Appointment Television

We're surprised too, but yes, apparently television is still doing the Emmy awards this year! Not even a global pandemic can keep Jimmy Kimmel from telling us about how important television is, before then making a few lame jokes and leaving.  Anyhow, in this episode we discuss our reaction to the 2020 Emmy nominations, but first we have a long chat about the state of television production five mo...

In today's episode, we discuss the last three episodes of Season One of Tuca & Bertie, a show we all love the name of which Margaret can even occasionally pronounce correctly. In the process, we also discuss: Margaret's improbable employment as a semi-professional pronunciation advisor Fauci/Verdon Mall stores we'd name after which we would name our children Future Bones Zone guest Josh Gondelman...

This week, film and culture critic Cate Young ( @battymamzelle ) joins us for a discussion of The Bold Type's uneven 4th season, and why we keep watching it anyway. Then, we dial up Netflix's The Baby-Sitters Club, just to remind ourselves what it was like six months ago when we could actually get childcare. SHOW NOTES: Cate Young on Twitter: https://twitter.com/battymamzelle The Bold Type on Hulu...

We kick things off this week by talking about shows like Central Park and The Simpsons, which have announced a few significant casting changes in response to the Black Lives Matter movement. Then it's Tuca and Bertie book club time! Guess what? This show still fucking rules. 

Yes folks, that's right. As the title suggests, we tackle not one but TWO all-time ATV trash classics: Andrew watches the pilot of NBC's Smash (while Kathryn and Margaret lavishly reminisce about the fun they had watching it) and then we, as a team, discuss Netflix's new extremely dumb & incredibly fun show, Floor is Lava. Highlights: whose eyes are the deadest in all of Hollywood? What screen ico...

This week, we continue our Tuca & Bertie TV Book Club with episodes 3, 4, and 5 of Season 1. In addition we discuss: the cancelled-before-its-time Sweet/Vicious at the behest of one of our $7-a-month Patreon supporters , and Andrew's incredible skill at coming up with  perfect dumb podcast names.

In light of the surging Black Lives Matter movement, we discuss some of the major TV responses in the last few weeks, especially the cancelation of Cops and Live PD, and Bachelor's decision to finally cast a black male lead.  We also take a long walk through our mailbag, beginning with some really thoughtful critiques we received about the subject of cops on TV and our response to the Twilight Zon...

This week, we lighten things up a bit by watching the first two episode of Lisa Hanawalt's Netflix animated show, Tuca & Bertie.  SHOW NOTES: Tuca & Bertie: https://www.netflix.com/title/80198137

On this week's episode, inspired by Kathryn's excellent essay on the subject , we are discussing POLICE ON TELEVISION and why, by and large, they are not doing great things for society. Along the way, we make some important stops at: Normalizing Injustice by Color of Change Hollywood  Critics' Conversation: Is TV Afraid to Tackle Police Brutality or Just Unable to Do It Well? How police censorship...

In lieu of one short topic this week, we each bring a short topic and then promise to only talk about our topic for 2 minutes each. Somehow, though, the first segment is 17 minutes long.  Then it's time for the end of the Twilight Zone book club! This time we joke a lot about pool players and the system in heaven where you have to show up as a ghost to constantly defend your titles. 

hello hi yes hello guess what hi we finally did our last good one/bad one combo!!!!!! for the spring season!!!!! we put it off for so many weeks BUT THIS WEEK wasn't one of them, so here it is! OUR EPISODE! We talk about The Bachelor: Listen to Your Heart (not worse than Cancel of Dads, but LONGER) and Run (ultimately not as good a one as we hoped by god, Merritt Weaver is so beautiful, so do we e...

The second season of What We Do in the Shadows is one of the precious few shows left that still has new pre-pandemic episodes rolling out every week, so we talk about how great it is. Then, it's back to the Twilight Zone, to watch some all-time series high-watermarks (S03E08, S01E08, S05E03). What We Do in the Shadows (Hulu): https://www.hulu.com/series/what-we-do-in-the-shadows-0b10c46a-12f0-4357...

