So the major TV recapping site TelevisionWithoutPity will go offline in a couple of months.
I’m a little sad about it. Sure, there are plenty of better recap sites out there nowadays, with more interesting commenters (The AV Club, for example) but TWOP was probably the first site I registered at, the first site I learnt to piss away countless hours at, and the first site which annoyed me so much I went to bitch about it on other sites.
TWOP moderation was always annoying (remember Fametracker’s epic meltdown?). Recaps were sometimes great, though. Their mockery of Dawson’s Creek was brilliant and whoever recapped The Wire had a sharp appreciation for the show’s genius (and the accompanying forum was good too).
Allow me a bit of possibly misguided nostalgia- I remember fondly when people who used the internet were slightly odd people gathering to discuss a specific topic, rather than the more individualistic set up of Twitter, Tumblr and Facebook. Even the transition of LiveJournal users to Tumblr represents this individualism, if you look at these site’s respective functionalities.
Anyway, maybe this is part of this transition, or maybe the site has been eclipsed by better alternatives, but either way I’ll miss TWOP.
Can’t remember the last time I spent time there–I think they started biting off more than they could chew, taking on movies as well (adequately but redundantly). But it did come in handy when I missed an episode of serial TV, and they were the only major site that called out the beloved Rupert on Survivor for what he truly was: a huge whiney baby. So for that, I’m grateful.
And some of the recaps were truly hilarious, though I never spent time on their boards. RIP.
I remember rapidly (rabidly?) consuming their Dawson’s Creek recaps when I was about 12. I spoiled myself (am in the UK) reading all about Jack’s coming out storyline.
Their Smallville recaps were a thing of beauty and a joy forever. I watched the show for way longer than I should have just to keep up with the recaps.
The boards could be fun and silly, or silly and aggravating, depending. I haven’t posted there in a couple of years but used to spend a lot of time there procrastinating from grad school work. I’ll be sad to see the site go.
TWoP has been around for so long, in various forms, that I sort of assumed it would be around forever. I’ll be sad to see it go. My most-read recaps: The Real World, The Sopranos, Buffy, ER, AntM.
What happens to all of that TV writing? Does it just vanish? I feel like those Dawson’s recaps belong in a museum of history.
Aww, man! I used to read TWOP all the time. I fell in love with their recaps of “American Idol” back in season one. I’d still read it today but I don’t watch broadcast tv anymore. We cut the cable and went to Roku.
Now I want to go there and download as many recaps as I can from shows I used to watch.
Sad. I never participated in the forums much, but I used to love Miss Ally’s Amazing Race recaps as well as the recaps of Survivor and 24 and most of the other shows I watched regularly. I kind of fell away by reading the way overblown and hyper analytic Battlestar Galactica recaps. Lately I’ve been binge watching the Wire and whenever something big happens, I have the urge to go see what the TWOP recapper said about it.
Mom was a big TWOPper during the first four years, anyway, of “The West Wing”.
Several people in the Meet Market arranged a West Wing convention in Los Angeles. We went to the WB lot. I visited Santa Monica, and dipped my toes in the Pacific for the first (and so far only) time.
Loved that site a few years back, but it’s been years since I’ve been there. Like quite a few others, I was suspended from the forums for what I felt was a rather silly reason, and all of my posts were erased. I never bothered signing back up.
Another reader from the Mighty BigTV days. (I thought changing the name was a sellout. ) Used to read the recaps. Back in the day they had the right balance of snark/article size. But, everything was better back in the day. Sigh.
I was never a poster, though. Could not stand the moderation, even as a reader. Hated “Sars” and her compadre that ran it.
Now I read the forums on the shows I watch, mostly to get facts I missed watching it. But even that is not as much fun. For example, the Castle board is all about such important discussion as whether Beckett is wearing her ring, and why not. And it goes on for PAGES.
But, because of the level of moderation that stifles any meaningful discussion, I won’t care one bit if it disappears. That, and the fact they hate Arthur Chu! Good riddance.
Huh. I had just gotten to some recaps that I thought were lacking, bringing on too much snark and not enough recap. I couldn’t figure out why they switched people in the middle of the show, or why anyone would say they liked a specific character and even though they constantly are talking about how horrible they are. But that doesn’t mean I wanted the site to shut down.
There seem to still be a lot of recappers. I don’t see why it’s shutting down, unless there are some legal problems. Granted, I did notice a dearth of comments, but surely that’s not because no one was reading the recaps, as everyone talks about them.
I did learn early on not to go anywhere near the forums, but that’s the one thing they are keeping up longer than the rest.
I’m much more used to sites existing forever even after they are otherwise completely dead. Hosting doesn’t cost all that much, and you can usually at least get money off of views.
I never ran afoul of the moderation, but I couldn’t stand the way you weren’t allowed to call people on their bullshit directly ( because it was “boards on boards” and forbidden) but had to instead report people’s posts in a separate public forum. It felt just like tattletaling behind someone’s back.
) Used to read the recaps. Back in the day they had the right balance of snark/article size. But, everything was better back in the day. Sigh.