It is our final GOBO of this run, in which we discuss NBC's Quantum Leap and ABC's Alaska Daily. We promise to send you out on much skepticism about the wisdom of building a new Quantum Leap machine, and also a few thoughts on The State of Journalism. 

Star Wars TV shows need to learn how to do episodes. So Help Me Todd is, so help us, not our worst-ever watch, even though it's very goofy and stupid. Classic bad one!!

Hello poppets! You're in for a treat with this one, posting up juuuust in time for everyones' commute home from work. We gather together to discuss Margaret's GO and BO: Reboot (GO) and The Vampire Academy (BO) and the vast majority of the episode is us trying in vain to figure out the vampire rules of a poorly written show to which we may or may not have paid much attention. Margaret gets sent to horny jail by minute 18. 

Have you heard? People love giant fantasy series! They really do. Or at least, they definitely WATCH giant fantasy series, and whether or not they love them is maybe beside the point? In any event, we're doing a free space Good One / Bad One episode to discuss both House of the Dragon and The Rings of Power, which are your two choices for overstuffed fantasy extravaganzas this fall. No one gets mad about anything. 

Ah, the promise of a new TV season. Maybe one of the premieres will be one of your new favorites! Maybe you'll watch something so bad that you can make yourself mad years later just by thinking about it. The world is alight with possibilities!  We're back for a FIVE-episode fall engagement! This week we'll announce our picks, and next week we're going to do an obligatory Oops! All Fantasy episode about the House of the Dragon and Lord of the Rings shows. 

This is, fundamentally, an episode about life's most existential questions. Some of those questions are fairly simple: what is good TV? How many shows about the same true crime murder is too many shows?

Some of those questions are much more complicated, like "if a time traveler poops in the woods and Steven Moffat is the showrunner and he changes the rules of how the story works so that detached parts of the time traveler's body follow him around through time and space ... what are the implications for Thanksgiving?"

This week, Margaret reopens her Queer TV Quorner to discuss OUR FLAG MEANS DEATH and then inflicts THE COURTSHIP upon Andrew and Kathryn. Its vastly superior predecessor Regency House Party is also discussed.

Did you miss us? Whether you did or not, we’re back again with our spring 2022 edition of Good One/Bad One, along with some notes about what we’ve been watching while we’ve been gone. 

GOOD ONES: 

Our Flag Means Death: https://play.hbomax.com/series/urn:hbo:series:GYf3LzwJV98JifQEAAAAO

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds: https://www.paramountplus.com/shows/star-trek-strange-new-worlds/

Candy: https://www.hulu.com/series/candy-2ce80ed9-7ab6-44de-8434-f7dadb6ec11b

BAD ONES: 

The Courtship: https://www.usanetwork.com/the-courtship

Lovestruck High: https://press.amazonstudios.com/us/en/press-release/lindsay-lohan-unveiled-as-the-official-voiceover-o The Time Traveler’s Wife: https://www.hbo.com/the-time-travelers-wife

You don’t have to go home but you can’t stay here. 

SHOW NOTES: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGytDsqkQY8

This week we watched the unredeemable mess that is Netflix’s Father Christmas Is Back, starring Frasier from the show Frasier. You’ll miss us when we’re gone. 

In this week's episode, we take our final dive into the Ask Box while it's still Appointment Television's ask box. Himbos, endings, and what we would do with nigh unlimited funds are all discussed, among other things. And Margaret barely even cries, it's really impressive how brave she is.

It's the final SYMBOL [final countdown riff goes here].

It's got everything - it's got death! It's got pyramids! It's got degrees, but not celsius or fahrenheit degrees, some OTHER degrees! It's got resonance, and kissing (terrible kissing), and oh yes - it's got symbols. 

Andrew has watched Amazon's Wheel of Time adaptation, because you don't read a 14-book fantasy series and not watch the TV adaptation. Then, the three of us are whisked back to the magical world of Dan Brown, where everyone is always in on the scheme and all the evil masterminds are named "Zachary." 

On this week's show, two reoccurring segments: the first return of "We Were Wrong About-- OR WERE WE?" (subject this time: Apple TV PLUS) and the final iteration of The Old Type about, inevitably, I Love Lucy. We discuss the episode "Lucy Does a Commercial" (which we all watched together) and then in turn the episodes "Lucy Thinks Ricky is Trying to Murder Her," "Job Switching," and "Lucy Meets Orson Welles." And speaking of our man Orson, here is the wine commercial outtakes reel of which we speak in the episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nvxwf1jxdaM. Trust me, you WILL want to watch it. Love, The Podcast. 

In this episode of ATV, Robert Langdon visits a quarry, and that is how we know that this show was our destiny! Also featuring: bad arm casts, Dell desktops, pyramid tops, masonic squares, CIA psychics, and some Netflix metrics reporting! 

On today's episode: Andrew and Kathryn spoil one particular scene of the new season of Succession for Margaret (terminally behind on all television) in a segment Andrew's eloquently dubbed "Jesus CHRIST, Kendall Roy," resulting in what we must assume is a record number of shell-shocked "oh BOY"s for any single episode of the podcast. Then we introduce a new retrospective segment: "We Were Wrong About-- OR WERE WE?", wherein we revisit opinions of old and see if any of our minds have changed since they were initially formed. Our first topic for reexamination? Well, it's only our least-popular opinion ever: Nailed It, the show only we appeared to dislike. WERE we wrong about it? Only by listening to the show can you find out.

This week we continue our final TV Book Club selection, carefully studying and then improbably deciphering the ancient secrets of episodes 2 and 3 of Peacock's Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol.

