2013 In Review: Why Recaps Are Stupid

As a TV critic, I've written my fair share of recaps. I've been lucky enough to get a great deal of autonomy to write about the show I'm recapping in the way I want to do it. Some of you, though, aren’t so lucky. Reading some of the recaps out there is hard to stomach sometimes; enough so that it inspired this (probably incomplete) list of my biggest recap pet peeves. This list is targeted mostly to the editors of the world who actually have the power to change their bad habits.

And Then He Was Like And Then She Said And Then They Went To That Place
When was the last time I read a play-by-play recap because I missed a show? Hmm… probably my freshman year in high school when I went away to band camp and my stupid Dad forgot to put the VHS tape back into the VCR. I had to look up recaps on Dustin’s Days of Our Lives page to find out if Carrie and Mike kissed, and if so, what was she going to tell Austin? This hasn't been an issue since I stopped watching soap operas five days a week, and oh yeah, everybody owns a DVR and knows what the fuck Hulu is.

Calm Down There, Tolstoy
It's probably not the writer's fault they are forced to write recaps with more adjectives than a Shakespeare play. Most of the higher-ups come from the '80s, where more words get more bang for the buck ("You there! Fax me a three-page recap on 'Perfect Strangers.' We hit the presses in 9 hours!"). Unfortunately, they've forgotten that most of us have shiny object syndrome and would rather read our recaps in Wordcloud form.

Warning: Snark Ahead!
Wow, you’re such a badass. Thanks for warning me that you're about to drop some adjectives all over this Wordpress site. This might have been interesting to note if, say, Twitter were never invented. You should probably know that everyone talks shit about TV. That’s why we watch it 95% of the time. And unless your name rhymes with Smichael Schmausiello, you don't spend your time bending over and kissing showrunners' glossy taints. So it's really not necessary to tell me of an impending snark attack.

Wait, That Show Is Still On??    
It's really, really OK to stop writing recaps for shows that have decreased in popularity. I used to recap "True Blood" in seasons one and two, but I stopped watching the show in season four and haven't regretted it for a second. And the rest of the world? They did the same thing. Just because "True Blood" or "Grey’s" or "Biggest Loser" used to be watercooler shows does not mean they still are. Shift your focus to shows that people actually still find relevant.

Last Night’s 'Sons of Anarchy: The Doctorate Dissertation'
We get it. You're like, really smart. And you remember little nuances from every episode and you were probably the first one in your family to figure out that Bruce Willis is dead in "The Sixth Sense." But there's really no need to write 20,000 words about the episode, shredding it to pieces like you’re presenting scientific evidence to a board of disapproving laureates. If you're going to write an over-analyzed article about a single episode, why don’t you at least format it in comic sans to make it a little more fun to read.

One More Thing
For the love of God, stop using the word "chagrin."