Appointment Television

This week we take a dive into Donald Glover's Atlanta, a show which is currently running its first season on FX. It's the latest in a vein of odd-yet-deeply-personal comedies, very much in the vein of Louie and Master of None (and you can also see hints of it in shows like FX's Better Things, a Pamela Adlon-Louis CK joint).  From there, we move into fall TV shows that we're excited about—there are...

We tackle some tough issues in this week's episode, beginning with a deep mourning for the loss of Mel and Sue from the Great British Bake-Off. We talk about what they mean to that series, the larger upset at the BBC generally, and how tragic it will be if the Bake-Off takes a sharp turn towards the commercial.  Our second segment is in response to a note from a listener, who wrote in to ask about...

This week it's all about kids, starting with the TV kids who make us roll the eyes and go "ugh, TV kids" the most. Then we wrap up our Stranger Things edition of TV Book Club, talking about everything we liked and a handful of things we wish had been handled differently. Here's looking forward to season two!

This week's episode is a recording of our live show at the 2016 Philly Podfest, where we had a fabulous time talking about TV bars inside of Philadelphia's great Tattooed Mom Bar. We unpack the role of bars as "third spaces" on TV. We consider the ways that bars bring together different segments of the population, act as meeting places and entries to civilization, and are good places to watch TV....

Our friend Kate Racculia joins us this week to talk about why teens and kids are such good detectives, and to weigh in on all things Stranger. We talk about Veronica Mars, Scooby Doo, and Nancy Drew, and we try desperately to stop Andrew from reading Inspector Gadget fanfic out lout. In the third installment of Stranger Things TV Book Club, we go deep on representation in fiction and The Cult of B...

The underwater episode of BoJack Horseman prompts our opening discussion this week, but you'll want to STAY TUNED because AFTERWARD we talk about TV theme songs so much that you'll never want to hear another TV theme song again! Or maybe you will, because TV theme songs are wonderful. 

For our first segment, we start out with the intention of discussing the currently airing season of Great British Bake-Off as a follow-up to our previous TV Book Club. We do that, but we also stray through several other topics, including Kathryn's TV hookup and Margaret's TV crushes.  Our second segment is the second installment in the Stranger Things TV Book Club, covering episodes 2-5. While we...

On tap for this week: Thorough examination and praise of the boozy antics on ABC's Alec Baldwin-hosted Match Game reboot. Then, a discussion of Auteur TV based on the alleged behind-the-camera turmoil at Netflix's Baz Luhrmann-helmed The Get Down. Also, Margaret is just tipsy enough for it to be funny.

For our first segment this week, we pick apart the new teaser for the Netflix revival of Gilmore Girls. Topics include: Amy Schumer's celebrity timeliness, nostalgia, smartphones, teaser editing, and corpse flowers. The bulk of our episode, though, is a look at the first episode of Netflix's Stranger Things, our newest selection for TV Book Club. We talk about its movie influences, its popcornines...

This week is all about our favorite reality show hobby horse, The Bachelor/ette franchise. This is Andrew's first season watching, and the gang talks about the way their Rose Buddies-inspired fantasy league has affected their viewing.  Then we fire up the ol' TV vs TV cannon to settle that age-old debate: which is actually a better show, The Bachelor or The Bachelorette?

After a bumper crop of responses to our segment on animated TV shows, we talk about some of the comments we received. We highlight a few listener suggestions for other animated shows to check out.  Our big segment this week is a spoiler-filled discussion of Orange is the New Black's fourth season. We talk about some of the controversies surrounding the last handful of episodes, about the difficult...

Nielsen ratings—the things we use to determine how many people watched a given TV show, not reviews of TV shows by families named Nielsen—are still widely used and Netflix just gave us a rare peek at its ratings for the season four premiere of Orange is the New Black, but how useful are they, really? Then, using OITNB as a springboard, the gang talks about how characters on TV (and TV shows themse...

