Television Without Pity

I've actually really missed TWoP recently, I've been diving back into old Wings and Family Ties dvds and discovered some episodes that I must have missed along the way and there were really interesting episodes that would have caused me to resurrect the threads if they were still there. :(

As a person with a seriously limited cable package who mainly watches old 80's TV shows on DVD to fall asleep, I miss having a place to discuss old, obscure TV shows.

I've recently gotten into Friday Night Lights and thought I'd try TWoP's recaps, but the recaps won't display past the first page. I tried using the Wayback Machine, but it was missing pages of recaps. Disappointing.

Previously.tv really has inherited a bunch of TWoP's bigger idiots. I finally stopped visiting the forums after reading an episode thread of some cooking show in which a contestant complained about not being able to make hummus because the store they were at didn't have tahini, which prompted multiple posters to snottily mention they'd never heard that hummus contained tahini. And they weren't kidding! My favorite was the poster who spent a semester at college opening cans in the cafeteria, and the head lunch lady never had her add tahini to hummus. Because institutional foodservice is the hallmark of authentic Middle Eastern cuisine.

I finally stopped visiting the forums after reading an episode thread of some cooking show in which a contestant complained about not being able to make hummus because the store they were at didn't have tahini, which prompted multiple posters to snottily mention they'd never heard that hummus contained tahini. And they weren't kidding! My favorite was the poster who spent a semester at college opening cans in the cafeteria, and the head lunch lady never had her add tahini to hummus. Because institutional foodservice is the hallmark of authentic Middle Eastern cuisine.

I can't imagine the bland porridge-y mess hummus would taste like without tahini, bleurgh.

Whut? I'm not exactly a chef, but even I know that hummus contains tahini. (I had to find it in the peanut butter aisle, but at least my grocery store carries it!)

I miss TWoP terribly. There, I said it.

Well, now I know why my homemade hummus always sucks. :-/

I've been watching Gilmore Girls on Netflix, having completely missed it the first time around. I'm on season 3 now and just thought to check out the TWoP recaps. I'm a little surprised at how bitter they seem. I feel like I remember hearing about fan angry later in the show's run, but we're not even halfway through yet and the current episodes don't strike me as appreciably different than the earlier ones. Have I just lost discernment or is this a particularly angry set of recaps?

Gilraen wrote:I've been watching Gilmore Girls on Netflix, having completely missed it the first time around. I'm on season 3 now and just thought to check out the TWoP recaps. I'm a little surprised at how bitter they seem. I feel like I remember hearing about fan angry later in the show's run, but we're not even halfway through yet and the current episodes don't strike me as appreciably different than the earlier ones. Have I just lost discernment or is this a particularly angry set of recaps?

By TWOP standards, no. By normal standards, yes.

I guess it had been a long time over which my snark tolerance has recalibrated itself.

I've noticed a lot of familiar names on the Supernatural bb at Previously.tv. Unfortunately, it's all the fanatical Deangirls who have a massive hateration for Sam/Jared Padalecki. I had hoped that the bluebook length screeds about how much Sam sucks were a thing of the past.

Eris Rising wrote:

Gilraen wrote:I've been watching Gilmore Girls on Netflix, having completely missed it the first time around. I'm on season 3 now and just thought to check out the TWoP recaps. I'm a little surprised at how bitter they seem. I feel like I remember hearing about fan angry later in the show's run, but we're not even halfway through yet and the current episodes don't strike me as appreciably different than the earlier ones. Have I just lost discernment or is this a particularly angry set of recaps?

By TWOP standards, no.  By normal standards, yes.

Yeah, right around then was when things were at Peak Snark, essentially tearing down any and every show for the sake of doing that.

Gilraen wrote:I've been watching Gilmore Girls on Netflix, having completely missed it the first time around. I'm on season 3 now and just thought to check out the TWoP recaps. I'm a little surprised at how bitter they seem. I feel like I remember hearing about fan angry later in the show's run, but we're not even halfway through yet and the current episodes don't strike me as appreciably different than the earlier ones. Have I just lost discernment or is this a particularly angry set of recaps?

