RIP, Television Without Pity, we hardly know ye

Many years ago my favorite radio station changed formats, from oldie rock to heavy metal.  To announce the change they looped some metal song that featured a bell tolling and played nothing but “Dong . . .Dong . . . Dong” for 24 hours straight.  Then the old time rock and roll went away ad was replaced by talentless hacks whose only distinguishing characteristic were amps that went to 11.  At the time I said it was like losing a family member; not a brother or parent, but a cousin or a distant aunt.

I feel much the same way this week as the Television Without Pity website announced it was ceasing operations on April 4.  This was my second favorite website, following only the invaluable Internet Movie Database, and I cannot fathom what my internet experience will be without it.

TWOP saved my sanity.  I found it about ten years when one of my all-time favorite series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, was in its last season.  The thing was, I thought it stunk.  Oh, it was still better than 99% of the drek on TV, but compared to the first five seasons it was decidedly inferior.  Many fans of the show share my belief, and most of us blamed show runner Marti Noxon for the drop in quality after Joss Whedon turned over the reins to her after season five.

The problem was, all the Buffy episode websites I regularly visited were occupied by dewy-eyed naïfs who just thought every episode was one of the best ones ever!  That view was so pervasive I started to doubt my artistic judgment.  Maybe I was too old to be a fan of Buffy.  Maybe I didn’t get it.

Then I found TWOP, whose motto is (was) “Spare the snark, spoil the show.”  Their philosophy was that if you are a fan of a show, you should hold the creators to a higher standard.  The recappers there pointed out every illogical plot twist in Buffy season 7 episodes.  The posters on their comment board railed against every easy cliché and overly-familiar line of dialog.  At last I had found kindred spirits!  People who loved Buffy but hated seasons six and seven. 

I followed shows on TWOP ever since, from lesser efforts like John Doe (I knew the show would be cancelled when new episodes generated less than two pages of comments) to shows deeply in need of immediate analysis like Lost.  The recaps were hilarious, the posted comments incredibly insightful.  I still recall a posted comment on the Suits forum that suggested that the reason why the character of Louis Litt was so popular despite being the “bad guy” was that the part was written as a generic foil for the main character, but they cast an actor who invested the role with more than was written on the page.  This comes to mind every time I see actor Rick Hoffman nail a scene.

I don’t understand the economics of running an internet site, but it is sad whenever someone who produces a quality product can’t make it in the American marketplace.  In the ten or so years I’ve visited TWOP, I’ve only had one criticism: they keep nominating the Doctor’s TARDIS for their “Best Performance by an Inanimate Object” award, when everyone knows the TARDIS is NOT inanimate but is very much alive.

So farewell, Television Without Pity!  I still own your book “752 Things We Love to Hate (and Hate to Love) About TV” to remember you by.  I will keep your bookmark as a memorial to a website that was a point of light in a sea of dismal offal.  Fare thee well!