This week's episode is mostly a conversation about some important podcast business things. We love you all so much, and we hope you'll forgive us for all the many thoughts and feelings and also some truly bad pretend podcast titles that are all stuffed in here. We expect to hear from many of you lovely weirdos in the tumblr box, and we will treasure each and every one of those messages except for obviously the ones that are mean or gross. <3

On today's episode, we examine the last of our Fall 2021 Good One-Bad One pairs: Foundation, on Apple TV+, which is a perfectly acceptable good one, and La Brea, on NBC, which proved much more fun to chat about than it was to watch (please don't watch it). Join us as we answer the big questions: WHO at NBC is in the pocket of big tar pits?

If you'd like to hear Andrew talk about the book version of Foundation on his other podcast, the link is right here: https://overduepodcast.com/episodes/2015/3/9/episode-103-foundation

If you subscribed to Paramount+ (née CBS All Access) for one month, what would you watch? Our answer to this question is complicated by the fact that Paramount+ actually has a back catalogue, but the short version is that you should start with Evil and work your way out from there.

It's the second installment of 2021's fall Good One / Bad One, this time discussing the new FOX drama The Big Leap, and Apple TV+'s news/comedy/journalism/the fact that we don't know what to call it is part of the problem here/discussion show, The Problem With Jon Stewart. In this episode, Margaret has many problems with Stewart, Kathryn and Andrew have fewer problems, and everybody agrees that there are zero problems with Scott Foley. 

In today's late-because-of-water-heater-chaos episode, we discuss three key things:

• The origin of the name Peaky Blinders (in which Margaret and Andrew each invent new terms)
• The pilot of Hulu's new adaptation of Y: The Last Man (which Margaret likens to this extremely timely and relevant cultural property)
• And then the gonzo excellence of Peacock's adaptation of Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol

Although Margaret could not be with us for this episode, when it was time to check in with season two of Ted Lasso we knew that we'd be in capable hands with our friends Christina Tucker and Sophie Brookover. They join us this week for a conversation about the ups and downs of both Ted Lasso and Ted Lasso discourse, and they have a couple recommendations for what to watch. We cover such topics as: Sam! Whether this show has conflict! The experience of watching serial television! And, alarmingly, we attempt to discuss sports. 

We're back, glory be! On this week's episode we're discussing a shocking revelation in the world of children's TV programming, the debatable delights of Doc McStuffins, and the absolutely established joys of Hulu's new original series Only Murders in the Building (with its gloriously Ephronian setting). 

There is also a second segment to this episode, in which Andrew, Margaret and Kathryn all pitch imaginary TV shows about good journalism, and as per usual Margaret has an eerie number of truly fantastic TV ideas. But the main event here is that a patron forced Andrew to watch a truly awful TV show called Do No Harm aka Dr Facehands, and it was magnificent. 

Andrew and Margaret return to the skeptical and often controversial Kathrynth Circuit Court for a TV versus TV debate: what duo has the most TV chemistry? Kathryn makes a decision sure to infuriate truly everyone; please know that your hate mail will be received calmly and disregarded quickly. 

They then turn to a discussion of how chemistry works on TV, who has it and who does not. Many things are agreed upon, except for Kathryn's ruling. 

With five weeks of Ted Lasso remaining and no new Schmigadoon to watch, we suspect many of you might be looking for some new way to make the most of your Apple TV+ subscription. So, for our first Summer Hiatus Rerun, we're sharing the interview we did with Dickinson creator Alena Smith in January, 2020. Consider this our pitch for letting a little corseted chaos into your life.

We take a brief detour into the wacky world of Robert and Michele King to talk about how Evil Season 2 is going, then we do some fantasy casting of Broadway actors in Kings' projects before wrapping up our Feel Good TV Book Club.

Also: we're taking a break! We'll be posting some reruns over the next few weeks and we'll see you all in September.

EVIL on Paramount+: https://www.paramountplus.com/shows/evil/

Feel Good on Netflix: https://www.netflix.com/title/80241545

This is episode two of our Feel Good book club, where we discuss episodes 3 and 4 of season one. Serious topics are considered, including: does George still suck as much, what is Mae's stand-up actually like, and also how is Lisa Kudrow *this* good at her job? 

But before we get there, we bring up a topic that requires careful, detailed thought. Which one of us would suck the least if we were contestants on Survivor? 

On this week's episode, we introduce a new segment (name TBD) where we tell you how to get the most out of one month with any minor league streaming service. In honor of Ted Lasso's season 2 premiere last Friday (a glorious event to which we devote some time and attention), we've focus our first session on Apple TV+. Come for the earnest advice, but stay for the absolutely harrowing fuck-marry-kill the discussion occasions.

On this week's episode we begin our TV Book Club on Netflix's Feel Good, a show where extremely charming queer people make exceptionally poor decisions, but first: we answer some questions from our Tumblr ask box. Margaret goes long on the subject of library school, we all discuss the scam of terminal master degree programs (recently documented more thoroughly by Anne Helen Petersen), and then-- the true highlight-- we each share an embarrassing story we've not previously told on the podcast. 

RIP to The Bold Gripe, a segment we loved briefly and too well. You'll never guess what those goofy media types are up to in the finale! After we fully dunk on that whole situation we turn to the new HBO series The White Lotus, a show about rich people at a fancy resort but most importantly: a show with Jennifer Coolidge in it. 

