Me will say this about decade-long collapse of AV Club, site me obviously had close relationship with on multiple levels. Me generally not creature of nostalgia. Me like moving forward. Onto next idea, next creative spark, next freshly-baked batch of cookies.
AVC was important to all of us for long time, and it okay that that time has passed. Everything does eventually. But that happen so that we can welcome in new, and me think Episodic/Defector writer-owned site model could potentially give us something better than AVC ever did, if it mean talented, thoughtful people can write about pop culture for devoted audience without worrying about corporate suits screwing everything up.
And me not can think of better metaphor for situation than television itself. Simply reviving thing we loved from past almost never work (X-Files reboot). Staying attached to think we love long after its prime also not work (Dogget/Reyes seasons of X-Files). Thing that work is to have new idea, that takes things we loved about older thing and make it new again (first three seasons of Fringe).
So that what we have here. AV Club is still alive in far more meaningful way on this site — and Reveal and probably other things me not know about — than it will be on actual audio video club dot com, regardless of what kind of steward Paste turn out to be for that site. Real AV Club was inside of us all along! In fact, you might say we ate AV Club, and it in our stomachs right now! No, wait, that was box of Thin Mints.
I just wanted to leave a reply on this one Cookie, because I am compelled to every time that someone mentions those last two post-Duchovny seasons of the OG X-Files: I actually genuinely loved season 8 and thought it was a great return to form for the show after it took that sharp comedic bent in seasons 6 - 7. Scully and Doggett were a great pairing, and forcing her into the "believer" role after all the years of weird shit that she'd seen was really, really fun character development. (I still remember one episode early in season 8 where the local cops are mocking her weird theories and she's so defensive and insists "I am just a SCIENTIST who has seen A LOT")
None of it would have worked without Robert Patrick; he had the gravitas and the chops to hang with Gillian Anderson. But yeah, come season 9 and the attempt to shoehorn in Reyes as a regular, it all fell apart. No offense to Annabeth Gish but she just did not have the same "main character" magnetism as Anderson did from her first scene.
Would LOVE episodic classic reviews of Lost! I just happened to rewatches recently, but would understand if its not feasible to cover again here.
I do really miss the AVC days, and have been searching for a replacement for ages, originally using reddit as a substitue. This substack has been much better for that! Love reading the reviews here. It would be great if even more subscribers participating in the comments, but wouldnt know how to make that happen, and Im sure its a challenge.
Lost is due for a retrospective writ large. Really curious to see how it plays so many years later.
For the record I'm rewatching Battlestar and its astonishing how well its aged. I had forgotten its like a perfect blend of episodic and serialized storytelling!
I will be there for a number of shows you listed: Discovery, Hacks, House of the Dragon, and Star Wars: Acolyte. Maybe The Sympathizer (I read the book). I agree with you on community. As much as I enjoy the recaps I like being able to drop a comment and reply to others. It’s more intimate and people are nice! I am definitely looking for conversations but that’s just hard to do on social media.
I like the idea of doing a two-part "bookend" coverage of binge drop shows that seem worth discussing. It's a bummer that shows like 3 Body Problem and Fallout and others that would really benefit from week-to-week releases are still being dumped on us all at once, but it shouldn't mean we don't talk about them at all. I think doing a post on the first half of the season one week, and the second half of the season the next week, at least gives people a bit of time to follow along and catch up.
I know you half-apologized for not being able to cover everything out there, but for me at least, the next few months are LOADED with all the shows I'm looking forward to most. Special props to Zack for falling on that photon grenade one last time.
On a more personal note, I can join so many others in noting the AV Club's importance in my life. I liked plenty of TV and movies over the years, but I never thought about it that deeply until I got WRECKED by a buddy discussing The Last Jedi. I decided that would not happen to me again, so I dove into Film Crit Hulk and the AV Club - even old shows I had finished a decade before - to understand the art and science of filmmaking. It's probably debatable how successful I was, and I don't NEED the AV Club to exist. I'm just glad all the brilliant writers and thinkers from that site have a place to inspire the next generation to think about the visual arts a little more deeply.
