Appointment Television

Lots of genre shows have a character who isn't in on the central secret - not because they're dumb, usually, but because of contrivances that serve the plot. We've dubbed this archetype "The Babineaux" in honor of one of our favorite recent examples.  After that, we talk out the next leg of our TV Book Club discussion of FX's The Americans. The tension amps up in this run of episodes, and episode...

Once again we return to our Hatewatch segment, which this week, we're calling Hatewatch of Cards. Kathryn talks about House of Cards' most recent season and one particular meal prepared by Claire Underwood. We also kick off our Apology Tour with an apology that's been a long time coming.  For our long segment, we consider Mo Ryan's recent Variety piece on the dominance of television comedies, and...

This week we all learn more about each other and ourselves by talking about all the kids' TV we watched as kids. Some of those relationships were healthier than others. Then, we move on to a still-entertaining but much bleaker subject: episodes two through five of the first season of FX's The Americans. 

Inspired by a recent article by Sydney Ember about the changing role of advertisements on network TV, we consider the problems of the network TV ad model more broadly. Should there be sponsored segments? Should there be native advertisement? Should shows just run longer to cram more marketing goodness in? We then look at the spate of current and upcoming TV offerings. Andrew complains about Game o...

Today's APB is all about wine, specifically viewed through the lens of Matthew Goode and Matthew Rhys' thoroughly charming-looking Wine Show and a certain actor's new line of pinot noir.

This week, Margaret lays out in detail JUST how frustrated she is with "the one piece of the Shondaverse [she] still engage[s] with on a weekly basis," which is just as vitriolic and frustrated as you'd expect. After that, we launch into our next TV Book Club selection, the pilot of FX's The Americans. Spies are more fun than lawyers, at least in this episode. 

This week, we start things off by dipping into our mailbag to talk about your excellent Gilmore Girls podcast comments, and we brag about our amazing, personalized line of ATV cocktails. Then we turn to the big event: an epic, TV vs TV sitcom-themed battle, in which we pass around the white powdered judge’s wig to adjudicate some of the most vital sitcom debates of our time. Which is the best sitc...

We kick things off this week by talking about the three weird tricks that TV shows employ to write pregnant actors into their shows, whether they're working it into the plot, hiding it, or otherwise. Then we wrap up the Bunheads epoch of our TV Book Club segment. We mourn a show that was cut down in its prime, simultaneously praise and puzzle over its perhaps-fatal quirks, and like ranch chips.

It’s the height of awards season, and inspired by Ricky Gervais’s performance at the 2016 Golden Globes, we have a discussion about watching awards shows. We consider the distasteful parts of following celebrity culture, and Kathryn and Margaret try to convince Andrew that celebrity gossip isn’t just dumb fluff. We have a wide-ranging discussion about the social usefulness of celebrities, and retu...

We introduce a special new feature, the ATV Bulletin, where we address important news of the day (or, you know, news of the last couple of days). In this short episode, we discuss the recent announcement that Sutton Foster will appear on the Netflix revival series of Gilmore Girls. In addition, Margaret brings us an extremely important question to consider: which citizens of Stars Hollow would hav...

This week, Kathryn's sister Laura joins the gang to help talk us through life as a teenage ballerina. It turns out Amy Sherman-Palladino's Bunheads gets a lot of the details right, even if the dances are a bit too polished for this age and skill level.  Bunheads really finds its feet in this run of episodes—in between singing its praises, we also talk about how we approach shows that have been rec...

In honor of the Super Bowl this week, we have a wide-ranging discussion about sports and television, featuring returning guest and Overdue podcast brother Craig Getting. We talk about all the ways that sports fandom can be troubling, and all the things that make sports such compelling televisual entertainment. Highlights include: our personal sports narratives, Margaret’s description of cultural s...

This week, Andrew shares with the group his continuing love of Masterchef Junior, which leads to a mini-celebration of that rare animal, the Non-Cynical Competition Reality Show. After that it’s back to the TV Book Club mines for episodes 4-8 of the Freeform (nee ABC Family) one-season wonder Bunheads. Does the show get past its rough opening episodes? So all the teenagers start to feel like fully...