On this week's episode of Appointment TB, we present unto you: CHAOS. Our exceptionally loose agenda is Andrew discusses Patreon Supporter Gerald's $7 pick, the late and sometimes lamented GCB and Margaret invites viewers to return to her Queer TV Qorner by mentioning some exclusively gay content in Marvel's Loki and finding a very particular queer framing for HBOMax's Starstruck. But in actual fact, you'll find our discussion a lot weirder and more wide-ranging than this brief summary can communicate, including the explicit nonsense that NPR specifically paid someone to remove from Margaret's discussion of Loki last week. 

You are *not* going to believe what happened on The Bold Type. It's the kind of thing you can see coming in retrospect, and yet it is so fully implausible that our minds are truly blown by it. Then we chat about Everything's Gonna Be Okay, a show we continue to love so, so much. 

On this week’s episode, we celebrate reaching 300 episodes by talking about a bunch of other shows that have also reached 300 episodes! We also talk about Supernatural for what feels like an eternity; we’re not apologizing for it but we do think you should be aware of it going in. 

SHOW NOTES

The Simpsons on Disney+: https://www.disneyplus.com/series/the-simpsons/3ZoBZ52QHb4x

Supernatural on Netflix: https://www.netflix.com/title/70143825

Grey’s Anatomy on Hulu: https://www.hulu.com/series/greys-anatomy-bfd6ba83-5fff-46f8-abae-76f1796c1c8e

In this week's episode Andrew catches us up on this season of The Bold Type (in what we hope will be a continuing segment) and we discuss episodes 5, 6, and 7 of Everything's Going to Be Okay, with which we are all falling ever more deeply in love. Along the way we touch briefly upon the issue of shows that exist in the same fictional universe, Andrew's secret superpower, and tease what's coming up in our Very Special 300th Episode.

This week's episode - Moon Show! (Technically the name of this show is For All Mankind on Apple TV+ but we're no dummies, we know the best name for it is Moon Show). Girls5Eva! Facts about Playboy bunnies in space! Also featuring: a brief but intense digression about Pringles! 

Everyone is charmed by episodes 2, 3, and 4 of Everything’s Gonna Be Okay (hereafter EGBO), and Kathryn recommends some shows to people for the first time in a while. 

Everything’s Gonna Be Okay on Hulu: https://www.hulu.com/series/everythings-gonna-be-okay-f30e3e01-ccb4-46c3-8802-5117f8dc2f13

In today's episode, we mix it up with M*A*S*H, from its less-than-great actual pilot to the S4 premiere that Margaret's friends insist is the true pilot, with a special detour to discuss the particularly strange journey to creating Trapper John, M.D.

Most of this episode is a discussion of the lovely but slightly uneasy Peacock original show Rutherford Falls. It's a readily lovable show but also the thing at the very center of its DNA is centuries of genocide - a tricky, tricky tone to land, and the show mostly does it! 

At the beginning of the episode, though, we do a little chatting about TV starting to come back this summer. Hooray, television! But there's a very important PSA we need to note: in this episode Kathryn suggests that it's possible the Netflix show Halston might be good. This episode was recorded before she saw that series. Halston is *not* good. We regret the misleading implication. 

In today's episode: due to overwhelming demand from either many of you or (more likely) one of you many, many times, we're getting Kathryn's assessment on HBO's newest Murdur Durdur show, otherwise known as Mare of Easttown. And then we commence with installment #1 of our newest TV Book Club on Freeform's dramedy Everything is Gonna Be Okay, the second season of which has recently begun, prompting a profile of Josh Thomas to run in The New Yorker, which was subsequently turned into high-quality audio content with help of Margaret, but which she did not leverage into a close friendship with Josh Thomas--- YET.

The short segment this week is a patreon recommendation for cozy mysteries! But the long segment is a discussion of the Australian preschool show Bluey. Spoiler: Bluey is amazing.

SHOW NOTES

• A Bluey piece in the Australian outlet The Saturday Paper - https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/culture/television/2020/04/11/bluey-creator-joe-brumms-dog-days/15865272009678

We're starting your week off with some extra #content in the form of SEINFELD XXX, a show about a show about nothing! Craig and Chris talk about every episode of Seinfeld on the 30th anniversary of its original air date; in this episode, they discuss season 2 episode 6, The Statue. Find out more at seinfeld.rocks or @SeinfeldXXX! 

---

It’s time for the 30th anniversary of the sixth episode of Seinfeld’s second season!

The bizarre boyfriend of Elaine’s bizarre friend/client cleans Jerry’s apartment, but a coveted statue has gone missing! George orchestrates a sting operation. Jerry and Elaine can’t believe what’s going on. Kramer impersonates a police detective. And it’s time to ask: what’s the deal with New Kramer and thieves?

Carrying over from our previous Muppet Show discussion, this week we start by discussing: What era-appropriate guests did the classic Muppet Show miss? We then finish our TV Book Club discussion of the Apple TV+ show Ted Lasso (specifically episodes 8, 9, and 10). Do note that this episode was recorded before the trailer for season 2 dropped; it starts on July 23!

SHOW NOTES:

Muppet Show on Disney+: https://www.disneyplus.com/series/the-muppet-show/Rgks70YwIkSw

Ted Lasso on Apple TV+: https://tv.apple.com/us/show/ted-lasso/umc.cmc.vtoh0mn0xn7t3c643xqonfzy

Ted Lasso S2 trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auxeLrtk7tk

In this week's episode we:

• Learn the differences between Christina, Christine, Cristin, and Kirsten
• Discuss old gay news and whether the NLRB can protect Andrew from Bachelor exposure
• Establish that Star-Trek-TNG.jpg"> Q puts the Q in LBTQIA+
• Detail the manner in which many docuseries have huge "meetings that could have been an email" energy, but not THIS one
• And finally, chat over the new HBO Max original series Made for Love and the essential value of stifling your internal Edward Snowden. 

