How recaps changed the way we watch television (and are they still a thing?)

JaimieT

https://www.theringer.com/tv/2018/7/31/17633128/television-recaps-history-alan-sepinwall-jeff-jensen-twop

A great article that really gets going in the last third, where it discusses the future of recaps... and mentions podcasts as one way the form has shifted. I've seen a decline in good TV and an oversaturation in okay TV, so I do wonder about the viability of commentary culture going forward. Sepinwall has a good point about how recappers can turn into curators. Bald Move has certainly gotten me to watch shows I wouldn't have otherwise and I've really enjoyed.

So I wanted to share this here.

rkcrawf

I used to love recaps, until I found Bald Move. It wasn't a conscious decision for me, but it seemed like the guys were already covering most of the same stuff, plus they had crowd-sourced stuff from here, Reddit, and other podcasts. The exception I make is for shows with deep allusions or stuff that Bald Move doesn't cover (Castle Rock and Mindhunter) is a good example.

telephoneofmadness

I often enjoy reviews more than the things being reviewed. I am one of those people who listens to podcasts of shows without watching the shows (e.g. I haven't seen Mad Men, Boardwalk Empire, Penny Dreadful, or most of American Horror Story, but I've listened to the podcasts).

I prefer to not necessarily have to wait a week between TV episodes, but reviewers usually have interesting things to say, and with binge-watching there is still the problem of what to do between seasons. Twitter etc. is trash, nothing to see there.

The bit in the article about episodes becoming too shallow to talk about -- I've noticed this with recent movies. The cinematography is really good, but they have no plot after the first 20 minutes. I suspect shows and movies are being picked up by studios based on the first few pages of their scripts. I don't understand it. The Neon Demon apparently had 4 writers; Jesus....

Doctor_Nick

Wow, I totally forgot about Television Without Pity.  

Dee

RIP Television Without Pity.

Recapping is an art, and some people are really good at it, others not so much. Oddly enough, there’s a whole genre of entertainment out there in the form of reality show recaps. I don’t even watch reality shows, but there are some talented people who can have me in tears of laughter reading recaps of The Bachelor or one of those Real Housewives shows. That’s where I think recapping will be heading more and more as people use it as a form of comedy writing.