For our first segment this week, we talk about half-hour animated TV shows, and why we don't spend much time talking about them. Andrew, with some assists from Margaret, tries to explain to Kathryn why animated TV shows are worthy watches, particularly shows like Bob's Burgers, Home Movies, Clone High and Venture Brothers.  In light of Kathryn's animated TV reticence, we turn to a consideration of...

In this week's show, things start innocently enough. Kathryn and Margaret talk about ESPN's O.J.: Made in America, which is a documentary that we talk about as a companion piece to the fictionalized American Crime Story about O.J. Simpson that wrapped up earlier this year. Then, the gang moves on to the final stretch of The Great British Bake-Off, where things rapidly become surprisingly sexual. Y...

Summer is upon us, and we talk about some of the summer programming we're most looking forward to watching. Margaret's interested in the new Baz Luhrman show The Get Down, Andrew's thinking about catching up with Mr Robot, and we all wonder why TBS won't let us watch Playing House in some easily accessible streaming place. Our main discussion this week is about the secondary television market - re...

We revisit several old stomping grounds this week—first it's back to Nashville, which hadn't been revived when we recorded this but has been as we write this. Then, we gush a bit about the latest season of The Americans, which we covered in our last TV Book Club. And finally it's on to our current TV Book Club, the still-charming, pastry-filled world of the Great British Bake-Off.

It's spring, the time when a young man's fancy turns to cancelling television shows that have been underperforming for quite a while, but which had survived until now because no one really understands the current TV paradigm. We run through several of the recent TV cancellations, and discuss whether or not they'll really be missed. After chiding Margaret for being part of the Agent Carter problem,...

Kathryn and Margaret attended Vulture's panel on season two of UnREAL, which arrives this month. Then we move on to the next part of our TV Book Club segment on The Great British Bake-Off (or "The Great British Baking Show" to Americans). We are, for better or worse, not quite as nice as the people on the show.

CBS is suggesting that the only way to access its new Star Trek series will be through its streaming service, and we talk about why that seems like a terrible idea. At some point, we'll no longer be willing to sign up for new streaming services whenever they debut, and CBS All Access might just be the straw that breaks the camel's back.  We then turn to the main task of the day - another TV vs TV...

The gang kicks this week's show off by talking about their favorite reality show tropes—when the shows start making your root for or against certain characters, when people are or aren't there to make friends, and when you know in your bones that someone is about to be sent home. They then move over to the first episode of the only (easily, legally available in the US) season of The Great British...

After an impressively great second season, we talk about what makes CW's zombie procedural mystery iZombie so much fun. Shows that meld procedural beats with long arc stories over the course of a season are so hard to pull off well, so we talk about what makes iZombie work, and how strong its season finale was.  We jump from there to a discussion of the delightful food prep montages on iZombie, an...

This week we dive into the real-world Sorting Hat that is the Myers-Briggs personality test, where we find out what personality traits we share and which we don't (spoilers: Margaret and Kathryn are polar opposites). Then we dive into the second season of Tiny Fey and Robert Carlock's  The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt , a sophomore season that starts weak but picks up steam as it chugs along. Tina Fe...

Thanks to a question from a listener, Andrew, Margaret and Kathryn revisit the idea of rewatches and try to take apart exactly what draws us to rewatching certain series, episodes, and scenes. We think about Mad Men, Outlander, Veronica Mars, and the pleasures of doing research on the shows we love. Next, inspired by our Americans book club, we consider historical television series, and think abou...

Big episode this week! First off, Andrew is continuing his #Winestunts odyssey from last week, which as Kathryn pointed out was something that he chose to inflict upon himself. It results in a lot of love. While that continues, the crew introduces a new segment in which they sort their favorite TV characters into their probable Hogwarts houses, starting with perennial favorite Jane the Virgin. And...

In response to all of the lovely reviews and apology requests we've received, we do a tour through some listener apologies, and Andrew makes a bid for even more apologies by voicing some thoughts about Firefly. In our long segment this week, we talk about what happens to a television show when a TV love interest alienates viewers. We consider Gilmore Girls and Veronica Mars, as well as Sex and the...