If you could vacation in an as-seen-on-TV locale, where would you go? This is the vital question we begin with on this week’s show, before diving into episodes 5, 6, and 7 of the Apple TV+ series Ted Lasso. 

SHOW NOTES Ted Lasso on Apple TV+: https://tv.apple.com/us/show/ted-lasso/umc.cmc.vtoh0mn0xn7t3c643xqonfzy

Wocka wocka it's The Muppet Show! After a rousing discussion of which Muppets we most strongly identify with, we talk about the glorious original Muppet Show. This includes questions such as: what modern day celebrity do we wish were on the 70s Muppet Show? Why is Gonzo like that? And, is Scooter's whole deal really nepotism? 

Hello, friends! Today's episode touches briefly on the state of children's television presently (and ergo features some exceptionally cute anecdotes about Kathryn's children) and then moves on to discuss episodes 2, 3, and 4 of Ted Lasso. Whomst does Andrew liken to a "more fuckable Anton Ego"? You'll have to listen to find out. 

This week we allow Kathryn some space to defend her single-handed cancelation of Chris Harrison, the only man on the face of the earth who is qualified to ask reality show contestants questions like "how are you feeling." Then we clarify some jokes we made about watching shows with subtitles and some other mailbag stuff. Ah, good ol' mailbag.

SHOW NOTES

Kathryn on The Bachelor and race: bachelor-season-25-racism-offscreen-editing-production.html">https://www.vulture.com/article/the-bachelor-season-25-racism-offscreen-editing-production.html

In today's episode, we're kicking off (like one would in UNAMERICAN FOOTBALL) our Ted Lasso TV Book Club by discussing its pilot, which improbably succeeds in transforming an abrasively amusing series of NBC sports commercials into an incapacitatingly sweet and charming sitcom. This is the rare show where Margaret has actually watched ahead of our assigned reading so (1) you know it's good and (2) be prepared for her to confuse which things happened in which episodes!  For our Ted Lasso sensitive listener: this one is pretty much all Lasso (although we don't really dig into the show until about three minutes in), but future iterations will have more non-Lasso content for you.

It was time to do a check-in with all the stuff we've been watching in the great quarantine TV slow-down. Margaret, to absolutely no one's surprise, has refused to watch the ending of a show and instead is just gonna circle back around to the beginning! 

We spend most of this week's episode talking about WandaVision, though. Not in a spoilery sense! We do not reveal anything about the major events of the show. But we do talk about the recent trend toward buzzy weekly release shows on big streaming platforms, and why we think they've gotten popular lately. 

This week's installment of The Old Type is brought to you by Taxi, yet another 70s-era sitcom that existed just off of our pop cultural maps. Of all the old sitcoms we've watched so far, this is probably the one that is still the funniest? Like funniest in an intentional way, not how-did-the-Gilligan's-Island-castaways-get-a-pie-tin sort of way.

SHOW NOTES: 

Taxi (CBS): https://www.cbs.com/shows/taxi/episodes/

On this week's episode, we discuss: the persistent whiteness of the cozy mystery genre, the more diverse potential presented by noir, series HBO foolishly is not making, what TV moment from 2020 is still living-- rent free-- in all of our heads, whose butt should receive Rush Limbaugh's repossessed Presidential Medal of Freedom, and Netflix's new reality TV Show Buried by the Bernards. All told, I'd say it's a pretty darn good time. 

It's not fair! It really is not fair. But this is the most Teenage Bounty Hunters we're going to get, so we're just holding this celebration of its life and getting very, very mad about it. 

Holy podcast! This week on The Old Type, we all revisit the old 60s Batman show featuring Adam West, Burt Ward, and a smorgasbord of tights. This is a long episode for us but I think you'll agree that Batman is worth it. 

On this week, hear the good tidings of what your PBS Passport membership could entitle you to this week, learn of their past (partially forgiven) perfidy, and hear our grief over the premature cancellation of Teenage Bounty Hunters grow still more keen as our love for the show gains abiding depth. 

Wow Teenage Bounty Hunters is a great show, right?! Dang. In this episode we talk about episodes 2-4, but we also answer a few questions from the ol' ask box, and we go on a long-ish mid-episode detour about the first time we found ourselves quite drunk at a college party. What a fun time.

This week we talk about the inauguration of the 46th President of the United States, both politically and as TV spectacle. No show notes this week, we have a lot going on, ok???

As the title implies, this week is the first part of our TV Book Club series about the Netflix one-season wonder that is Teenage Bounty Hunters.

TEENAGE BOUNTY HUNTERS ON NETFLIX: https://www.netflix.com/title/80244296

You guessed it, folks: we're talking about the new Netflix series Bridgerton this week! There are bosoms! They are heaving! There are dicks! They are pumping! There is more specific information about the nuts and bolts of pumping and nutting than you might anticipate! (sex-scenes-how-they-were-filmed.html">About which Kathryn recently conducted a fascinating interview.) And, to top it all off, there is also special guest Christina Tucker, AKA our Lady Danbury Thirst Correspondent. In addition to Bridgerton, we are also discussing villeneuve-judd-apatow-hbo-max-warner-bros.html#_ga=2.268033673.641520746.1610007594-1839681057.1606322262"> movie directors being whiny little babies about all their movies being simultaneously released to HBOMax and theaters. ENJOY! And, for next week, you'll want to watch episode one of Teenage Bounty Hunters, our newest TV Book Club pick. 

We're taking a week off! Pasted below are the original show notes for our 2017 episode about Netflix's A Christmas Prince. 

