Emily St. James is a writer and critic whose work has appeared in Vox, The A.V. Club, and the New York Times. She is the co-creator of the podcast Arden and a writer on the TV series Yellowjackets.
Over the weekend, I took in the film Sleeping With Other People, mostly because I needed the air conditioning. (Los Angeles can't seem to escape the heat wave it's been in since April, seemingly, and the apartment I'm currently in lacks central air.) It
During the brief unemployment that preceded my current career, I realized that the job I was probably best cut out for was freelance journalism. Thinking long and hard about it, I narrowed my choices down to two: TV or travel. TV had the advantage of me knowing a lot about
These are, without dispute, the 11 best musical moments in the soundtrack to "Once More, With Feeling," the musical episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. 11) "They got the mustard out!" Specifically when the chorus sings it, then does the dance with the shirts. Perfect. 10)
I read a lot of writing from young, wannabe critics in my job. That's partially because of my annual Christmas readathon (which I still have to complete for 2014... don't tell anyone). It's partially because my job involves keeping up with younger, up-and-coming writers.
Every TV critic has one or two shows they backed from the pilot stage, only to have them blow up in their face. It's why we all tend to hedge our bets as much as possible if we only have one or two episodes to go off of.
It's October, the start of my three favorite months of the year; the time when Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas stuff all nestles comfortably next to each other at your local department store; and the perfect time to think about what's become, somewhat surprisingly, my favorite genre:
(An actual, though heavily condensed, argument I had with my wife this evening.) EMILY: Do you think if a lesbian couple decided to become parents, both wives might decide to give birth at the same time? LIBBY: No. Why? EMILY: So they could have twins. LIBBY: That wouldn't
The Sopranos, The Wire, and Deadwood aren't just three of the best TV series of all time. They also, weirdly, tell the entire story of America, in HBO-friendly terms. (Let us pause, briefly, here to say that the continued downgrading of Deadwood in SOME CORNERS is just awful,
An idea we kicked around a few times at AV Club but never quite licked was the idea of some sort of feature on the best lineups in TV history. We had a few different notions of how to tackle this, from single-article ideas, to full-fledged features. But nothing ever
NARRATOR: Emily and Libby met at college, and they've been together ever since! This fun-loving couple enjoys hanging out with their many cats, playing board games, and watching TV. In fact, they love TV so much, they both get paid to do it! EMILY: I guess it was
Somewhere around the point that a band of insane criminals dropped a bunch of bodies from the top of a building so that they spelled out MANIAX on the ground below, I realized I was going to watch every single episode of Gotham this season, after bailing shortly into season
I'm 21, just barely, when my father asks me when my girlfriend and I will be getting married. My grandfather has died. The funeral was a few days before Christmas, and the family soldiered on through the holiday, because it felt better to practice happiness than to realize