When you start a new show (that has been out for awhile), do you read old SDMB threads about it?

Cafe Society
1

I do. I do this with pretty much every new show I start or watch, since I typically don’t start or watch shows until it’s been on for a long time already or is already done and over with.

So far I’ve enjoyed reading past threads about each episode of: 24, Breaking Bad, House, Monk, The Office, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Prison Break, How I Met Your Mother, Glee, and 30 Rock.

Sometimes I’ll start a show and search to see if any threads about each episode exist on here and it will be a show rarely talked about, which always makes me sad. For example: Weeds didn’t have many discussion topics about it, on here, back in the day it was on. Neither did Ugly Betty in the later seasons.

Yet some shows (some I haven’t started yet, but plan to, someday) seem to have a thread for every episode. Game of Thrones and The West Wing and Community and a few others seem to always have weekly threads.

Anyway, I’m going to be starting The Walking Dead soon and I KNOW that that’s one of the shows the SDMB always has a really long weekly thread about, for each episode. I can’t wait. I enjoy looking up and reading the thread about the episodes almost as much as I do watching the show itself. Only bad thing is, though (obviously) is that when you do it that way, you never get to be a part of the actual discussion since it happened years and years previously already.

2

Yes, if I remember seeing the thread titles from when they first aired and know that there was some discussion about individual episodes. After I’ve seen those episodes, I’ll search for the threads even if it was years ago–Mad Men, Sopranos, Lost, the first series of Game of Thrones, for example.

3

Yes, I just did that with season one of Community, which I obviously got around to very late. It’s the type of show where I expect others to frequently point out details I’ve missed.

4

No. The risk of spoilers is too high.

5

I don’t read old threads if I start watching a show, but I might look at old threads when I finish watching a show.

6

I do, which why I really like episodic threads, rather than whole season threads (though I understand why sometimes that’s not feasible). Entire series dumps (like Netflix), make it a real challenge to read the discussion, since all the episodes get discussed in kind of a jumble.

7

^ This. For instance, I’m avoiding the thread on the 2nd season of The Expanse until after I watch the 2nd season of The Expanse.

8

Oh yeah! I love the SDMB as a resource this way. I have been turned on to shows I didn’t know about, persuaded to check out shows I thought I wouldn’t like prior to hearing Dopers’ POVs, and yeah, research shows that have been out for a bit that I am considering checking out.

9

Same here- I love the Game of Thrones season as much for the threads as the show but also have really enjoyed going through the Breaking Bad threads, Six Feet Under and a bunch of other old threads for shows I didn’t see until late or after the fact. The only thing I don’t like is feeling that it’s pointless to post on them since they are so far gone but it’s still fun to read.

Also… one of the reasons I love this board is the consistency of The Godfather raising it’s head with a new thread about once a month or so…

10

Yeah, me too. I can only read the per-season threads when I’ve finished the whole season, but the per-episode threads I can sort of follow along with the conversation. I will sometimes even post (although I know that the discussion has mostly moved on, but I figure there are a few people who will come along later like I did).

11

I watched several seasons of Community in 2016 and enjoyed reading the threads here after many of the episodes.

12

actually I read the threads on some shows just to hear the discussion/debate when they pick them apart …like I loathe big bang theory (hur hurr funny nerds hurr ) but I read the thread every week just to see whats up and the discussions

13

Yes, I just recently watched Westworld, which had a very thorough thread here that was fun to follow along.

I’m also about 4 episodes into This is Us, so I checked out that thread, too. Not sure I’ll keep up with that show.

But yes, this is not uncommon for me.

14

On the other hand, I watched Westworld from beginning to end and then I took a look at the thread afterwards. I’m glad I didn’t read it as I was watching, because I’m not a big fan of listening to other people trying to guess what twists will come. (My mother is the type of person who will watch a mystery show and say “I bet he’s the murderer” every three minutes, which does not increase my enjoyment.)

Avoiding SDMB threads is one thing, but whenever I’m watching a TV show my instant reaction is to look up the actors in Wikipedia. Usually that’s harmless, but every once in a while I see something like: “Joe Bleaux is an American actor who is best known for being the star of The Random Show before his character died in an extremely shocking surprise twist in Season 2.” Oops.