That's also true of the community you spoke of. I've finally trained myself to read the comments on this site because they are always so thoughtful, articulate, and made in good faith. That particular list of comment sections is a damn short one...
My only concern with this model is how, by nature, it’s closed off from the public. I rewatch old shows occasionally with my kids and I have in the past couple of years revisited the old AV Club reviews for Lost, Fringe, The X-Files/Millenium (I bought Zack and Emily’s book of XF reviews, but as you say the comments are a big part of the value) and probably others that aren’t top of mind. It’s nice to think I’ll have the money to spend on supporting sites like this indefinitely but if not, or for others who never could, this content essentially doesn’t exist.
Which is a long preamble to wondering if you’ve considered opening up access to old reviews after like a year or two.
Substack’s interface is actually really only built to do the opposite, locking down public posts after a certain amount of time. So logistically that would be challenging.
Yeah, while I understand it's better than the alternative which is either nothing or completely enshittified sites run by VC assholes, I really have reservations about substack being the way forward, besides the Nazi issue, it's inherently a "walled garden". I often want to send an article from a substack I subscribe to a friend but I can't because they're paywalled. (I realize there are workarounds for this but I don't always want to deal with them). Yes of course it's good to subscribe but how many substacks can one person subscribe to? I remember during the long ago debate over "net neutrality" there was this argument that if we didn't have it we'd eventually live in a reality where you'd have to pay to use each different website. This seems to be substacks goal! This doesn't apply to Episodic Medium but another thing I don't like about substack is that it encourages people to be more extreme and become pundits instead of journalists. Matt Taibbi and Glenn Greenwald used to be actual journalists believe it or not and worked for respected publications with editors. Now they're just dumb ass conservative pundits for a credulous audience on substack. To me the substackification of journalism is part of the same process that led to the death of good publications like the AV Club
Excited for Boys coverage on here! Also The Bear, naturally. Tentative high hopes for The Acolyte.
"If there’s a person on the internet who’s lamenting what was briefly lost, and frankly what had been lost a long time ago based on the site’s management priorities, I would hope that our subscribers would tell them about what we’re building, because creating space for dialogue with and within our readership is crucial to our mission."
I did this on Bluesky the other day! If only a single person signed up from that I would be happy. [Starship Troopers "I'm doing my part!".gif]
My aunt died unexpectedly on New Years Eve, and on Jan. 8th, I was informed I had to lay off 2/3 of my staff. The year has only gotten considerably worse from there. All that to say, I still read the site and love the community, but have fallen behind on watching our shows within reasonable comment times, if at all, lately. Shogun has been a revelation, Survivor has been extremely weird, and I hope to rejoin the comments sections with sunnier days ahead.
I loved the AVC community so much that I landed a paid gig writing TV recaps and reviews. This was well over a decade ago. Some rich techbro had dreams of a blogspot/social network hybrid and paid decent cash to rapidly create content.
I wrote about 5 articles a week and felt severe burnout. Quit after 4 months. Turns out writing about a show week in and week out and not repeating yourself is really, really difficult! And that was with me covering Mad Men, Boardwalk Empire, and Arrow! Cannot fathom trying to grind out thousands of words on a dud like The Regime.
I think about this all. the. time. The lack of shared reality and connection on the internet as it currently exists is fascinating and tragic. The specific concern around discourse and culture and criticism is particular sad and interesting to me. We're all so siloed with our current dynamic with social media and algorithms, and the collapse of so many sites just fuels that. Honestly, that's a huge part of why I'm here: to support writing that I think is insightful and valuable. The community is nice too!
If y'all didn't see it, Film Crit Hulk (who is amazing, if you aren't familiar with his work) talked about this exact issue the other day:
Regarding the schedule, I'm really glad this site is experimenting with some coverage around binge releases, because I'd like to talk about Fallout and The Bear!
Oh, and capitalism is the worst! I'm so happy to support writers through sites like this, but it's so sad to see capitalism just totally devour places like the AV Club.
