Nine Recappers Who Make TV Better
The Internet is about 55% composed of people talking about what was on TV last night. That's fun! But you can't read everything, and that's a whole lot of Internet. Besides, there's no point in reading things about TV shows written by people who are less smart than you. You would like them to bring something to the conversation you are already having! Truth be told, the age of excellent TV recapping may be drawing to a close. When "Lost" shuttered, leaving EW's Doc Jensen with little purpose in life, so too did TV recapping enter a bit of a funk. But still, there is real talent out there! For seven of the most popular shows on TV, here are the best recappers that you can even be proud to read.
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I dunno, Balk's Lost recaps turned out to be the most accurate.
For Mad Men and Glee
http://projectrungay.blogspot.com/
CAAF also likes this website a lot! She speaks very highly of it!
Alan Sepinwall for pretty much everything.
Onion AV Club, hands down.
Just stop when you see the word "Comments"
At great personal cost, Richard still wins all prizes for 'Housewives' recapping.
His recap of Kelly's breakdown was perfect.
A couple of times I have accidentally caught part of an episode of Housewives of Wherever and feel firm that his recaps are far better than the show itself.
@pattycakes: There needs to be a special category for his recaps of terrible, terrible shows: Real Housewives, Gossip Girl, whatever show it was that Tinsley Mortimer's brother was on, basically any show that you really, desperately would want _not_ to watch, he's the king of recapping.
Yes, completely. Crazy to leave him out for his work in that genre. It's inspiring.
RICHARD LAWSON 4EVER
Very underminder-like, Choire. You know why.
Can the next Awl spinoff site be dedicated to Friday Night Lights?
The Wreakapper: Awl recaps. Awl the time.
Although that was a joke, it occurs to me that I probably would read a blog of nothing but Awl writers/pals/commenters recapping their favorite/least favorite/some combination of both shows.
"Besides, there's no point in reading things about TV shows written by people who are less smart than you. You would like them to bring something to the conversation you are already having!"
Should read: "If you're going to read television recaps about shows you already saw, you should at least read talented writers that let you forget momentarily how ridiculous it is that they're being paid to write recaps of television shows."
I just need to point out that the TV-recap-as-artform was pioneered by Danny Drennan's 90210 Updates, in the 90's:
http://www.inquisitor.com/90210/season5.shtml
Gabe Liedman's "Glee" recaps for Videogum belong in a museum. A museum with lots of cursing and wacky allusions.
The best recaps I ever read were the Amazing Race recaps written by Josh Wolk at Entertainment Weekly a few years ago. When Wolk left EW to become NY Magazine's Entertainment Editor, he still did Amazing Race recaps Vulture for a short while, but then Vulture mysteriously stopped publishing them (even though Wolk still works there.)
I will never understand why this happened, because they were the best recaps ever. I used to watch Amazing Race for the sole reason that, by doing so, I could enjoy reading Wolk's recap the next day.