Wednesday, April 16, 2008

What changed: TV, the Internet, or Me?

Remember back in September when I was bitching about how Television Without Pity changed their layout? I don't know if you know, but founders Sars, Wing Chung, and Glark (or Sarah Bunting, Tara Ariano, and David Cole) left the website. I don't know if it was a condition of the buyout or if they decided not to renew their contracts (Gawker has some thoughts). But, my point is, Bravo redesigned the site again, and it's even more different and less user-friendly than before. I went on their the other day to see what episodes from Season Two of ER were recapped (they didn't start regularly recapping ER until like the 3rd or 4th season, but they did retroactively recap some eps from the first seasons. These recaps obviously have a much later "published" date than "air" date.). Now, you used to be able to sort the recaps by published date, air date, [something else I can't remember] either oldest to most recent or most recent to oldest. Now apparently I only have the choice to either look at the 10 most recent ER recaps or all of the recaps listed in decending order by published date. It was really hard for me to pick out the season two recaps since I had no idea when they had been writen. I know I don't really like change, but this is rediculous. I want things the way they used to be.

I used to go to TWoP every day. Even if there wasn't a show I was keeping up with, I would still check out the site to see if there was anything else of interest. Nowadays, I just visit the site whenever I want to look at an old recap for ER or House or whatever random show I'm watching. I visit maybe 3 times a month.

I'm not really sure what's changed. Sure, the layout and design sucks, but the content is still the same. There is the fact that I'm really not watching many shows that aren't in syndication on TNT, and most of those shows aren't recapped anyway. So I have less of a reason to go to the site.

And let us just ponder for a moment why I haven't been watching much tv. There are some shows I intentionally stopped watching (Heroes, Guilty Pleasure Gossip Girl)because I fell behind while in Hawaii and then the long writer's strike made me feel like I hadn't watched the shows in forever and I didn't want to be behind. I'm planning on catching up on DVD, or maybe I'll check out what this whole hulu.com thing is. And then there are the shows I just completely lost interest in. I'm looking at you, Prison Break. Also, I've been checking a lot of TV-on-DVD out from the library. It's a great way to watch the shows I want to see without having to pay to buy or even rent the seasons. Renting may be replaced by hulu, we'll have to see. TV-on-DVD takes up a lot of time, time I would normally spend watching TV-on-TV. Then there's the fact that I've been developing hobbies that don't require me to sit on my ass in front of a tv. You know, hobbies that require me to sit on my ass in front of a computer or sewing machine.

There used to be several shows I would follow religiously, and then read the recaps on TWoP. Now, I don't. I don't really know what has changed.

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