Margaret, Kathryn and Andrew answer a listener mailbag question and discuss all the many nuances of when it is and is not okay to talk while watching television. Andrew reveals a rule in his house about what you’re allowed to say while watching Game of Thrones, and Margaret discusses the tricky ins and outs of being a veteran watching with a newbie. They then turn to the main topic: whether stream...

To help kick off 2016, we talk about our TV-related resolutions. For Andrew, it's to watch more of the shows Kathryn and Margaret have recommended to him; for Margaret, it's to be more like Andrew. Then we move on to our TV Book Club discussion of the one-season wonder Bunheads, created by Amy Sherman-Palladino of Gilmore Girls fame. It's a rough start to the series - the setup is awkward and the...

We kick off the episode with the brief return of our Bashville segment, in which Margaret (surprisingly!) praises a recent change on the ABC series Nashville . Next, we turn to our primary discussion of the week, a concept we call High Wire TV. We define this idea in a few different ways, and consider the broader pitfalls and possibilities of TV that tries to do everything all at once. Andrew talk...

In this week’s ATV, we discuss the new Netflix Christmas special, A Very Murray Christmas , and the inherent flaws in a celebrity Christmas special built around a depressive, alcoholic character who’s not great at singing. We also talk about the Christmas special as a genre and touch on some of our favorites, including A Colbert Christmas , the Rankin and Bass classics, Charlie Brown , and The Gri...

Special guest host Craig Getting of Overdue fame joins us this week for a discussion of game shows, those reliable workhorses of the daytime-and-early-evening TV landscape. We talk the hosts and formats we like, and the ones we think we would do the best on. Craig also tells us about his (sometimes faulty) strategies for solving Wheel of Fortune puzzles, and the time he was robbed of the chance to...

This week we discuss The CW’s new series Crazy Ex-Girlfriend - Margaret is a fan, and Kathryn and Andrew have some reservations. Margaret tries to assuage their fears by discussing the show's strengths, and Andrew admits he has liiiiitle a crush on Rachel Bloom. Kathryn’s generally weary of television’s depictions of women as “crazy,” but she’s willing to give the show more time. Then we move on t...

On this week's episode, we dig into the recent Mystery Science Theater 3000 and Star Trek reboot announcements and share our deepest hopes and fears. We also share the shows we'd actually like to be see remade, though the list of properties that are ripe for a reboot that aren't already being rebooted is getting short. Next, we move on to a midseason checkup on some of the shows we mentioned in ou...

It's Thanksgiving, and we're here to discuss the beloved holiday tradition of the Thanksgiving-themed TV episodes. Kathryn loves them, Andrew is dubious, and Margaret is a happy medium. Kathryn goes long on the relationship between bottle episodes and the Thanksgiving structure, and we discuss Friends, The West Wing, and Bob's Burgers among other holiday classics. 

This week we have kick things off with a discussion of the comedian-driven sitcom, inspired by Aziz Ansari's Netflix original series Master of None and Louis CK's excellent FX show Louie. You really should watch both of them. After that, we wrap up our TV Book Club series on the first season of Black Mirror, a show that we ultimately didn't like as much as some people do. The last installment, "Th...

We open our episode this week with a discussion about the earliest shows we can remember watching even thought we either hated them or hated ourselves for watching them. Andrew has an ongoing love/hate relationship with The Simpsons, Margaret remembers a specific season of Must See TV with stunning clarity, and Kathryn has fallen back into a dangerous Tyra-themed habit. Andrew and Kathryn then tur...

We kick things off this week with a discussion of the Bechdel Test and its strengths and weaknesses as a method of evaluating the kinds of shows we talk about. It's useful sometimes, just not always. Then we launch right into our next installment of TV Book Club, this time about the second episode of Black Mirror. This episode included a more fully realized sci-fi dystopia, but its treatment of it...

Join us for our Spooky Halloween Spectacular! Margaret, Kathryn and Andrew discuss what TV-themed costumes they would create if they had all the time and money in the world. Margaret has a brilliant costume, Andrew's costume choices require some very specific facial hair, and Kathryn reveals that she is truly terrible at coming up with costume ideas.  Kathryn then returns to her controversial judi...