Paid Programming: An Introduction to Episodic Medium

Why I'm moving my week-to-week television criticism to Substack

When I started my blog Cultural Learnings in 2007, I wrote about television because it was something I was passionate about, yes, but I also wrote about television because it was something that had such a clear, legible discourse online. When ABC’s Lost returned from a controversial mid-season hiatus to continue its third season fifteen years ago this month with “Not In Portland,” I wasn’t confused about how to write about it: through sites like Television Without Pity and the blogs of critics like Alan Sepinwall and Maureen Ryan, I knew that the internet was interested in a somewhat pithily written recap of events of each episode combined with some level of critical analysis.

My first true “episodic review,” which was mostly just my running commentary on the episode posted immediately because Canada was airing episodes hours earlier and it was great for SEO. Simpler times!

What I didn’t know at the time is that it was the start of fifteen years of writing episodic television criticism, first at Cultural Learnings and then beginning in 2010 at The A.V. Club, which emerged with its “TV Club” section in the late 2000s as the epicenter of episode-by-episode breakdowns of so many of TV’s best shows. Over the course of my time with The A.V. Club, I joined a murderer’s row of freelance contributors and staffers, and had the opportunity to cover shows like The Office, Scrubs (Classic), Awkward., Elementary, Strike Back, Orange Is The New Black, Lost (Classic), Game Of Thrones, Shameless, and most recently Survivor, His Dark Materials, and Ted Lasso.

Covering shows for The A.V. Club was a truly life-changing experience, in part because I was never—okay, rarely—asked to change how I wrote about television. As first a media studies grad student and now as a media studies professor, my style of television criticism has always leaned to the academic side, expanding out to big picture questions about television’s cultural impact and its textual and industrial evolution. This approach wasn’t for everyone: the writers of The Office certainly didn’t care for it, but others behind-the-scenes in TV appreciated the in depth analysis of shows that might not always get this kind of attention. And as each set of reviews wore on, the readers that remained in the comment section were typically on the same wavelength, creating discourse that I was gratified to see enriching people’s experience of shows they loved, shows they loved to hate¹, and those that sat somewhere in between.

An early exchange in my first A.V. Club review—there’s a comment below that produces an anagram of my name that I cannot repeat here, and which is truly seared into my brain forever whether I like it or not. Track down at your peril.

I have been truly privileged to write about television for The A.V. Club the way I have for the past twelve years, both due to the freedom I was afforded by my editors (Emily St. James, Erik Adams, Danette Chavez) and the fact those active comment sections—yes, even post-Kinja—created the space for conversation that I consider just as vital to the process of episodic criticism as the review itself. I just had an extremely emotional moment submitting my final piece into the CMS this morning, and am frankly not sure what my critical existence looks like without the site and its readers.

But with the forthcoming departure of the site’s Chicago-based editorial staff following the active sabotage of the site by parent company G/O Media, I am choosing to end my time writing for The A.V. Club, and I find myself at a professional crossroads. Sometime in the midst of my tenure as a contributor at The A.V. Club, episodic television criticism has fallen out of style, at least in terms of sites that actively cultivate a community around week-to-week coverage of the medium. Lots of websites are posting recaps of the “show of the moment,” and New York Magazine’s Vulture continues to hold down the fort on covering a huge range of shows at any given time, but none of those sites feel conducive to the kind of community that The A.V. Club generated at its best (and which the current ownership has no respect for, and which I’m not convinced will survive even if I were to stay during this editorial changeover).²

As such, while I could pitch myself to other outlets as a freelance television critic, the truth is that nowhere would be able to provide the type of dialogue with readers that I value so much, and it’s extremely unlikely that any site would—or should, to be honest—give me the freedom to write 3500 word reviews when it’s just necessary to do so. In assessing the landscape of television criticism, I realized the only way I was going to be able to keep doing what I love to do was creating a space to do it myself.

And thus, I welcome you to Episodic Medium, a Substack that will hopefully offer fans of television—and more specifically fans of week-to-week coverage of television—a space to come together and engage with not just my reviews, but also with each other. It will become the new home for my episodic reviews of the shows I was previously covering, and more, and allow me to write the way I want and cultivate a community with engaged readers. And I’m hoping you’ll be willing to pay to subscribe and support me in creating this space.

Here’s how the subscription model for Episodic Medium will work. Free subscribers will have access to the review of the first episode of a show I’m covering, giving you a taste of my relationship to a series, the style of my reviews, and the kind of conversation happening between subscribers. Additionally, free subscribers will have access to a weekly newsletter featuring brief reactions to things I’ve watched, links I’m interested in sharing, and highlighted emails/comments from the discussion of the shows I’m covering. I also expect that if I have more big-picture thoughts about a particular series, or a larger trend in television, that I will publish that here if it seems like it isn’t a fit for other outlets I’ve written for.

However, every subsequent review of a given series will only be available to paid subscribers. Paid subscribers will also have the ability to comment on posts, along with access to weekly Community Discussions where they can discuss shows I’m not covering. As Episodic Medium evolves, additional paid subscriber-exclusive content may emerge, but the primary focus is on the weekly reviews and the community around them.