—

It’s holiday time, so we dedicate the entire episode to a close reading of one of Netflix’s forays into the wide world of dedicated Christmas programming: the Hallmark Christmas-style movie A Christmas Prince. Strap in for lying! Mothra! Negging! Jellied meats! Birther scandals! Romance! Tokenism! Constitutional crises! And so much more!

SHOW NOTES: 

• Techies Still Think They’re Good Guys. They’re Not. https://www.wired.com/story/the-other-tech-bubble/
• Netflix’s Creepy Tweet. christmas-prince-tweet-privacy-creepy-twitter-viewing-habits-2017-a8105351.html&t=MTAyMmE4OWY4YTEzNmU0ZmUyYWRmY2NkM2UyZDExODY2OTU4OGUwZSxLc0UzS04wNA%3D%3D&b=t%3AzQf1M2eoPQH2Xr0VbbPUmA&p=https%3A%2F%2Fatvpodcast.com%2Fpost%2F168783737692%2Fepisode-121-a-christmas-prince&m=0&ts=1609396795">http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/netflix-christmas-prince-tweet-privacy-creepy-twitter-viewing-habits-2017-a8105351.html
• ION’s A Christmas Cruise: https://iontelevision.com/holiday-movie/a-christmas-cruise
• Hallmark Channel as a balm for 2017. https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/we-cant-take-any-more-of-2017-so-weve-turned-to-the-hallmark-channel-in-desperation/2017/12/07/1ad3dab6-d6ca-11e7-b62d-d9345ced896d_story.html?utm_term=.c42173792a12
• Spotify Reveals Its Users Habits in an Ad Campaign. https://www.boredpanda.com/spotify-reveals-its-users-most-embarrassing-listening-habits-on-giant-billboards/

Sadly they stopped making new Christmas Prince movies (BOO!) so we are celebrating the holidays with an installment of The Old Type. This time we're watching several Christmas episodes of The Bob Newhart Show, a '70s sitcom that led Andrew and Margaret to ask Kathryn "uh why are we watching this?" 

This week, we're checking in with how TV is handling its uncomfortable task of depicting a pandemic that requires hot actors to cover 1/2 of their face. Spoiler: they aren't doing great! We start with a long, harrowing, collective look at the opening episode of Bull and its terrifying demon CGI baby and then continue on to touch upon: Black-ish, Super Store, The Good Doctor, and a handful of other programs. Obviously, tv-masks-covid-stories.html"> Kathryn wrote about all of this really brilliantly. She also wrote astutely about eliza-dushku-bull-toxic-culture.html"> the sexual harassment Eliza Dushku experienced on the set of Bull, a subject we touched upon at the beginning of the show.

All three of us definitely showed up this week having seen every minute of both of the shows we’re discussing—Showtime’s intriguing The Good Lord Bird, and HBO’s weird-ass mystery box drama The Third Day. 

SHOW NOTES

The Good Lord Bird: https://www.sho.com/the-good-lord-bird The Third Day: https://www.hbo.com/the-third-day

Let's check in with what's happening on network TV! Specifically, let's check in with unscripted network TV: the reboot of Supermarket Sweep and this high-drama season of The Bachelorette. We've asked our beloved games corresponded Craig Getting to return so he can weigh in on the Sweep update; in a shocking turn of events, everyone gets very animated. 

In this episode, we discuss Andrew’s Good One/Bad One pairing: AMC’s Soulmates, which we all liked a little bit more than we were expecting and The Comey Rule, which was even worse than we could possibly have imagined. Along the way we discuss Sarah Snook and her acting partner, her butt, whether Andrew and Kathryn would soulmate test despite being married, whether Margaret is doing something remarkably unprofessional around minute 5, the propensity in American culture to confuse a man being tall with a man being possessed of character, just what can render one nostalgic for The Newsroom, and what Aaron Sorkin needs in order to climax sexually. IT’S A REAL ONE, Y’ALL! Enjoy!

For our belated good one/bad one episode week, we pull off what is known in podcasting circles as the Queen’s gambit—by watching the show The Queen’s Gambit on Netflix and then talking about it! We also watched Ratched, which is obviously the bad one. 

SHOW NOTES: 

THE QUEEN’S GAMBIT: https://www.netflix.com/title/80234304

RATCHED: https://www.netflix.com/title/80213445

Margaret definitely does not cry at all in this discussion of the conclusion of Never Have I Ever, a show that's really about grief and fathers who die and the kind of ripple effect that has for every member of the family. Nope! Zero crying. Also Kathryn definitely remembered to select the correct microphone, and that's why her audio sounds exactly as good as it always does. 

On this week’s episode, we introduce an important concept from Our Last Tapes: The Old Type, the official name for our periodic episodes where we open the creaky haunted vault of Ancient Television and bring forth a mummified TV corpse to examine. THIS WEEK, in honor of the SPOOKY TIMES in which we all live, we discuss The Addams Family (snap snap). Learn: what Kathryn’s 6-year-old thinks of it, which joke of Andrew’s makes Margaret bark with laughter while also saying “That’s so dumb”, and what piece of taxidermy Margaret most wishes she could have for herself. If you would like to sample some of the episodes discussed, they can be found on MGM’s YouTube page and on one of those largely made-up streaming platforms that’s called like Luna Network-- search on your Roku, it will know what I’m talking about. And, last but not least, please check out what the Addams family’s living room looked like in color or the weird musical spoof on said family that Margaret listened to frequently as a child (start at 3:58).

