It's been six years since I last hosted a podcast of any kind (RIP, Too Long; Didn't Watch), and eight years since I last hosted a weekly TV discussion podcast (RIP, TV Avalanche). In the time since, I've tried getting back into the podcasting game, but it hasn't worked out, for one reason or another. Until now!
One week from today, you'll be able to listen to, or watch, the first full episode of TV Is Good, a new podcast hosted by me and Vulture's Kathryn VanArendonk. Kathryn is my good friend, and we live five minutes from each other in the Jersey 'burbs. We talk so much about TV every day that we eventually decided to do it in a version that other people could be the audience for.
We released a preview episode this morning explaining how it's all going to work. You can watch it:
Or listen to it:
But if you're just reading this and don't have time for that — or to download the preview to your podcasting app of choices (links below) — here are the basics:
- TV Is Good will be a weekly show, released on Monday morning, clocking in at roughly an hour each time.
- Every episode will feature us discussing a new thing in TV. Sometimes, this will be a review of a new show — next week's episode will have us talking about Apple's new Tatiana Maslany vehicle Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed — while at others, it will be us talking about a returning show, or doing spoiler discussion on a finale or other big episode, or responding to some notable development in the world of TV. In the preview episode, for instance, we briefly talked about last week's surprise drop of a The Bear episode. Had that happened during a regular production week, we probably would have done a full segment on it.
- Every episode will also feature us talking about a series, episode, trend, or what have you, from TV's past. Some weeks, it will be thematically paired in some way with the new topic, like how the Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed discussion will be followed by us talking about Weeds and the history of TV Moms Do Crimes. And with me and Kathryn involved, you can safely assume there will be a lengthy bottle episode debate at some point.
- Some episodes will be roughly 50/50 between present and past. Some will lean heavily in one direction or the other, depending on what's new that week. Some will have more than two topics.
- For those of you old enough to remember, yes, the name was inspired by ABC's marketing campaign from the 1997-98 TV season. At the time, people made fun of the phrase, but it always stuck with me. Kathryn and I love TV. We wouldn't do this for a living if we didn't. We're always going to be honest about the shows we talk about, and we're not going to hype things undeservingly just to live up to the title. But the hope, whenever possible, is to spend time talking about things we enjoy.
- The weekly show will be free. Sometime in the next month or so, we'll also be launching a Patreon with a monthly paid bonus episode, featuring deeper dives into various topics, plus DVD-style commentaries on memorable episodes of television. We'll have more details about that soon, but you can sign up for free for now at Patreon.com/TVIsGoodPod.
As you can tell from the video embed, the show will be available on YouTube. It will also be available from all major podcast platforms, including Apple:
Spotify:
iHeart:
It's also on Amazon Music, and if you use another service, and/or want to add the show manually to whatever player you use, the RSS feed is https://feeds.acast.com/public/shows/69f4aa1b9dcd58edd9e316e9
The podcast also has its own social media accounts on Instagram, BlueSky, Threads, and TikTok.
To quote the hosts of every show you listen to say, please remember to subscribe, rate/like, and review, because the algorithm uses that data to decide what shows to promote to people who don't already know about them. Please help us beat the algorithm at its own game. You can also write to the two of us specifically at tvisgoodpod@gmail.com.
I'll be doing weekly free posts here with info on each episode, plus video and audio embeds if you prefer to just consume them on this site.
We hope you like it!