Question for this season's coverage of Hacks: will Lisa's reviews cover both weekly episodes simultaneously? Or will they be separated within the review, like for example Alex's review of the premiere and second episode of "Murder at the End of the World": https://episodicmedium.substack.com/p/review-a-murder-at-the-end-of-the
FWIW, I personally like the split format because I can easily foresee some weeks I don't have time to watch back-to-back episodes on a given night.
I'm mostly leaving this up to Lisa—I think in general it will make sense to do it as two separate reviews (Les did something similar with Our Flag Means Death), but I DO think that it's slightly different with a half-hour show. Two episodes of Shogun each being 60 minutes long? That's two nights' viewing. But two half-hour episodes is probably going to be watched together more often.
Thrilled about the coverage for Hacks and The Boys, and that we'll get at least some meaningful coverage of The Bear. Three of my favorite shows, and the former two are sort of under-discussed through a critical lens.
I have to say I super love that you all are doing bookend coverage of Fallout. Thank you so much. I know it's a binge release show and that's not your normal beat but I am excited!
Wow, this is an exciting line-up for the next few months! It's felt a bit slow lately. Sure, we've got Shogun and the 3 Body Problem, but nothing else has really been exciting me to watch lately. But now we've got coming up The Sympathizer, Fallout, Doctor Who, The Acolyte, and House of the Dragon. Hot nerd spring is upon us!
Reading Zack's comments and the discussions adds considerably to my motivation for watching S5 of discovery, which previously rested mainly on "for completeness sake".
Season 4 of Discovery is the best season of the series so far, but that only helps illuminating how lacking it is in writing compared to its sources of inspiration. The other seasons were mostly so bad that you got stuck defining just what exactly made them bad.
Me will say this about decade-long collapse of AV Club, site me obviously had close relationship with on multiple levels. Me generally not creature of nostalgia. Me like moving forward. Onto next idea, next creative spark, next freshly-baked batch of cookies.
AVC was important to all of us for long time, and it okay that that time has passed. Everything does eventually. But that happen so that we can welcome in new, and me think Episodic/Defector writer-owned site model could potentially give us something better than AVC ever did, if it mean talented, thoughtful people can write about pop culture for devoted audience without worrying about corporate suits screwing everything up.
And me not can think of better metaphor for situation than television itself. Simply reviving thing we loved from past almost never work (X-Files reboot). Staying attached to think we love long after its prime also not work (Dogget/Reyes seasons of X-Files). Thing that work is to have new idea, that takes things we loved about older thing and make it new again (first three seasons of Fringe).
So that what we have here. AV Club is still alive in far more meaningful way on this site — and Reveal and probably other things me not know about — than it will be on actual audio video club dot com, regardless of what kind of steward Paste turn out to be for that site. Real AV Club was inside of us all along! In fact, you might say we ate AV Club, and it in our stomachs right now! No, wait, that was box of Thin Mints.
Can we give Cookie Monster a weekly topic to review? Maybe how realistic certain cookies looked in shows/movies of the past week?
For what it worth, me do have TV review experience and am available for freelance work!
https://www.avclub.com/sesame-street-the-cookie-thief-1798183011
I just wanted to leave a reply on this one Cookie, because I am compelled to every time that someone mentions those last two post-Duchovny seasons of the OG X-Files: I actually genuinely loved season 8 and thought it was a great return to form for the show after it took that sharp comedic bent in seasons 6 - 7. Scully and Doggett were a great pairing, and forcing her into the "believer" role after all the years of weird shit that she'd seen was really, really fun character development. (I still remember one episode early in season 8 where the local cops are mocking her weird theories and she's so defensive and insists "I am just a SCIENTIST who has seen A LOT")
None of it would have worked without Robert Patrick; he had the gravitas and the chops to hang with Gillian Anderson. But yeah, come season 9 and the attempt to shoehorn in Reyes as a regular, it all fell apart. No offense to Annabeth Gish but she just did not have the same "main character" magnetism as Anderson did from her first scene.
Would LOVE episodic classic reviews of Lost! I just happened to rewatches recently, but would understand if its not feasible to cover again here.