We begin this episode by taking the opportunity to respond to one more item from the mailbag, a very thoughtful email that expands on some of our discussion from our previous conversation about the cultural context of Never Have I Ever (and notably, how ill-equipped we are to see some of it!) Then we jump back into the show, with our discussion of episodes 5, 6, and 7. 

This week's episode begins with a funeral, but like, the kind of funeral where no one is surprised or sad? Then we talk about this year's off-feeling season of Bake-Off, Kathryn's latest weird dick show, and a bushel of listener questions.

SHOW NOTES:

RIP in peace Quibi: https://www.theverge.com/2020/10/21/21527197/quibi-streaming-service-mobile-shutting-down-end-katzenberg

GBBO on Netflix: https://www.netflix.com/title/80063224

John Explains Everything: https://www.hbo.com/how-to-with-john-wilson

In this lightly frankensteined episode, we discuss both a piece critical of Never Have I Ever (in a segment recorded last week), episodes 2, 3, and 4 of Never Have I Ever, and the myriad glories contained in what shall from here on out be known as The Lost Tapes (recorded just last night). And, as a bonus, we have a snippet of a song from a band to which Andrew so kindly introduced us last night.  

Thanks to a change in our recording setup last week, the episode we intended to release today (our next TV Book Club installment on episodes 2, 3, and 4 of Never Have I Ever) does not exist. INSTEAD, we are bringing you a rerun of a Golden Oldie: the team recommends their favorite shows for watching with only 80% attention and then, then. Then we dedicate ourselves to dunking on a terrible procedural you probably forgot existed: Deception, where the world's top magician uses his sophisticated understanding of SLEIGHT OF HAND to solve major crimes that inexplicably demand said expertise. We hope you enjoy this trip down memory lane and will be back with our regularly scheduled episodes next week. 

SHOW NOTES:

Sports Night: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0165961/

Justified: http://www.fxtv.com.au/justified

Elementary: https://www.cbs.com/shows/elementary/

Pitch: https://www.fox.com/pitch/

Timeless: https://www.nbc.com/timeless?nbc=1

New Girl: https://www.fox.com/new-girl/

Terriers: https://tv.avclub.com/terriers-perfect-one-season-run-defied-description-ma-1798246162

Deception: http://abc.go.com/shows/deception

The quarantine Emmys were ... good?? We are as shocked as the next person, but we spend most of this episode discussing what made the socially distanced pandemic awards version of the Emmys so much more compelling than the regular version. Afterwards, we turn to a brief conversation about the role of seasonality in TV plotting, which is mostly an excuse for Margaret to mourn about the cancellation of Stumptown. Stumptown! Why were you taken from us! 

We answer some questions from our vaunted Tumblr ask box, which Margaret swears she won’t get upset about but then she totally does. It leads to a discussion of how important objectivity is to reviews and whether it exists at all (hint: it isn’t and it doesn’t). Then, we talk about the first episode of Netflix’s Never Have I Ever, a teen comedy that is definitely narrated by tennis legend John McEnroe.

SHOW NOTES:

Ask Us Questions On Tumblr, You Cowards: https://atvpodcast.com/ask

Never Have I Ever: https://www.netflix.com/title/80179190

John McEnroe Gets Mad, This Is Just One Of The Times When This Happens, Also When Are We Getting A Movie Where Matthew Rhys Plays John McEnroe, I’m Just Saying, No That Shia LeBeouf Movie Doesn’t Count: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ransFQVzf6c&t=4s

This week we have: sad dirgeses about two recently announced cancellations, bad one picks from the fall TV lineup in which we have the deepest confidence, good one picks about which we're.... like..... IDK.... maybe!!!??!?! about, more uncertain squeaky uptalk than you can shake a stick at, and a full minute of Margaret explaining a driving game called cows that anyone other than Margaret would surely have trimmed out of the episode, but it's too late for you hos as neither responsible host was here to intervene. Links of pertinence: 

• Venture Bros. cancellation
• High Fidelity's cancellation, Alison Herman's thoughtful observations on the shortening lifespans of streaming TV shows, and the creators' interview about where they intended to take Season 2. 
• Kathryn's Bad One
• Margaret's Bad One
• Andrew's Bad One
• Margaret's Good One
• Andrew's ... goood one???????
• and Kathryn's Good.... one?
• And!! Our new TV Book Club: Netflix's Never Have I Ever, watch the pilot for next week! 

And, last but never least, please enjoy John Brown's portrait from the National Portrait Gallery, one of Margaret's very favorite works of art. 

Inspired by the absurd, impossible inescapability of 2020, we decide to take a trip to TV past. A fateful trip. A three hour tour, if you will. (Okay fine, this episode isn't quite that long.) 

First we have a chat about our own personal histories with Nick at Nite, and then turn to the bizarre phenomenon of Gilligan's Island. At one point, the fact that the castaways are able to bake a pie renders Kathryn speechless for over a minute. 

This week, we talk about the bizarre experience of watching a COVID-era awards show (in this case, the VMAs), and then we talk about the first episode of HBO’s Lovecraft Country. It’s a horror show that is surprisingly tolerable for people who don’t normally like horror! And it’s an interesting way to deal with the fact that HP Lovecraft’s work is both foundational to the sci-fi genre AND written by a deeply racist dude.

