9 Comments

Hi Myles! I've been following your work in the AVClub and your campaigning for full cups on Twitter for years and was extremely sad to see you go (understandable as it is!). I've been watching Shameless on-and-off over the past year and following your archive of reviews (Season 9 is next, and I don't hate the show yet!) and enjoyed your coverage of Elementary (I should some time finish that show too...), Game of Thrones and a lot more.

I have no idea if subscribing to you long term will be financially viable for me (probably not), but the enjoyment that I've gotten from your content for years make it so that I have to at least give it a try. I don't think I'm watching anything you're reviewing right now, but if that doesn't give me an excuse to try some new shows and get engaged again in weekly commenting (from which I've fallen off over the past few years), I don't know what would :)

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Xavier, that's all I could ask for—thanks for your support, and truly never feel as though an unsubscribe registers as disrespect under the circumstances.

Also, full disclosure: I never finished Elementary either. Once I wasn't covering it (I stopped when I started teaching full time), it just got lost in the shuffle.

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Well, both of your answers just made my day and probably my week, and my month!

Your Elementary comment made me go back and see that I actually continued the series past when you stopped. I didn't remember that the amazing Genevieve Valentine accompanied me through seasons 4 and 5. Times goes by fast and my memory gets worse every year!

Nothing more else to say, except that I'll be watching Severance throughout the week and trying to make some discussion out of it here. And I should probably get into watching Ted Lasso... (Sigh, there's so much TV nowadays, and here I am, watching Shameless and crying for more Gallavich like a dirty stan).

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Happy to support you here, Myles. I kept reading your Shameless reviews long after I couldn't stand watching the show, and your Survivor reviews in recent seasons have filled a gap I didn't know existed. Can't promise I'll be watching every show you cover, but excited to see what you do here!

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Thanks so much, Scott—I hope for all of our sakes that we never again find ourselves in a situation where my reviews are consumed largely as second-hand schadenfreude, but we sure did go on a journey together. Excited to chat Survivor in the weeks ahead!

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Hi Myles! Looks like I missed the initial launch of this space - I mostly follow TV People on TV Twitter, and Twitter makes me sad. But! I'm delighted to be here, now (always nice to have some reading to catch up on). I very much miss the days of fun engaging comments sections and fan forums (Discord servers/communities scratch some of that itch for me now), so this should be a cool experience. I guess I do have some qualms about Substack as a platform (I followed Emily St. James' newsletter over to Letterdrop), but I'm happy to subscribe here for particular people.

I've been reading your work since maybe S4 of LOST was airing live, over on Cultural Learnings, and very recently had the chance to go back to your AV Club Classic series on the first three seasons during a rewatch (RIP everything I loved about the AV Club). I don't know that I love episode-by-episode recaps anymore, but I do love (and miss) episode-by-episode analysis - and I know that's what you do really well! Boo to what the binge model has done to discourse.

Anyway, I just wanted to say that, back in 2008 or 2009, I didn't know that TV Studies / TV Academia was even a thing; it was through folks like you, Cory Barker, and Jason Mittell that I learned about it and was eventually able to follow some of that path myself. I just finished up a PhD in neuroscience, analyzing news and scripted television about neurodevelopmental disabilities. So. Just a big thanks for being a constant television / pop culture presence online for well over a decade. Looking forward to engaging here :).

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First and foremost, I have so many qualms about Substack as a platform for much the same reasons, and I currently have All Of The Thoughts about the contradictions of Ethical Capitalism that I'm wrestling with. My position on this is that for the purposes of making this sustainable, Substack is and was my best option, but I ultimately (perhaps naively) believe that the nature of my work both here and elsewhere creates a meaningful counterbalance.

And second, thank YOU for being part of that same conversation, and congrats on finishing the PhD. Thrilled you found your way here.

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Finally decided to join the party, I loved reading your recaps of Shameless as I went through them on the treadmill. And we shared out dislike for Frank and Debbie. I still have not watched the final season. But when I break down and do. I will make sure to read your recaps.

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Welcome! I hope those reviews still serve a purpose for you, and encourage you to drop into the Weekly Discussion threads to discuss with me directly when you finally buckle down to see it through to the bitter end.

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