I do really miss the AVC days, and have been searching for a replacement for ages, originally using reddit as a substitue. This substack has been much better for that! Love reading the reviews here. It would be great if even more subscribers participating in the comments, but wouldnt know how to make that happen, and Im sure its a challenge.
Lost is due for a retrospective writ large. Really curious to see how it plays so many years later.
For the record I'm rewatching Battlestar and its astonishing how well its aged. I had forgotten its like a perfect blend of episodic and serialized storytelling!
I will be there for a number of shows you listed: Discovery, Hacks, House of the Dragon, and Star Wars: Acolyte. Maybe The Sympathizer (I read the book). I agree with you on community. As much as I enjoy the recaps I like being able to drop a comment and reply to others. It’s more intimate and people are nice! I am definitely looking for conversations but that’s just hard to do on social media.
I LOVED The Sympathizer (book) and haven't been this excited for a limited series in quite some time. Hope to see you over in the comments!
I like the idea of doing a two-part "bookend" coverage of binge drop shows that seem worth discussing. It's a bummer that shows like 3 Body Problem and Fallout and others that would really benefit from week-to-week releases are still being dumped on us all at once, but it shouldn't mean we don't talk about them at all. I think doing a post on the first half of the season one week, and the second half of the season the next week, at least gives people a bit of time to follow along and catch up.
I know you half-apologized for not being able to cover everything out there, but for me at least, the next few months are LOADED with all the shows I'm looking forward to most. Special props to Zack for falling on that photon grenade one last time.
On a more personal note, I can join so many others in noting the AV Club's importance in my life. I liked plenty of TV and movies over the years, but I never thought about it that deeply until I got WRECKED by a buddy discussing The Last Jedi. I decided that would not happen to me again, so I dove into Film Crit Hulk and the AV Club - even old shows I had finished a decade before - to understand the art and science of filmmaking. It's probably debatable how successful I was, and I don't NEED the AV Club to exist. I'm just glad all the brilliant writers and thinkers from that site have a place to inspire the next generation to think about the visual arts a little more deeply.
That's also true of the community you spoke of. I've finally trained myself to read the comments on this site because they are always so thoughtful, articulate, and made in good faith. That particular list of comment sections is a damn short one...
My only concern with this model is how, by nature, it’s closed off from the public. I rewatch old shows occasionally with my kids and I have in the past couple of years revisited the old AV Club reviews for Lost, Fringe, The X-Files/Millenium (I bought Zack and Emily’s book of XF reviews, but as you say the comments are a big part of the value) and probably others that aren’t top of mind. It’s nice to think I’ll have the money to spend on supporting sites like this indefinitely but if not, or for others who never could, this content essentially doesn’t exist.
Which is a long preamble to wondering if you’ve considered opening up access to old reviews after like a year or two.
Substack’s interface is actually really only built to do the opposite, locking down public posts after a certain amount of time. So logistically that would be challenging.
Yeah, while I understand it's better than the alternative which is either nothing or completely enshittified sites run by VC assholes, I really have reservations about substack being the way forward, besides the Nazi issue, it's inherently a "walled garden". I often want to send an article from a substack I subscribe to a friend but I can't because they're paywalled. (I realize there are workarounds for this but I don't always want to deal with them). Yes of course it's good to subscribe but how many substacks can one person subscribe to? I remember during the long ago debate over "net neutrality" there was this argument that if we didn't have it we'd eventually live in a reality where you'd have to pay to use each different website. This seems to be substacks goal! This doesn't apply to Episodic Medium but another thing I don't like about substack is that it encourages people to be more extreme and become pundits instead of journalists. Matt Taibbi and Glenn Greenwald used to be actual journalists believe it or not and worked for respected publications with editors. Now they're just dumb ass conservative pundits for a credulous audience on substack. To me the substackification of journalism is part of the same process that led to the death of good publications like the AV Club
Excited for Boys coverage on here! Also The Bear, naturally. Tentative high hopes for The Acolyte.
"If there’s a person on the internet who’s lamenting what was briefly lost, and frankly what had been lost a long time ago based on the site’s management priorities, I would hope that our subscribers would tell them about what we’re building, because creating space for dialogue with and within our readership is crucial to our mission."
