Appointment Television

This week we revisit CBS's Evil, the Good One/Bad One entrant that has burrowed into our brains this year. Then, continuing down the CBS All Access rabbit hole, we talk about the first episode of Picard and how it will and won't please fans of  The Next Generation . SHOW NOTES: Evil:  https://www.cbs.com/shows/evil/ Picard:  https://www.cbs.com/shows/star-trek-picard/

THIS WEEK, we have some special treats for you! First, as our improbably long bumper will inform you, we have a live show in Ohio coming up on Thursday, February 20th! Andrew, Kathryn, Margaret, and Andrew's other podcasting family Craig Getting (with whom he makes the exceptionally popular book podcast for teens, Overdue ) are going back to the college that made us (summoned, perhaps, by a callin...

This week, the first order of business is a rundown of shows ending in 2020, and a plea to any listener who actually knows what's happening on Supernatural to please tell us about it. (Very briefly).    Then, inspired by shows like Watchmen, Succession and with a gimlet eye cast toward The Witcher, we talk about weekly release schedules in the time of the Netflix binge. Weekly releases: we like th...

Andrew's baby started throwing up on him mere minutes before we were supposed to record so we present to you: Margaret and Kathryn's BONNET WATCH. It's about period shows where people wear bonnets. Certainly, this makes it easier to appreciate what Andrew adds to or subtracts from the podcast. SHOW NOTES: Sanditon: https://www.vulture.com/2020/01/sanditon-review-jane-austen-pbs-masterpiece.html Th...

This week, we bring our discussion of Lodge 49's first season to a close, talking over episodes 7, 8, 9 and the complete and utter collapse of capitalist structures they represent. In the process we also touch upon: Bruce Campbell's most famous film role (his cameo at the beginning of the movie Congo, of course), the two types of people you find in corporate training seminars, the questionable eff...

A first for the ol' ATV crew this week! We chat briefly about Dickinson, which is far away the weirdest, funniest, strangest, best thing you can watch on Apple TV+. And then we're joined by its creator Alena Smith, a TV veteran who talked to us about the show's juxtaposition of period setting with modern vernacular, the experience of making a show for Apple, and about the big Dickinson-Cats crosso...

Happy 2020, everyone! We're taking a week off, but just in case your resolution involved listening to more of us, we've dug up a classic episode from our archive! In episode 90, our first listener Q&A, we A some of your most pressing Qs (from 2017). Most of these answers are probably still applicable! Most of them.

It's a Boxing Day miracle! As we do every year, we revisit the kingdom of Aldovia (now with much more about its history and geography revealed) to spend time fixing the simple and improbably Christmas-oriented problems of its royal family. This year, Aldovia needs to ratify a treaty with a neighboring fictional kingdom to avert war, and Queen Amber gives birth to a bouncing baby four-month-old. SH...

Because we received some feedback on our Perfect Harmony segment, we dedicate the first part of this episode to discussing exactly what we mean when we say "bad one," and also we chat about Margaret's southern accent. (We do not celebrate Margaret's southern accent as anything other than "very entertaining to listen to.")   Next, it's Lodge 49 book club! This week: crushing debt,  anxiety about th...

These WILL make sense in context. This week, you get exactly what's on the tin as we, first among our kind in this novel approach!!, mark the decade's end by reflecting on the decade's #content. Which means: We talk a lot about the challenges of novelty New Year's Eve sunglass design in the 2010s We talk about how TV technology has changed with time! Andrew shares helpful charts and infographics a...

We return to The Mandalorian, because when we first discussed it, none of us knew about the great gift of Baby Yoda. The problem with this discussion is that Kathryn is the one who wanted to raise it, and then she leaves to deal with a childcare issue, and neither Andrew nor Margaret have seen The Mandalorian. Nevertheless they persist!   Following that situation, we return to Lodge 49 for a livel...

Hello everyone! To mark Thanksgiving, we your intrepid TV podcast hosts have gathered to discuss our final round of good one/bad one. This week it's Andrew's picks. We start with the good, HBO's Watchmen, and then continue on to the TURKEY (get it!!) of NBC's Pitch Perfect Harmony. No pauses indicating our inability to remember that show's actual title have been edited out. Come, join us, and find...

