# TV review sites like AV Club used to be?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-review-sites-like-av-club-used-to-be/796836>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [September 20, 2017, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-review-sites-like-av-club-used-to-be/796836 "2017-09-20T22:50:42Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 12\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Paintcharge](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/paintcharge/32/7946_2.png) [@Paintcharge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paintcharge)\
**Post date:** [September 20, 2017, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-review-sites-like-av-club-used-to-be/796836/1 "2017-09-20T22:50:42Z")

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Since the AV Club has switched to their new location at Kinja, it really has gone downhill to something useless. They review far fewer shows, and what they do, are mostly ones I don’t care about. I use IO9 and the Uprox tv site is ok. Anybody know of good sites for genre (sci-fi) and quality tv reviews/previews?

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**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\
**Post date:** [September 21, 2017, 9:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-review-sites-like-av-club-used-to-be/796836/2 "2017-09-21T09:39:53Z")

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I skim [EW.com](http://EW.com), Vulture, and suprisingly, Vox, which I started checking for politics, but their pop culture isn’t bad.

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**Author:** ![Intergalactic\_Gladiator](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/intergalactic_gladiator/32/112_2.png) [@Intergalactic\_Gladiator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Intergalactic_Gladiator)\
**Post date:** [September 21, 2017, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-review-sites-like-av-club-used-to-be/796836/3 "2017-09-21T15:42:41Z")

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AV Club has been reviewing fewer shows in the past year or so and before the Kinja switch. They’ve been pretty upfront about it though and honest about it being all about the money. Fer instance, Modern Family gets a lot of activity so that shows is still reviewed whereas The Goldbergs didn’t get enough attention despite Adam Goldberg actually spending time in the comments section.

Despite this, AV Club is still my main goto for TV reviews. I really haven’t found another site that I like, so I’m willing to entertain suggestions as well.

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**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\
**Post date:** [September 21, 2017, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-review-sites-like-av-club-used-to-be/796836/4 "2017-09-21T15:53:48Z")

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If by “reviews” you mean recaps, I read them on the Entertainment Weekly, Vulture and New York Times websites. And sometimes it’s simplest just to Google something like, “Show Name season #, episode # recap”, particularly for the more obscure shows.

Edited to add, there are a couple of sites for which the “recap” is simply a series of screenshots. That’s completely useless. When I want a recap, I want some commentary about the episode and a description of the plot.

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**Author:** ![Tangent](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tangent/32/3098_2.png) [@Tangent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tangent)\
**Post date:** [September 21, 2017, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-review-sites-like-av-club-used-to-be/796836/5 "2017-09-21T17:36:14Z")

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When Television Without Pity was taken down, [Previously.tv](http://Previously.tv) was created by some of the TWoP folks as a sort of successor. I mostly read the forums, so I can’t speak to the quality of their recaps these days.

> **[PRIMETIMER](https://www.primetimer.com)**
>
> Tracking the Peak TV era in real-time.

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**Author:** ![snoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@snoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snoe)\
**Post date:** [September 21, 2017, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-review-sites-like-av-club-used-to-be/796836/6 "2017-09-21T19:16:49Z")

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Since you mention Kinja, I wonder if you’re mostly annoyed by the interface for reviews and/or reading/posting comments?

If it’s the latter, you can try the super-secret, super-exclusive AV Club After Dark group on Disqus!

> **[Disqus Channel - The A.V. Club After Dark](https://disqus.com/home/channel/theavclubafterdark/)**
>
> This is but a husk of The Avocado, which has moved to our new site here: https://the-avocado.org/

(They don’t post new reviews, but they do link to them and provide a forum for discussion that doesn’t use Kinja.)

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**Author:** ![nightshadea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7ba0ec/32.png) [@nightshadea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nightshadea)\
**Post date:** [September 21, 2017, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-review-sites-like-av-club-used-to-be/796836/7 "2017-09-21T19:33:54Z")

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it seems to be back …[http://www.televisionwithoutpity.com/](http://www.televisionwithoutpity.com/)

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**Author:** ![Paintcharge](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/paintcharge/32/7946_2.png) [@Paintcharge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paintcharge)\
**Post date:** [September 21, 2017, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-review-sites-like-av-club-used-to-be/796836/8 "2017-09-21T20:21:48Z")

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Thanks for the tips.

Mostly I liked AV Club for their write-ups and them previewing things that I hadn’t heard of yet.

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**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\
**Post date:** [September 21, 2017, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-review-sites-like-av-club-used-to-be/796836/9 "2017-09-21T20:30:42Z")

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> [@nightshadea](#):
>
> it seems to be back …[http://www.televisionwithoutpity.com/](http://www.televisionwithoutpity.com/)

The frame is there-the body…not so much. When you click on a link the picture on the top changes, but that’s it.

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**Author:** ![Tangent](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tangent/32/3098_2.png) [@Tangent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tangent)\
**Post date:** [September 21, 2017, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-review-sites-like-av-club-used-to-be/796836/10 "2017-09-21T21:12:56Z")

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> [@nightshadea](#):
>
> it seems to be back …[http://www.televisionwithoutpity.com/](http://www.televisionwithoutpity.com/)

> [@Czarcasm](#):
>
> The frame is there-the body…not so much. When you click on a link the picture on the top changes, but that’s it.

That made me curious, so I looked for more info:

The Wikipedia page on TWoP says:

> [@](#):
>
> As of December 2016, visiting any page within the [televisionwithoutpity.com](http://televisionwithoutpity.com) domain results in receiving a message featuring the site’s mascot Tubeelzebub, stating “Welcome back, you devil,” an apparent reference to the site’s upcoming return in 2017.

But then I looked elsewhere and found this article from April of this year:

> [@](#):
>
> Television Without Pity, which was supposed be revived later this year, is also being scrapped, according to the individual.

> **[Tribune Layoffs: Screener TV to Shut Down, Television Without Pity Relaunch...](https://www.thewrap.com/tribune-layoffs-screener-tv-shut-television-without-pity-relaunch-scrapped-exclusive/)**
>
> "The overall sentiment was shock and surprise," insider tells TheWrap

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**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\
**Post date:** [September 21, 2017, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-review-sites-like-av-club-used-to-be/796836/11 "2017-09-21T23:36:03Z")

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I go to Metacritic to see all the reviews collected in one place; click on any show and they provide clickthroughs to individual reviews.

> **[New TV Shows](https://www.metacritic.com/browse/tv/release-date/new-series/date)**
>
> See how well critics are rating new TV Shows Metacritic.com

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**Author:** ![Tom\_Tildrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e95f7d/32.png) [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)\
**Post date:** [September 22, 2017, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-review-sites-like-av-club-used-to-be/796836/12 "2017-09-22T02:08:16Z")

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Reality Tea has snarky recaps of some reality shows.