Wasn't it about the Gilmore Girls recaps that a fan very mildly mentioned how bitter the write-ups were and Pamie went crazy? Like seriously crazy, and a bunch of other reviewers piled on the fan as well? I recall that as the nadir of TWoP reviewer smugness.

Yeah, I think that's around the time I started a love/hate relationship with the site. It's not fun to me if people are making a show of how much they haaa-aaate a show, and can't find anything interesting to say about it.

ActonBell wrote:Yeah, I think that's around the time I started a love/hate relationship with the site. It's not fun to me if people are making a show of how much they haaa-aaate a show, and can't find anything interesting to say about it.

That reminds me of Jacob's American Idol recaps, after he'd been doing them for a couple of seasons. He'd say appalling things about the contestants and judges, and his recaps were so stuffed with nonsensical rambling that I generally couldn't even figure out who had sung what, or who got voted off. Plus he was nasty when he moderated the forums. That all got very old very fast. I was always reminded of Shack, whose Idol recaps were hilarious (Tsathoggua under the stage!) and who gave up the gig after two seasons because he felt like he was getting burned out on the show and soon would not be funny anymore. That happened to Jacob within two seasons as well, only Jacob stuck around and seethed.

I don't think Jacob was a factor in my eventually getting tired of and quitting on Idol, but my discomfort with the main fan community didn't help.

Mind you, the Rock Star Supernova forum and the Flashpoint one were a lot of fun. Maybe the fact there wasn't a recap to write made the assigned moderator less burnt-out on the shows, and more relaxed? (Jacob once guest-moderated the RSS forum when the regular mod was away. It was like having a mean, insecure substitute teacher.)

Yeah, I stopped reading one show's recaps (Ugly Betty, maybe? I don't remember), because all the recapper could say was "I hate this show. It sucks.")

Now that The Newsroom is back, I find I sorely miss TWoP. Those recaps were great and pointed out all that was wrong with the show, especially how it portrays women.

AVClub isn't skimping in that department.

Shadowlass wrote:I've recently gotten into Friday Night Lights and thought I'd try TWoP's recaps, but the recaps won't display past the first page. I tried using the Wayback Machine, but it was missing pages of recaps. Disappointing.[…]

Months and months ago (or maybe a year ago), Comcast/NBC-Uni-/Bravo promised they'd save the TWoP recaps in an accessible space, but ever since then, I've only been able to access the first page of any given recap, and they stripped the recappers' bylines off the page. (As a former TWoP recapper, this broke my heart more than I can say.) I will spare you how much fun this had made the already amusing enterprise of securing freelance writing gigs.

Tonight, I found out that if you go to this link, you can access all the TWoP recaps before the shutdown, with the recappers' bylines. I haven't tested them all to see if it is true, but every recap I've clicked on displays the writer's byline, and displays the recaps beyond page two. Without further ado, here is the URL. Please share far and wide:mhttp://www.brilliantbutcancelled.com/shows/

Enjoy and please feel free to share far and wide, but if you share on social media, maybe don't tag in NBC-Uni, Comcast, TWoP or Bravo.

Thank you, thank you, thank you!
And best of luck with the writing gigs.

I need to stay out of the Previously.tv forums or I am seriously going to choke a bitch.

Snarryfan wrote:I need to stay out of the Previously.tv forums or I am seriously going to choke a bitch.

Why, what happened?

I tried the Supernatural forums on Previously.tv, but they're filled with the same rabid Sam hater/Deannuts from TWOP.  God forbid you want to discuss the actual show instead of Sam's awfulness to St. Dean.

A whole lot of anti-trans bs on the Keeping up with the Kardashians (don't judge!) forum. Basically--being trans is bull because unless you have a womb and bleed each month you don't know what it means to be a woman and how Caitlyn Jenner is solely focused on make-up and clothes (on a Vanity Fair cover!) and that is not what it means to be a woman.

I have responded a few times but it is really obnoxious.