Did you know there will still be some TV this summer? There will! Not very much, but the summer won't be a complete content desert, and we're going to run through a few of the things we're hoping will give us some welcome summer distractions.  We also talk about the Parks and Rec reunion episode. We were not big fans, alas, but we use it as a springboard to talk about what we think works about thi...

This week we return with another mind-blowing visit to The Twilight Zone, with a special (coincidental) emphasis on stories where women are driven mad by happenstance. Also we have small complaints we just gotta get off our chests ok??? SHOW NOTES: Stumptown: https://abc.com/shows/stumptown The Last Dance: https://www.espn.com/watch/catalog/2806434b-1deb-4c5c-aae0-04b1ab8eebf7/the-last-dance The B...

Hello, fellow quaranitine madness sufferers, and welcome to the latest ATV. Is Margaret once again recording with the wrong mic this week? She sure is, and she blames Zoom. She's not sure what Zoom has to do with it, but she's still confident they're at fault. We also talk about the new Who Wants to Be a Millionare? and the myriad ways in which it's the worst. We debate if any Late Night Jimmy oth...

This week we roll out a new a new TV book club, the top 10 episodes of The Twilight Zone! We definitely told you about this book club in previous episodes, and we gave you plenty of warning this was coming on our social media feeds. If you're feeling at all gaslit about that, keep in mind that it's very thematically in keeping with a book club on The Twilight Zone.  Before we dig into our first Tw...

This week we talk about the things we have been watching since we've been stuck in our houses with our televisions. And then, appropriately, we talk about the TLC reality show Dr. Pimple Popper. We also talk about Law & Order SVU a lot? Which is confusing to Andrew but clearly he's out of his element and should be forgiven for it. SHOW NOTES: Mrs. Maisel: https://www.amazon.com/Marvelous-Mrs-Maise...

In solidarity with the many parents in our audience currently navigating the... joys... of having their children with them all the time, Margaret and Andrew handed the reigns over to Kathryn this week for Good One, Bad One Jr. We got to watch one good show that her 2-and-6-year old love and one bad show they love. We also took this as a chance to reflect on the shows of our youth, the wild origin...

In our first Good One / Bad One segment of the spring, we bring you a relatively thoughtful conversation about David Simon's Plot Against America and then a very, very, very silly one about NBC's new series Council of Dads. 

In today's episode: first, we are joined by a special guest! Our pal Kamille Washington (AKA Kamillio) is tapping in again, this time to liberate Kathryn from the burden of watching Fox's newest absurd reality TV show, Flirty Dancing. In addition to discussing this very dumb and very pure program, Andrew, Margaret, and Kamille design their own Frankenshows out of the discarded parts of reality TV...

This week, for some reason we open the episode by talking about a tweet for ten minutes (though it DOES lead to a fruitful recounting of our past juvenile delinquencies). Then, we return to one of our most reliable content mines, digging up good ones and bad ones from the spring 2020 TV calendar to watch and discuss later. SHOW NOTES: The tweet: https://twitter.com/LisaMMcGee/status/12377851836314...

For this episode we're joined by our lovely friend Kamille Washington to discuss the final season of Bojack Horseman, a show that even animation-phobic Kathryn has to admit is pretttttttty good. First, though, Kamille and Andrew kindly offer Kathryn a place to briefly and enthusiastically yell about Babylon Berlin. 

Margaret choosing blindness while watching Love is Blind In today's episode, we talk, of course, about Netflix's terrible, wonderful new reality TV show  Love Is Blind  because Margaret's brainworms demanded it, and Andrew indulgently complied. THEN, we move on to discuss the unusual-- and excellent-- standalone episode of Apple TV+'s new video game development sitcom, Mythic Quest: Raven's Banque...

This week's episode is our recent live show crossover event with Overdue at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio. The Appointment Television and Overdue crews gather together to discuss the recent TV adaptation and compare it to the book from which it (and the film, and the ill-starred musical) sprung. Whether we figure out the relative superiority of books or TV as competing artistic formats is left u...

In a truly impressive and unusual turn of events, Margaret does a startling amount of homework to bring us a glimpse at some of the most interesting queer TV out there right now. Sadly she insists on calling this the "queer TV qorner" even though "qorner" is an objectively unlovely word to look at. We give particular focus to Showtime's Work In Progress, which is new and especially great.