SHOW NOTES:

Kathryn on the uncanny valley VMAs: 2020-took-place-nowhere.html"> https://www.vulture.com/2020/08/vmas-2020-took-place-nowhere.html

Lovecraft Country on HBO: https://www.hbo.com/lovecraft-country

On this week's episode we discuss CBS All Access's most recent addition to its Star Trek universe of shows, Lower Decks, which is different from the Bravo reality TV show BELOW Deck contrary to... one of your hosts' expectations-- bet you can't guess which!! HOWEVER, according to Kathryn, the two have more similarities than you might expect! THEN we branch off into an omnibus of Fall TV we're anticipating and at least one show Andrew would like to leave at the bottom of the Marianas Trench. In said omnibus, we discuss the following:

• Fargo, S4
• The Next Marajuana Millionaire
• The Undoing
• The Bachelorette, which has been subject to Some Shenanigans!!! this upcoming season
• The Crown, S4
• City So Real
• PEN15. S2
• Miss Scarlet and the Duke
• Star Trek: Discovery
• Leslie Jones's Supermarket Sweep (and our aspiration to be the first ever three person team on said show)
• The Bridgertons 

It's a round robin of short topics this week, including Harley Quinn, why is Louis CK back, the joys of watching Perry Mason get fucked into the crevice between a bed and the wall, and whether Lovecraft Country is too scary for wimps. 

Then, Andrew and Kathryn go head to head in the important debate of our time: are the title credits of Babylon Berlin actually a DVD menu screen? 

Friend of the show Craig Getting joins us this week to explain what the deal is with televised sports in this time when, really, no one ought to be playing any kind of sports at all. Then, in anticipation of the Supermarket Sweep reboot, we talk about some of the episodes of the old show that went up on Netflix not that long ago.  SHOW NOTES:

This is just how sports audiences look now: https://www.theverge.com/2020/7/26/21339029/virtual-baseball-mlb-nba-fox-sports-coronavirus

Supermarket Sweep on Netflix: https://www.netflix.com/title/81289176

We're surprised too, but yes, apparently television is still doing the Emmy awards this year! Not even a global pandemic can keep Jimmy Kimmel from telling us about how important television is, before then making a few lame jokes and leaving. 

Anyhow, in this episode we discuss our reaction to the 2020 Emmy nominations, but first we have a long chat about the state of television production five months into shutdown. Turns out the picture is pretty bright ... for New Zealand. 

In today's episode, we discuss the last three episodes of Season One of Tuca & Bertie, a show we all love the name of which Margaret can even occasionally pronounce correctly. In the process, we also discuss:

• Margaret's improbable employment as a semi-professional pronunciation advisor
• Fauci/Verdon
• Mall stores we'd name after which we would name our children
• Future Bones Zone guest Josh Gondelman's great essay "An Ode to Speckle, a (Bird)Man for Our Times"
• And you can hear Margaret learn, in real time, what TCBY stands for

All told, a splendid episode anyone would enjoy.

This week, film and culture critic Cate Young (@battymamzelle) joins us for a discussion of The Bold Type's uneven 4th season, and why we keep watching it anyway. Then, we dial up Netflix's The Baby-Sitters Club, just to remind ourselves what it was like six months ago when we could actually get childcare.

SHOW NOTES: Cate Young on Twitter: https://twitter.com/battymamzelle The Bold Type on Hulu: https://www.hulu.com/series/the-bold-type-45c40273-0742-4324-af23-db4a484b3af3

BSC on Netflix: https://www.netflix.com/title/81005407

More from Kathryn on BSC: baby-sitters-club-netflix-adaptation-review.html"> https://www.vulture.com/article/the-baby-sitters-club-netflix-adaptation-review.html

We kick things off this week by talking about shows like Central Park and The Simpsons, which have announced a few significant casting changes in response to the Black Lives Matter movement. Then it's Tuca and Bertie book club time! Guess what? This show still fucking rules. 

Yes folks, that's right. As the title suggests, we tackle not one but TWO all-time ATV trash classics: Andrew watches the pilot of NBC's Smash (while Kathryn and Margaret lavishly reminisce about the fun they had watching it) and then we, as a team, discuss Netflix's new extremely dumb & incredibly fun show, Floor is Lava. Highlights: whose eyes are the deadest in all of Hollywood? What screen icon does Andrew describe as "that Susan Collins looking lady"? And, best of all, who would we cast on Celebrity Floor is Lava and how would they fare? PLUS: bonus dunking on Cancel of Dads. Pertinent links:

• Megan Hilty performing "The National Pastime" from SMASH
• Megan Hilty performing "They Just Keep Moving the Line" from SMASH
• No videos whatsoever of Katherine McPhee singing a single, solitary song from SMASH
• Andrew and beloved Overdummy Craig Getting's recommendations for is-lava-netflix-game-show-more-lava.html"> how Floor is Lava can improve
• in-floor-is-lavas-lava-and-other-burning-questions.html"> Vulture's interview with Floor is Lava creators wherein the making of the lava is detailed at length
• Where you should go to do your part to make sure that Steve Dowling gets his

This week, we continue our Tuca & Bertie TV Book Club with episodes 3, 4, and 5 of Season 1. In addition we discuss: the cancelled-before-its-time Sweet/Vicious at the behest of one of our $7-a-month Patreon supporters, and Andrew's incredible skill at coming up with perfect dumb podcast names.

In light of the surging Black Lives Matter movement, we discuss some of the major TV responses in the last few weeks, especially the cancelation of Cops and Live PD, and Bachelor's decision to finally cast a black male lead. 

We also take a long walk through our mailbag, beginning with some really thoughtful critiques we received about the subject of cops on TV and our response to the Twilight Zone. Please note that eventually the mailbag gets less serious. 

This week, we lighten things up a bit by watching the first two episode of Lisa Hanawalt's Netflix animated show, Tuca & Bertie. 

