Monday, February 14, 2011

The Revolution of Writing About TV

I didn't know that there was a revolution in TV writing.  I do know that I have started to follow two TV critics, Alan Sepinwall and Tim Goodman, over the past year--reading their blogs, listening to their podcasts, and following their tweets.  Indeed, having my letters read by Tim and his gang in his podcast provided a thrill or two over the summer.  And now, thanks to Slate, I have learned that Sepinwall was the pathbreaker in this business of TV re-caps.  I don't always agree with Alan and Tim, but often do.  I have been catching up on The Wire and have used Sepinwall's old re-caps to help gain perspective on a pretty complicated show.  I miss stuff, and they help me see the connections.  Plus their podcasts (Alan's is with Dan Feinberg, also of hitfix.com) are usually pretty amusing as well.  Indeed, Tim's, which has been on hiatus while he transitions from his old newspaper gig to the Hollywood Reporter, often had very little TV content unless one counts bad imitations of live and dead TV folks.

I know that there are others who do this re-capping stuff, but if I followed more of them, I would have less time for television, and that would be so wrong.  I have long been a TV addict, and I am glad that I have not just company, but excellent, often snarky company. 

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