The state of TV Squad

• What's going on with Retro Squad?
• What shows are we covering this fall? And how do we decide what to cover?
• What are you doing about the Emmys?
• What the hell are these stars near peoples' names?
• What happened to the podcast?
• New RSS feeds.

What's going on with Retro Squad?
Retro Squad was an experiment meant to fill in the gaps of what's usually a slow summer season on TV. Last year was pretty light for news here, so we thought this was a good way to break things up a bit while having some fun. What I miscalculated on was how long into the fall some of these shows would invade.

Right now some of us are doing double-duty on Retro show reviews as we try to wrap things up for the incoming new shows. Already you may have seen some shows appearing twice or more a week, and this is why. Buffy was easy, as its first season was a short one, but other shows that ran 22 or more episodes are a different story.

Next summer we'll reevaluate how we handle Retro Squad so it doesn't get in the way of other shows. We're looking for your input here as well! Did you like Retro Squad? Are there shows you'd rather see us cover/not cover next summer? Would you rather we just chose "top" episodes of the season of the shows, or should we continue to run the full season? These are the things we'll be thinking about.

Also, next season we hope to work on getting more special guests to work with us in reviewing and commenting on the episodes.

What shows are we covering this fall? And how do you decide what to cover?
Let me answer the first question first. A rule here amongst the writers is that nobody will be forced to watch a show or write a review for it. If nobody wants to watch Vanished, I'm not going to make them. If it looks like a show is important enough to cover, yet nobody has time in their busy schedule of other TV watching to cover it, we will consider bringing someone on to help out.

We simply can't cover every show. There are also some great shows that some of us watch that just don't warrant a weekly review (like Two and a Half Men, for example). We do listen to you all and will make adjustments when we see there's demand for it. We just added reviews for Kyle XY, for example, because there was a significant voice for it (but seriously, who would've thought ABC Family would have something for us to cover?)

As for what shows we're covering this fall, I'll give you a list of what we know so far will be covered. As for the new shows, the rule at TV Squad is this: If a TV Squad writer says they want to cover that show, they must cover at least the premiere episode. If they decide the show sucks and want to stop right there, then that's fine and nothing more is done unless some other writer wants to step in. If the person writing for the show decides sometime later they want to drop the show, they must either find a replacement within TV Squad or write to all of you fine folks as to why they don't want to write for it anymore. Brutal, huh?

Here's the list. Like I said, it may be added to:

24
30 Rock
The Amazing Race
American Idol
The Bachelor
Battlestar Galactica
Caprica
The Class
Criminal Minds
Day Break
Desperate Housewives
Dexter
Everybody Hates Chris
Extras
Family Guy
Gilmore Girls
Grey's Anatomy
Heroes
House
How I Met Your Mother
Jericho
Justice
King of the Hill
Lost
Men in Trees
My Name is Earl
The Nine
Nip/Tuck
Numb3rs
The O.C.
The Office
Prison Break
Project Runway
Scrubs
Shark
The Shield
The Simpsons
Six Degrees
Smallville
Smith
SNL
The Sopranos
South Park
Standoff
Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip
Survivor
SVU
Traveler
Ugly Betty
Veronica Mars
Weeds
The Wire

What are we doing about the Emmys?
We've tossed around ideas for a few weeks now -- contests, personal lists and picks, polls -- and simply put, not a whole lot of the Squad is excited about the Emmys. Joel summed up his thoughts on why he doesn't much care for them and, speaking for myself, I see where he's coming from. We'd considered trying to get a blogger or two to attend the event, but in speaking with people who've been there, it's not really worth the hassle (at least not yet).

So, at least this time around, we won't bother you with a multitude of pick lists and such. However, we will be providing you with a up-to-the-minute updated post listing the winners as the Emmys show progresses. Look for that post to show up sometime before the show. For other coverage, our buds at AOL TV will be covering the show live in a multitude of ways, so be sure to check that out.

What the hell are these stars near peoples' names?
This is one of the top questions we're asked. Those stars definitely have a purpose that will show itself at some point, though when that will be is relatively unknown to me. Eventually we mean for those stars to allow our commenting faithful to not have to approve every comment they post, for example. We also mean to eventually use them in creative ways in contests. One idea I had was a betting pool, where you could use stars for money.

But right now a lot of people who deserve stars simply aren't getting them. All of the writers here at TV Squad are allowed to assign/take away stars from commenters -- that's how they're doled out. But since we don't know ourselves where those stars will be used, we don't make a whole lot of effort to hand them out these days (one exception being the Subtle Subtitles contests). Once we do learn the fate of the stars, I'm sure they'll be handed out more regularly.

What happened to the podcast?
Like you care? *sniff* Actually, while it was a lot of fun for Joel and I, it came down to a lot of work for little reward. Instead we're currently working on something to replace it, something that actually makes more sense for a TV blog -- a weekly vidcast. Don't worry, it won't be me and Joel you'll have to look at, and the vidcast will be only about five minutes long. It's not settled quite yet, but I hope it to be soon.

And hey, if you liked the podcast and want to see it back, my ego would like a word with you.

New RSS feeds
You've been able to subscribe to the feeds for the entire site and each individual category for a while now, but now we've got a new one: tag subscriptions.

Right now you can't see what words we tag to posts, though that may change in the near future. A tag is an identifiable word that we place on a post that helps search engines and places like Technorati find our posts. If you want to see all the posts we've tagged with "the view" (who ARE you?), you can visit http://www.aoltv.com/tag/theview and for the RSS feed for that tag: http://www.aoltv.com/tag/theview/rss.xml. The same goes for any tag you can think of that we might use.

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Anyway, that's it for now. If you've got other questions of suggestions for us, please mention them in the comments. As always, you can email us at tvsquad@gmail.com as well. Have a good weekend!