SHOW NOTES:

Tuca & Bertie: https://www.netflix.com/title/80198137

On this week's episode, inspired by Kathryn's cops-are-always-the-main-characters.html"> excellent essay on the subject, we are discussing POLICE ON TELEVISION and why, by and large, they are not doing great things for society. Along the way, we make some important stops at:

• Normalizing Injustice by Color of Change Hollywood 
• Critics' Conversation: Is TV Afraid to Tackle Police Brutality or Just Unable to Do It Well?
• How police censorship shaped Hollywood, and how pop culture changed policing  
• Opinion: Shut down all police movies and TV shows. Now. 
• 46 Stops: The Driving Life and Death of Philando Castile from Code Switch
• #127, The Crime Machine, Part I -- Reply All 

In lieu of one short topic this week, we each bring a short topic and then promise to only talk about our topic for 2 minutes each. Somehow, though, the first segment is 17 minutes long. 

Then it's time for the end of the Twilight Zone book club! This time we joke a lot about pool players and the system in heaven where you have to show up as a ghost to constantly defend your titles. 

hello hi yes hello guess what hi we finally did our last good one/bad one combo!!!!!! for the spring season!!!!! we put it off for so many weeks BUT THIS WEEK wasn't one of them, so here it is! OUR EPISODE! We talk about The Bachelor: Listen to Your Heart (not worse than Cancel of Dads, but LONGER) and Run (ultimately not as good a one as we hoped by god, Merritt Weaver is so beautiful, so do we even care?). Join us to learn how chamber ensemble music camp is like The Bachelor, whether Margaret's gaydar is working, and how long Margaret will attempt to communicate non-verbally before recalling she is making a podcast and must instead articulate her thoughts.

The second season of What We Do in the Shadows is one of the precious few shows left that still has new pre-pandemic episodes rolling out every week, so we talk about how great it is. Then, it’s back to the Twilight Zone, to watch some all-time series high-watermarks (S03E08, S01E08, S05E03).

What We Do in the Shadows (Hulu): https://www.hulu.com/series/what-we-do-in-the-shadows-0b10c46a-12f0-4357-8a00-547057b49bac

Vulture’s 50 best Twilight Zone episodes: zone-best-episodes.html"> https://www.vulture.com/article/twilight-zone-best-episodes.html

Did you know there will still be some TV this summer? There will! Not very much, but the summer won't be a complete content desert, and we're going to run through a few of the things we're hoping will give us some welcome summer distractions. 

We also talk about the Parks and Rec reunion episode. We were not big fans, alas, but we use it as a springboard to talk about what we think works about this kind of sad event TV and whether anyone really wants a Very Special Covid Episode. (We think probably not.) 

This week we return with another mind-blowing visit to The Twilight Zone, with a special (coincidental) emphasis on stories where women are driven mad by happenstance. Also we have small complaints we just gotta get off our chests ok???

SHOW NOTES:

Stumptown: https://abc.com/shows/stumptown

The Last Dance: https://www.espn.com/watch/catalog/2806434b-1deb-4c5c-aae0-04b1ab8eebf7/the-last-dance

The Bold Type: https://www.hulu.com/series/the-bold-type-45c40273-0742-4324-af23-db4a484b3af3

Vulture’s list of The Twilight Zone episodes: zone-best-episodes.html">https://www.vulture.com/article/twilight-zone-best-episodes.html

Hello, fellow quaranitine madness sufferers, and welcome to the latest ATV.

Is Margaret once again recording with the wrong mic this week? She sure is, and she blames Zoom. She's not sure what Zoom has to do with it, but she's still confident they're at fault.

We also talk about the new Who Wants to Be a Millionare? and the myriad ways in which it's the worst. We debate if any Late Night Jimmy other than Kimmel could have saved it. Margaret's mic? It's the still the wrong on this whole segment!

AND THEN we talk about Mrs. America! Margaret's mic remains bad but her ability to pronounce Schlafly and Abzug on her very first try is so impressive that maybe you'll stop noticing.

At the end of the episode, Andrew suggests that we might edit part of the show so that it flows more smoothly and Kathryn, bless her shining head, says "....we'll see."

You will see that we didn't, proving that once again, Kathryn is always right.

This week we roll out a new a new TV book club, the top 10 episodes of The Twilight Zone! We definitely told you about this book club in previous episodes, and we gave you plenty of warning this was coming on our social media feeds. If you're feeling at all gaslit about that, keep in mind that it's very thematically in keeping with a book club on The Twilight Zone. 

Before we dig into our first Twilight Zone episode (season 4's "On Thursday We Leave For Home"), Kathryn shares some brief thoughts on Quibi. 

This week we talk about the things we have been watching since we’ve been stuck in our houses with our televisions. And then, appropriately, we talk about the TLC reality show Dr. Pimple Popper. We also talk about Law & Order SVU a lot? Which is confusing to Andrew but clearly he's out of his element and should be forgiven for it.

SHOW NOTES:

Mrs. Maisel: https://www.amazon.com/Marvelous-Mrs-Maisel-Season/dp/B06VYH1GF7

Batman: The Animated Series: https://www.dcuniverse.com/videos/batman-the-animated-series/65/season-1

Evil: https://www.cbs.com/shows/evil/episodes/

The Bold Type: https://www.hulu.com/series/the-bold-type-45c40273-0742-4324-af23-db4a484b3af3

Stumptown: https://www.hulu.com/series/stumptown-70cc8703-43db-4d87-96ae-146a4ed81d3f

Law & Order SVU: https://www.nbc.com/law-and-order-special-victims-unit/episodes

Dr. Pimple Popper: https://www.tlc.com/tv-shows/dr-pimple-popper/