We come to you with some fall TV updates, which you should probably note are less updates than they are "things we were thinking two weeks ago and it turns out we'd probably have different things to say about them if we recorded it last night but we didn't!" The reason this segment is still coming to you is so you can hear Kathryn have an absolute meltdown over the word midichlorian.  Then, it's t...

A fun thing you might not know about our *process*  is that, as we record the episodes, we're supposed to pop notes into a thread in our Slack that contain, say, links to articles we mention in the podcast or notes about audio issues like "For some reason in the last two minutes of the podcast, Kathryn's mic cuts out almost entirely and like you can do your best to fix it, but there's really no wa...

Hooray for good TV shows! Booo for bad TV shows! This week we're talking about FOX's Almost Family and CBS's Evil - see if you can guess which is the good one and which is the bad one! Hint: the bad one involves a show making light of medical sexual assault.  

In this episode, we discuss many topics such as: how are Mystery-flavor Dum Dums made? Is it possible to misuse the word "jawn"? And which pop songs does Andrew think could most easily be transmuted into Jesus-y praise ballads? But ABOVE ALL, we dedicate ourselves to naming, as has been our ritual for lo, so many Fall TV Seasons, which shows, both good and bad, we are going to be making each other...

Have you heard of this HBO show Succession? No? Then you probably are not following Kathryn on twitter, where she has been yelling about it for months. Months! Recently Andrew has joined her in this obsession, and we also invited our friend Christina to come jump on the Succession celebration train. Plus: have you heard of Disney+? They are gonna have a lot of stuff on that platform!

If you think an episode that would cause Margaret to assert "I think we're more Appointment Friendship than Appointment TV" sounds like a good time then BOY is this week's show for you! Covered herein: The struggles of parenting and creating podcasts simultaneously! What this season of The Great British Bake-Off has to do with the sitcom What We Do In The Shadows! What on earth is going on with Ap...

This week we talk about the delights and dangers of music on TV - the cost of it, the value of it, and how completely disastrous it is if a show uses the wrong music cue and it destroys a scene forever. We're joined by Sophie Brookover and also the glorious return of our beloved and much-missed Andrew!! 

One last push and we, our podcast, will have finally birthed a full set of Deadwood-centric paternity leave episodes. In this final episode of Andrew's paternity leave we discuss episodes 9-12 of Deadwood, S2 but also: Why it was funny when we called Andrew's then unborn child Axl How many times we have to say something in Slack before it becomes funny even if there's little to no humor inherent t...

Our paternity leave episodes have almost ended! This week we're talking about episodes 7-9 of Deadwood season two, next week we'll be discussing the end of the season, and then it's back to regularly scheduled fall programming. This week, we consider: telegraphs, horses, thoroughfares, and Cosmo-style quizzes about whether you're a Farnum or a Swearengen. 

This week on the podcast, we're joined by an extra ( hot great ) special guest: Tara Ariano , the founder of Television Without Pity (may it rest forever in peace), editor-at-large of Primetimer , podcaster extraordinaire, and personal joint hero of Margaret and Kathryn. We are, in fact, so excited to praise Tara for her many accomplishments that we barely remember to say her name! In addition to...

Shift yourselves, wains, it's time to talk about Derry Girls! This week we're joined by culture maven Sophie Brookover to talk about this wee Irish sitcom that we love very much. Topics include: Bono, narrative structure, peace walls, teen girl tropes, why Sister Michael became a nun, and several incredibly persuasive book recommendations. 

And our Paternity Leave Project continues with a discussion of episodes 4, 5, and 6 of Deadwood S2. Learn: Kathryn's favorite Deadwood episode title! Joanie's inability to pick a good business partner! Our delight in the nuance with which Deadwood depicts historical prejudice! And ever so much more! Next week we'll be digging into episodes 7, 8, and 9.   As previously noted, while Andrew's dadhood...

It's a special edition of TV book club for Andrew's paternity leave! Welcome to Dadwood, our journey through Deadwood season two. This week we're discussing the first three episodes of the season, which Kathryn is aghast to realize means that there is no resolution yet to Al's kidney stones. Hang on to your gleets!