Snarryfan wrote:A whole lot of anti-trans bs on the Keeping up with the Kardashians (don't judge!) forum.  Basically--being trans is bull because unless you have a womb and bleed each month you don't know what it means to be a woman and how Caitlyn Jenner is solely focused on make-up and clothes (on a Vanity Fair cover!) and that is not what it means to be a woman.

I have responded a few times but it is really obnoxious.

Or, better, that it's all a hoax and that's just what I believe, so how dare you challenge me with this thing called logic! Even well before the gender transition, the "Keeping Up..." forum reminded me a lot of the worst of TWoP reality basement, where posters are completely obsessed with celebrities they say they can't stand, and seek out every bit of news they can find about them (in order to spin it in the least charitable light possible, in every single circumstance), while complaining about how said stars are being "shoved down their throats". You can practically see them on pins and needles, praying that this will be the day that their brand falls apart and their "15 minutes" are going to be up. I think 15-20 years ago, these posters would have been watching soaps to get their scandalized/outrage fix satisfied, but now they turn to reality shows and have transgender issues to be ignorant and behind the times about, rather than interracial relationships and pregnancy out of wedlock. On other parts of Previously (not dominated by the regulars at the KuwtK forums), the tone of the discussions is more elevated, enlightened. You're just not going to get that with posters who think Kimmode and Lardassian are clever nicknames.

Their moderating of the Duggar forums has been pretty strong. They've stopped a lot of the speculation about what else might have happened and the identities of the victims. Though the posters there were more like the crowd that watches The Bachelor for the "wrong reasons", there hasn't been a ton of glee expressed about a Duggar Downfall, just outrage about Josh and sadness for the victims and some very interesting discussions about their religious movement as a whole.

For me this being a moment of Transpride, acceptance, tipping point is undercut by it being from someone associated with the biggest bunch of overexposed reality show famewhores in the country. As someone who loves history like a forest ranger would love Yellowstone recognizing the Armenian Genocide is important to me, but the person who has gotten the most attention to that had it take a back seat to flash her oiled butt everywhere.

Arabella wrote:

Snarryfan wrote:A whole lot of anti-trans bs on the Keeping up with the Kardashians (don't judge!) forum.  Basically--being trans is bull because unless you have a womb and bleed each month you don't know what it means to be a woman and how Caitlyn Jenner is solely focused on make-up and clothes (on a Vanity Fair cover!) and that is not what it means to be a woman.

I have responded a few times but it is really obnoxious.

Or, better, that it's all a hoax and that's just what I believe, so how dare you challenge me with this thing called logic! Even well before the gender transition, the "Keeping Up..." forum reminded me a lot of the worst of TWoP reality basement, where posters are completely obsessed with celebrities they say they can't stand, and seek out every bit of news they can find about them (in order to spin it in the least charitable light possible, in every single circumstance), while complaining about how said stars are being "shoved down their throats". You can practically see them on pins and needles, praying that this will be the day that their brand falls apart and their "15 minutes" are going to be up. I think 15-20 years ago, these posters would have been watching soaps to get their scandalized/outrage fix satisfied, but now they turn to reality shows and have transgender issues to be ignorant and behind the times about, rather than interracial relationships and pregnancy out of wedlock.

Well, there are still soaps around, barely clinging, but they are still around, so they could still watch them if they want their outrage fix. I think maybe the type of people you're talking about would have been watching tabloid talk shows 20 years ago.

So I made a post on Previously.tv responding to some ridonkulous uptight posters. I am pretty sure my post was deleted without warning. So, anti-trans posts: ok. Posts mocking people for being small-minded twats: not ok.

Oh, and people are over there praising Glark (excuse me, David Cole) for the relaxed attitude towards rules in comparison to TWOP. Apparently none of these people ever heard of Fametracker.

I keep running into a mod who's so delighted that there's no longer a "no boards on boards" rule and I want to post so badly that I actually miss that rule. Yeah things at TWoP could get really annoying but some of those rules were actually a little nice.

Also you want to read some first class slut shaming and misogyny, check out any episode post in the Food Network Star forum and search out Giada's name.