Talking about comic books, TV shows, movies, sports, and the numerous other pastimes that make us Gentlemen of Leisure.

Monday, September 23, 2013

Last Week in TV 2013-2014

 

Today marks the official beginning to the 2013-2014 network TV season (such as that means anything anymore and even though some shows, like Fox's Sleepy Hollow, jumped the gun and premiered last week), which means I'll be returning to weekly TV coverage once again.

However, as has become something of the norm each fall, I'm changing things up once again. Instead of a weekly "Last Week in TV" post, starting this week I'll be doing a "Last Week in Pop Culture" post. This will not only cover current TV shows I've watched in the previous week, but older shows as well (I'm currently watching season one of X-Files and season two of Cheers, as time permits, via Netflix), and also movies I've seen, books and comics I've read, stuff I've bought, etc. Pretty much any bit of pop culture ephemera will be fair game.

The format of each post will be more free form and scattered than even last season's "Last Week in TV" posts - I likely won't write a formal review for every episode of every show I watch every week. Some episodes of some shows may warrant a lengthy diatribe in a given post, others may get just a sentence or two, a funny line quoted or a wry observation. A show I write about one week may not get covered in the next, depending on whether or not a given episode sparked something worth discussing. Some weeks the post will be as long or longer than last season's TV post, and some weeks it may only be a sentence or two, depending on what's on and what other pop culture I'm consuming.

But, I won't be abandoning episodic TV reviews entirely. In addition to continuing to write a standalone post for each episode of Walking Dead and Game of Thrones, I'm adding two more standalone reviews each week: one for How I Met Your Mother (a show entering its final season which promises to be something a little different than we've seen before, a show that I once considered one of my favorites but has become more of a mixed bag lately, a show that is capable of turning in either a great or awful episode in any given week) and another for Saturday Night Live (a show with a long history that makes it interesting to engage with, and is currently entering one of its biggest transitional seasons in decades, which should at least make it fun to write about). These posts will likely be shorter than the average, say, Game of Thrones post, similar to the lengths at which I wrote about them as part of the larger "Last Week in TV" posts last season.

And, for those of you who enjoy my retro looks at classic Simpsons episodes (I'm pretty sure there's at least a few of you out there...), I'm hoping to continue those throughout the regular TV season, though they'll be more scattershot in appearance, likely showing up when one show or another is in reruns/hiatus.

The goal here is to ultimately provide more content covering more topics for your consumption and our discussion, in a format that makes me feel less slaved to the week-to-week grind of the TV schedule but still engaging critically with the work, in the hopes that I won't get quite so burned out on writing about TV as I have in the past. And heck, if this doesn't work, I'll probably just change it up again next fall.

So look for "Last Week in Pop Culture" posts to appear each Saturday starting this Saturday, with the SNL and HIMYM posts to appear most often on Mondays and Tuesdays (barring complications preventing me from watching them in a timely manner).

I hope you enjoy them. 

6 comments:

  1. Will you be covering Agents of SHIELD?

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  2. @Matt: If I do, I can tell you I'll be typing it as "SHIELD" and not "S.H.I.E.L.D"...

    In all seriousness, maybe. I'm definitely watching it, and I'll definitely talk about it in the weekly roundup post, but I'm reluctant to give it a stand-alone post just yet.

    Part of that is because it airs on Tuesday nights, which is my poker night, which means I won't watch it until Wednesday at the earliest, which means I wouldn't post about it until Thursday at the earliest.

    And part of it is that I just don't know what to expect from it yet. If it's too episodic, it becomes difficult to write about, as it also does if it's either too good or too average.

    But if, after watching the first episode or two, I feel like there's enough there to write about each week, and I'm enjoying it enough, I might break it out into its own series of posts.

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  3. Got it. Makes sense to me. I doubt I'm going to be watching it on Tuesdays either, as my brother and I would like to schedule an evening to watch it together with our ladies during the week. But then, I rarely watch anything the night it airs these days.

    They showed the pilot during their panel at Comic-Con, and I enjoyed it, though initially it does seem a little self-contained (outside of some nods to the movies which begat it). I was thinking about writing a little post about it for my blog next weekend, once I've seen it again with the ability to actually make out the dialogue. Large auditoriums, poor sound systems, and legions of cheering fans do not make for an optimal viewing experience if you're trying to actually hear what the characters are saying!

    But I doubt I'll write about it regularly either.

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  4. I'm excited for these posts, as I am every year. Especially, too, since there will be new shows in the mix (I think we had reached a point last year where were weren't watching any of the same TV anymore outside of the big shows).

    Did you give Brooklyn 99 or Dads a shot?

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  5. I'm looking forward to it. Good luck!

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  6. @Sarah: Did you give Brooklyn 99 or Dads a shot?

    Brooklyn Nine-Nine yes, which I mostly enjoyed, Dads no. I heard it was awful, terribly racist and misogynistic without the filter of animation to soften the blow, and that the studio audience was beyond annoying.

    @Blam: I'm looking forward to it. Good luck!

    Thanks!

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