired. Myles McNutt had a good article about recaps v reviews etc a few years ago, but I can't remember where it was.

I don't generally read recaps, but I like having them if there's a really interesting episode of a show. Not to defend all the writers there or anything, but I don't think they're en masse as terrible as has been made out itt. I much prefer Todd Van Der Werff's individual articles than I do his recaps (partly because I pretty much never read the recaps), and the dude is incredibly knowledgable about televisions, its workings, and its history. I can get how his writing might rankle as it's very apparent he came up through the MZS/House Next Door school, and that ain't for everyone.

quick turnaround is almost certainly a thing.

as well, there's what david simon complained about: instantly weighing in on something that's just one piece of a larger whole.

but i think what bugs me the most is the way they're written, as basically chronological, play-by-play descriptions of the episode with a little bit of peanut gallery commentary. imagine movie reviews were written like that...

There is quick turnaround, but it's usually a couple of hours I think. Certainly for things like Mad Men etc, for which they usually have screeners anyway.

I agree with David Simon to an extent, and that's certainly an issue for something like The Wire, but I don't think there are many shows that really consider each episode as a piece of the whole to that extent. One of things I've liked about recaps that I've read over the years has been breaking down each episode and highlighting the "episodic" elements. Nowadays I think they're less about individuals stories and more about thematic cohesion.

Film criticism is fundamentally different from this sort of thing though, so I'm not sure that's a useful comparison.

The Guardian did recaps of the Wire a couple of years after it ended, if I remember correctly.

I think the only recaps of a show I've read all the way through on the avclub were the first two seasons of Deadwood that they revisited a few years ago. I thought they were quite good.

there was a cool thing on slate where they had mafia experts recapping sopranos episodes

Robyn Hitchcock's song-hating piece was really thoughtful and intelligent and non-obvious, almost all the others are awful though.

Rabin's Simpsons recaps were more fun when they had multiple grammatical errors in each paragraph and were clearly written in under an hour, probably while hungover.

yeah. i dont buy that only a handful of shows 'deserve' scrutiny, but the problem with recaps is the turnaround is too rapid for them to say anything interesting - about subtext, about filmmaking, about storytelling. they can only, well, recap. and if the writer is sharp sometimes you get some kernels of insight, but it's a thin reward for reading every week

― turds (Hungry4Ass)

this is otm and also i think often their scrutiny when it attempts to delve into "what it all means" is often simply wrong-headed speculation about what's going to happen to a character, or something obvious and dumb like "well call me crazy but i think that thoughtless comment about rape made to so and so certainly affected her considering she was raped last season."

ya there's a lot of hunting and pecking for meaningful signs & symbols

The EW recaps of Lost were some of the most insane symbol hunting things ever. That Doc Jensen dude is certifiable.

ya was kind of a megaburn on him when the show ended and everybody realized it had all been make-it-up-as-you-go-along bullshit

i feel like sometimes the recaps break down into some kind of tearful sincerity about the show's quality, 'goddammit this is why it's great and means something, when they do things like this.'

wild speculation on lost recaps were p awesome and kind of better than the show itself tbh

yeah it was the main reason i kept watching

Robyn Hitchcock's song-hating piece was really thoughtful and intelligent and non-obvious, almost all the others are awful though.

― JoeStork, Thursday, March 7, 2013 1:40 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

oh god i forgot this feature is literally called "Hatesong"

steve albini's made me hate steve albini a lot more than i usually do, which was an accomplishment

The Posies actually have a song called "Hate Song," AVC missing out on some real synergy here.

I never watched Lost but I will say that wild speculation was really fun when it was episodes of Survivor ten years ago and there really was this a real creative energy put into sifting through a show that seemed to have been deliberately crafted for the clue-hunters at a number of levels. There was actually fun for the fan community in reverse-engineering the likely winner based on the editing cues. Don't know if they kept that stuff going, I bailed after season ten or eleven but it was pretty great dorky fun.

thats kinda awesome

http://www.theonion.com/articles/video-of-man-weeping-becomes-viral-hit,31710/

yep, watched the whole thing

http://www.theonion.com/articles/find-the-thing-youre-most-passionate-about-then-do,31742/

I had never seen this old one that got tweeted this morning:

http://www.theonion.com/articles/slightly-upset-woman-declared-insane,341/

dying

http://www.theonion.com/articles/find-the-thing-youre-most-passionate-about-then-do,31742/

― s.clover, Wednesday, March 20, 2013 1:04 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark

hahaha *feels intense stabs of pain in lower abdomen*

haha, perfect.

And on the "Onion goes dark" front,

Christopher Walken