Episodes in 2024

I began Episodes in the summer of 2015 (yeesh) for a number of reasons.

One was that I was a workaholic, trying to cure untreated gender dysphoria via writing endlessly. Another was that one of my Vox coworkers started a short-lived Tinyletter newsletter, and I thought that seemed like a good idea. Yet another was that while I loved working at Vox, I did miss the ability to write about the more esoteric topics I'd been able to tackle at The A.V. Club, the first site where I wrote criticism professionally.

Mostly, though, I wanted to link episodes of Hannibal and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the better to chat about the series' metaphorical treatment of depression and mental illness. It was the sort of post that would have been too granular for Vox and too slight for A.V. Club – just one observation made a few times. (You can read that post here.)

Then I was, like, "Hey! What if I called the newsletter Episodes and wrote about my favorite episodes of TV?" I thought that seemed like a great idea! It was the kind of retrospective, highly personal feature it was increasingly hard to sell at any website but that made for a perfect newsletter.

In the nearly nine years since that brainstorm, I think I have followed that initial kernel of an idea maybe four times. Sure, I've written about TV a lot, but I'm much more likely to write about the heist of the Howdy Doody puppet than I am, like, the second season finale of Cheers. And because I get bored with writing about the same thing over and over, this newsletter has turned into a clearinghouse for all sorts of things beyond criticism. Like it's occasionally a short story collection in the form of a recipe blog, and those posts are some of my best-performing ones!

I am fortunate to have this platform on which to do slightly ridiculous things, but in recent years, "What am I going to write for the newsletter?" has become something I struggle to figure out many weeks. That has especially become true as my career has shifted toward writing fiction and television. It's a lot harder to critique TV when you might be critiquing future coworkers.

In the process of talking this over with my wife a few weeks ago, she said, "Why don't you just write about your favorite episodes of TV?"

"I mean, that's the point of the newsletter!" I said.

"Is it?"

And from those two words, I realized: I had never actually attempted to make the newsletter Episodes about TV episodes. So in 2024, I'm going to try doing that.

Obviously, I'm going to continue writing about other things. I still love movies and music and books, and I still feel compelled to tell stories that reflect on my life. And, as mentioned, the people demand Emily Rogers content. But if I'm getting to a Wednesday where I don't know what to write about, I'll write about one of my favorite episodes ever made.

I'm going to set some ground rules for myself – like no episodes made after the debut of Yellowjackets – but for the most part, I'm going to try to celebrate the stuff I love best in a medium I really enjoy. I hope you'll come along for the ride.

And if you find yourself so inclined, a paid subscription helps us keep the lights on here. Episodes helps my wife and me get through the lean times between jobs, and if you chip in $5/month or $50/year, you get access to an entire other newsletter, published every week on Fridays, as well as the Episodes Discord and other cool perks. Neat!

If you don't have the cash, though, the Wednesday edition of this newsletter is always free, and most of the time, it's about the best TV episodes ever made.

Next week: "Marge Vs. the Monorail"