Episodic Medium is a Substack dedicated to week-to-week, episodic television criticism edited by me, Myles McNutt, building on my experience as a contributor for The A.V. Club and the author of my own blog, Cultural Learnings. It is designed as a space for close analysis of television, as well as engaged dialogue and conversation about that television among subscribers. It offers paid subscribers full access to weekly reviews of their favorite shows by myself and a staff of contributors, many of whom were colleagues at The A.V. Club in the 2010s. We write for a community of 1000+ engaged viewers, along with a (mostly) weekly newsletter for all subscribers.
I started Episodic Medium after The A.V. Club’s management were forced out by their venture capital overlords. I was no longer comfortable writing for the site under the circumstances, but I knew I wanted to keep writing about television on a weekly basis. But when I looked at the market for episodic television criticism, I saw strikingly few sites committed to a wide range of reviews, and none of them had the kind of robust comment sections that I had found so enriching at The A.V. Club.
A newsletter presented as an opportunity to create a community around my own criticism, with the hope that paid subscriptions could begin as a way to support my labor and grow into a way to support the labor of past A.V. Club colleagues who were similarly displaced, and well as new writers. Within six months, that dream had become a reality, and our first year saw paid subscribers receive 250 weekly reviews, written by ten different contributors.
Our second year saw even more reviews, and additional contributors, and our subscribers have become a real community. And as The A.V. Club has come under new ownership as this community enters its third year, it became clear that what we’ve built isn’t just a replacement for that website—Episodic Medium is a worthy addition to the critical conversation around television that can support growth in a contracting industry with subscriber support.
Myles McNutt—that’s me—is an Associate Professor of Media Studies at Old Dominion University, and the author of Game of Thrones: A Complete Guide to Westeros and Beyond. In addition to weekly reviews at The A.V. Club, my work has also appeared at Slate, Polygon, and The Washington Post.
Shows covered: Lost (Classic), The Bear, The Regime, The Other Two, Clone High, Ted Lasso, Party Down, Shrinking, His Dark Materials, House of the Dragon, She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, Only Murders in the Building, For All Mankind, Ms. Marvel, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Survivor, Heartstopper, Severance
Donna Bowman is Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies at the University of Central Arkansas, and one of the originating members of The A.V. Club’s TV Club, covering a wide range of shows highlighted by her coverage of Breaking Bad and its prequel, Better Call Saul.
Shows covered: Better Call Saul, The Good Fight, The Righteous Gemstones, The Gilded Age
Zack Handlen is not a professor, but he is instead an author and critic, whose work includes Monsters of the Week: The Complete Critical Companion to The X-Files alongside Emily St. James. In addition being one of the early contributors to The A.V. Club’s television coverage, including Classic reviews of Star Trek series, he also covers several shows on his Patreon, Zack Handlen Writes.
Shows covered: Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, The Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power, Rick and Morty, The Last of Us, Barry, Shogun, Star Trek: Discovery
Noel Murray is a freelance critic, covering a range of television and other media across outlets including The Los Angeles Times and The New York Times, in addition to being a founding member of both The A.V. Club’s TV Club—covering shows like Lost, which we collaborated on for coverage of its third season—and The Dissolve.
Shows covered: What We Do In The Shadows, Fargo, Feud
Josh Spiegel is a freelance writer and editor you may know from his recent work at /Film, where he has reviewed a wide range of films and TV shows, covering series like Barry and Only Murders in the Building on a weekly basis. You might also know him from a ceaseless collection of Disney-related Twitter brackets designed to drive me, Myles, insane on a daily basis.
Shows covered: Andor, Poker Face, The Mandalorian, Ahsoka, Masters of the Air, The Sympathizer
LaToya Ferguson is a writer based in Los Angeles, and was a long-time contributor to The A.V. Club, covering shows like Lucifer and Brooklyn Nine-Nine, and is also a connoisseur of Procedurals That Fuck. You can also hear her as the co-host of the Angel on Top and AMPire Diaries podcasts, and she is the author of An Encyclopedia of Women’s Wrestling.
Shows covered: Abbott Elementary, Justified: City Primeval, The O.C. (Classic)
Ben Rosenstock is a freelance writer based in New York City, where he writes about television for a wide range of outlets, including covering shows like Barry, Mythic Quest, and most recently Cobra Kai and Midnight Club for Vulture. Go follow him on Twitter so he’s pressured to share our sickness and tweet more often.
Shows covered: Silo, The White Lotus, Yellowjackets, The Idol, The Curse, Curb Your Enthusiasm
Lisa Weidenfeld is a writer and editor based in Cambridge. You may previously have seen her contributing to The AV Club's TV Club on shows including Orphan Black, The Magicians, and Killing Eve, or as an essayist at Boston magazine, where she also secretly moonlights as a freelance crossword puzzle editor. She's a champion Twitter lurker and devoted Rilo Kiley enthusiast.
Shows covered: Mythic Quest, Schmigadoon, The Afterparty, Hacks
Dennis Perkins is our second freelance writer from Maine, and you may know him best for his weekly coverage of Saturday Night Live, which post-A.V. Club found a home at Paste Magazine. His work has also appeared at Entertainment Weekly and Primetimer, and his cat Cooper doesn’t warm up to strangers but I didn’t take it personally.
Shows covered: It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia, Enlightened (Classic)
Les Chappell plied his craft at The A.V. Club writing about shows like Bojack Horseman, Silicon Valley, and Grimm. He is an alumni of the Daily Cardinal, and lives in Portland, Oregon with his majestic cat Magnus.