Admittedly, I am deeply conflicted about taking something that has historically been available for free and putting any part of it behind a paywall.³ I wrote episodic television criticism “for free” at my blog for a decade, even after I started being paid to do it for The A.V. Club, and so much of the critical culture of television was born on message boards and blogs with no barrier to entry. But as communities like The A.V. Club are fading, and given the conversations I’ve had with readers in comment sections and on Twitter over the past few years, I believe there’s room for a curated, moderated critical space for a certain kind of television viewer. And as uncomfortable as it makes me, I am asserting that my experience and expertise in fifteen years of writing episodic criticism and spending more time in comment sections than any critic in their right mind should make my labor worth your hard-earned money.

However, I also know that whether episodic criticism is worth something to you depends on which shows are being covered. My primary commitment to Episodic Medium is that I will be focusing on doing what I’ve been doing at The A.V. Club for all these years: writing in-depth reviews of individual episodes of television, typically ranging between 1500-2500 words. In terms of which shows I will be covering, I can guarantee I will be continuing weekly coverage of the three ongoing series that I was writing about for The A.V. Club:

• The 43rd and 44th seasons of CBS’ Survivor (beginning May 9)

• The third and potentially final season of Apple TV+’s Ted Lasso

• The third and final season of BBC/HBO’s His Dark Materials

Additionally, as I hoped to be writing about it for The A.V. Club, I will also be covering HBO’s Game of Thrones spinoff House of the Dragon when it debuts later this year. And in the interest of getting things started before Survivor returns in two weeks, I’ll be picking up weekly coverage of Apple TV+’s new series Severance starting today, with my review of the first episode free for everyone today, and reviews of episodes two and three to follow for paid subscribers over the weekend.

Adam Scott in Severance, the first show I’ll be covering for Episodic Medium. Photo: Apple TV+

Beyond that, my goal is to be writing about at least one show at any given time, although that presents challenges. There are a number of new and returning series that I am hoping to write about, but I have to be honest and say that my coverage plans will depend on scheduling. Television criticism is still not my primary job—accordingly, if two or three of these shows were to overlap during a semester, my ability to do them justice in an episodic format would be questionable.

As a result, it’s possible some of the shows below might not make the cut; it’s also possible new shows will debut and demand closer attention. In the end, one of the benefits of not being tied to a publication is the ability to be as flexible as television criticism sometimes demands, and this list reflects that. However, I nonetheless offer this tentative list as a sense of the types of shows I’m interested in covering, and which I hope line up well in the coming year.

• For All Mankind (Apple TV+, TBD Spring 2022)

• Obi-Wan Kenobi (Disney+, May 2022)

• Russian Doll (Netflix, TBD Spring 2022)

• Ms. Marvel and/or She-Hulk (Disney+, TBD 2022)

• The Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power (Prime Video, September 2022)

• The Other Two (HBO Max, TBD Fall 2022)

• Only Murders in the Building (Hulu, TBD Fall 2022)

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There are three options for subscriptions to Episodic Medium. The first, obviously, is the free subscription: this gets you the first reviews of each show I’m covering, weekly newsletters, plus any other free content, and keeps you up to date on what I’m reviewing and whether you might be interested in jumping in.

The other two options are for accessing those reviews and becoming part of the Episodic Medium community. The first is a monthly subscription: for $5 per month, you can support my reviews of a particular 10-12 episode show for roughly $15, and then cancel your subscription if you decide that you’re not interested in the shows I will be reviewing in future months. Such memberships will miss out on the full benefits of community-building, but I completely respect that the value of a membership will be lessened if there is minimal overlap in the shows you watch and the shows I’m covering. If someone chooses to subscribe long enough to read my reviews of House of the Dragon and then bails because they’re not interested in His Dark Materials, that’s completely understandable.

The second is an annual subscription, which allows you access to all reviews for a full year at a discounted rate of $50 per year. Honestly, looking at that number makes me feel like it’s way too much, but if I end up writing more than 50 reviews this year (which I consider likely), less than $1 per review plus the benefits of being part of the community is something that I’d personally be willing to invest in. And thus, after much self-reflection, I’ve decided I’m comfortable asking you to do the same.

I can’t say for certain exactly what the road ahead looks like, or how many people will be willing to invest in this. However, my goal here is to keep doing what I love in a way that is financially sustainable, effectively hoping to achieve an equivalent to the freelance income I could earn for this level of productivity. If the community grows well beyond that goal, however, I would not just plan on pocketing the difference. In the off chance that occurs, I would look to add freelance contributors to cover shows I’m not watching, and to grow the community further. That’s getting very far ahead of ourselves, but consider it a “stretch goal” just in case.

But regardless of where Episodic Medium takes me—and us—over the next year, I’m grateful to be able to keep engaging with television in the way I feel is most vital and exciting. This type of criticism might be going out of style, and these types of communities might be moving away from that criticism, but it has defined my relationship with so many of my favorite shows, and being able to share that is an immense privilege.

It will be even more so if you’re willing to come along for the ride.

1. Shoutout to the Gallavich fans.

2. And yes, I am aware the fact I’ve spent the last 5+ years trolling Vulture’s Twitter account is not immaterial here. Shoutout to my very patient friends at Vulture.

3. Substack knew this, and the process of setting up a paid account has multiple sections where it basically scolds you for undervaluing your labor. How did they know?!