I did this on Bluesky the other day! If only a single person signed up from that I would be happy. [Starship Troopers "I'm doing my part!".gif]
A single person is basically how many users Bluesky has in my experience
LMAO
My aunt died unexpectedly on New Years Eve, and on Jan. 8th, I was informed I had to lay off 2/3 of my staff. The year has only gotten considerably worse from there. All that to say, I still read the site and love the community, but have fallen behind on watching our shows within reasonable comment times, if at all, lately. Shogun has been a revelation, Survivor has been extremely weird, and I hope to rejoin the comments sections with sunnier days ahead.
The AV Club is Dead. Long live the AV Club.
I loved the AVC community so much that I landed a paid gig writing TV recaps and reviews. This was well over a decade ago. Some rich techbro had dreams of a blogspot/social network hybrid and paid decent cash to rapidly create content.
I wrote about 5 articles a week and felt severe burnout. Quit after 4 months. Turns out writing about a show week in and week out and not repeating yourself is really, really difficult! And that was with me covering Mad Men, Boardwalk Empire, and Arrow! Cannot fathom trying to grind out thousands of words on a dud like The Regime.
I think about this all. the. time. The lack of shared reality and connection on the internet as it currently exists is fascinating and tragic. The specific concern around discourse and culture and criticism is particular sad and interesting to me. We're all so siloed with our current dynamic with social media and algorithms, and the collapse of so many sites just fuels that. Honestly, that's a huge part of why I'm here: to support writing that I think is insightful and valuable. The community is nice too!
If y'all didn't see it, Film Crit Hulk (who is amazing, if you aren't familiar with his work) talked about this exact issue the other day:
https://www.patreon.com/posts/modern-curation-101445936?utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=postshare_fan&utm_content=join_link
Regarding the schedule, I'm really glad this site is experimenting with some coverage around binge releases, because I'd like to talk about Fallout and The Bear!
Oh, and capitalism is the worst! I'm so happy to support writers through sites like this, but it's so sad to see capitalism just totally devour places like the AV Club.
Question for this season's coverage of Hacks: will Lisa's reviews cover both weekly episodes simultaneously? Or will they be separated within the review, like for example Alex's review of the premiere and second episode of "Murder at the End of the World": https://episodicmedium.substack.com/p/review-a-murder-at-the-end-of-the
FWIW, I personally like the split format because I can easily foresee some weeks I don't have time to watch back-to-back episodes on a given night.
I'm mostly leaving this up to Lisa—I think in general it will make sense to do it as two separate reviews (Les did something similar with Our Flag Means Death), but I DO think that it's slightly different with a half-hour show. Two episodes of Shogun each being 60 minutes long? That's two nights' viewing. But two half-hour episodes is probably going to be watched together more often.
Sure fair point that the episodes or more manageable. Either way, looking forward to the show returning!
I find the Substack format and curated review lineup far superior to the AV Club. Easier for me to read and comment on what I want.
In general I enjoy Substack. I’m happy to pay for what I want and ignore what I don’t. No relentless ads is amazing.
Thrilled about the coverage for Hacks and The Boys, and that we'll get at least some meaningful coverage of The Bear. Three of my favorite shows, and the former two are sort of under-discussed through a critical lens.
I have to say I super love that you all are doing bookend coverage of Fallout. Thank you so much. I know it's a binge release show and that's not your normal beat but I am excited!
Wow, this is an exciting line-up for the next few months! It's felt a bit slow lately. Sure, we've got Shogun and the 3 Body Problem, but nothing else has really been exciting me to watch lately. But now we've got coming up The Sympathizer, Fallout, Doctor Who, The Acolyte, and House of the Dragon. Hot nerd spring is upon us!
Reading Zack's comments and the discussions adds considerably to my motivation for watching S5 of discovery, which previously rested mainly on "for completeness sake".
Season 4 of Discovery is the best season of the series so far, but that only helps illuminating how lacking it is in writing compared to its sources of inspiration. The other seasons were mostly so bad that you got stuck defining just what exactly made them bad.