Shows covered: Our Flag Means Death, Fallout
Caroline Siede is the author of the newsletter Girl Culture and a freelance writer based in Chicago, and may be best-known by A.V. Club readers for her When Romance Met Comedy feature. She also held a number of important TV beats, which she’s been graciously continuing here at Episodic Medium.
Shows covered: MCU, Doctor Who
Alex McLevy was The A.V. Club’s music editor, but dabbled in television criticism during this time with the site, and since going freelance has continued writing from his home in Chicago.
Shows covered: A Murder at the End of the World, True Detective, The Boys
William Goodman is a Washington, DC-based writer who hasn't met a cardigan or jacket he didn’t love, and if he’s not on Twitter (@goodmanw) he’s probably at the movies or on a run.
Shows covered: Industry
Liam Mathews is the author of Dad Shows, a Substack about TV with a particular demographic skew. He was previously a writer and editor at TV Guide, and his work can also be seen at TheWrap, Paste, Gold Derby, and many other publications.
Shows covered: Bad Monkey
Erik Adams joined the ranks of A.V. Club contributors here at Episodic Medium, with the added bonus of having once edited much of our work for the site. He’s since become Entertainment Reviews Editor for IGN, having apparently dealt with too many “I’m the Editor Now” Captain Phillips GIFs, which, fair.
Shows covered: Succession
In order to support this criticism, Episodic Medium operates on a paid subscription model. For $5 a month, or $50 a year, you receive the following:
Access to all weekly reviews, which averages 20+ per month
Weekly(-ish) Discussion Posts
Commenting privileges across those reviews and all other content
Thread posting privileges in the Substack Chat
Access to all free content
Free subscribers get access to my Week-to-Week newsletter, covering a range of topics tied to television and media, in addition to receiving access to the first review of each series we cover here at Episodic Medium.
Your paid subscriptions give us the opportunity to expand our coverage, both in terms of covering a wider range of shows and introducing more new contributors in the months ahead.
I fully understand that asking you to pay for something you’ve historically received for free can be a challenge, and you might question whether there is enough value for your money in subscribing. As such, here are some testimonials from existing subscribers about what they value about the Episodic Medium community.
“Episodic Medium lets me re-engage with smart critics interrogating smart TV. I've gained deeper understanding of the shows I watch, as well as greater appreciation for what they're doing that would otherwise be lost on me.”
“I've missed the week to week experience of watching something then having a nice discussion about it so it's nice to have that back. Comments are really top quality and I like the engagement that you and the other authors give replying to comments.”
“I'm very much the type to go deep pop culture analysis and reading the thoughts of others, be they professional reviewers or the type of person willing to pay a fee for reading/commenting privileges—not to sound elitist, but I'm sure that putting commenting behind the paywall has kept the level of discourse higher than it might be in other parts of the internet.”
“I feel like commenting here is safe unlike Twitter or even many websites. I think because people pay, they want it to be a great experience.”
“Donna's reviews add a whole other layer to watching Better Call Saul. I don't feel like I've fully processed an episode until I've read her rich and thoughtful reviews, as well as other's thoughts and interpretations. It makes for such a communal experience to all ruminate together about this phenomenal creation!”
“Knowing you're amongst like-minded folks makes the thought of commenting less terrifying.”
“I do appreciate how you (and some of the other writers like Donna) have come into the comments. Definitely feels less top down than some other sites.”
“I do enjoy the community at episodic medium and anticipate their comments as much as the actual reviews. That you have created a community where people can gather and say smart things about television, or anything really, without harassment must be applauded.”
“I've missed the week to week experience of watching something then having a nice discussion about it so it's nice to have that back. Comments are really top quality and I like the engagement that you and the other authors give replying to comments.”
“Reading the comments the morning after my favorite shows air an episode is a cherished ritual that I am very happy to be able to do again.”
There was one consistent trend across this feedback that I want to highlight.
“It takes me back to the glory days of AV Club, where the analyses are thoughtful and insightful, and the commenters are all regulars who add to that insight.”
And when I asked subscribers how they would describe Episodic Medium to a friend, the responses told a similar story.
"The Dream Of Early-2010's A.V. club is alive in your inbox"
“Remember the AV Club? Well it's back! In Substack form!”
“Like a smaller version of the best days of AV Club episodic reviews, except everyone paid 5 bucks to be there so there aren't any trolls.”
“Did you like the good old days of the AV Club? Then you'll like Episodic Medium.”
“Remember the AV Club?”
“AV Club how it used to be/should be”
Needless to say, given that my goal in starting this Substack was to recapture the energy behind the work I had done for The A.V. Club, it is gratifying to learn that people are finding that the Episodic Medium community is capturing the essence of what once was.
I understand that your interest in Episodic Medium’s coverage will depend on whether you are watching the shows we are writing about at any given time—while we are aspiring to write about the shows people are talking about, at this point that is still limited, and so it’s important to me that you have a sense of what we’re covering at any given time, and what we intend to cover in the future.
The following is Episodic Medium’s schedule for Winter 2024.
The future of Episodic Medium is very much in the hands of its subscribers—the more subscribers we get, the more we will be able to expand coverage. I will be able to bring in more contributors, and continue to pay those contributors what they’re worth, and together we will be that much more invested and committed in building a community like the one we enjoyed in the past.
Thanks for taking the time to read about what we’re aiming to achieve, and I’ll be honored if you can join us in either a paid or free capacity.
Myles McNutt
Editor, Episodic Medium
