Thank you, Mo!! Your birthday rant hit on a subject that was driving me bonkers too! I'm so glad that I wasn't the only one being bothered by that. You really do scare me sometimes with how often you say exactly what I was thinking! Happy Belated Birthday!

Hi mo love the podcast but cant listen to it. Pickemonkey has no conversion of it and the rss feed has not updated for this podcast or the previous couple of podcasts and i am unable to use itunes.
Is there anywhere i can get the latest podcasts in mp3 form?

Happy belated birthday. Love the podcast, just started listening a few months ago but I can tell you guys love talking about TV.

I think the "Wire/Reality," comeback has become quite pervasive throughout the interwebs but is particularly prominent in TV commentary because of the sheer time investment angle. I ran a Lost fansite and podcast for roughly four years so I'm familiar with all kinds of internet-based trolling.

On one level "The Wire/reality," comeback provides viewers that lack the written/verbal skills to quickly or concisely compose their arguments a quick defense. On your site you do a good job of trying to keep things from devolving into simplistic sniping but the vast majority of TV comment sections are going to be filled with "I loved it" or "I hated it."

When a comment section fills up with the inevitable piling on of "Wow. That sucked hard," the Wire/Reality comments are equally inevitable. It's still a childish and lazy response but I think most of the time it's just used out of misplaced anger or frustration. After investing in 13 or 100 episodes of a TV show some viewers are going to take it personally that others not only don't share their view of the show but find it to be stupid or a waste of time. If you really liked a certain TV show and grow weary of reading countless eviscerations on the subject you're going to come to its defense in whatever way you can. Mostly the sheer volume of simplistic "hated," or "loved it," statements are going to overshadow the well though out responses and will eventually push a viewer that was likely to have a thoughtful debate into the "Wire/Reality" comeback. Sometimes when we lack the patience and insight necessary to debate we lash out. Again, it's childish but its also human nature.

It's unfortunate but I think it's just part of the landscape of public debate. Instead of having informative discussions about a piece of entertainment every show must "rock" or "suck." Hopefully this site and others dedicated to actually appreciating the artistry of TV will continue to do so.

Thanks again for the great podcast.

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Happy Birthday Mo! I hope this doesn't come off as too snarky (it's not meant to be) but my wish for you on this day is that you'll feel confident enough in your views and perceptions, as a professional critic, that you won't feel the need to set aside so much time responding to people who disagree with you and explaining yourself. You're paid to have an opinion, and that's what most of us are here to hear. Yes there will always be commenters who bring the level of conversation down, but I think that giving so much attention to this sort of thing just lends more weight to that sort of discussion. You're a great critic. You have good ideas and you support your opinions well. Everyone may not always agree with you, but it's not necessary to spend so much time defending yourself against people who don't have an argument in the first place.

there should be a podcast for Extreme Chef instead!

I am an extremely obnoxious person and now I have to resist the urge to say, “You do not understand…” every time I post on this site. Happy Birthday!

You're welcome, Mo! It's much easier to offer birthday felicitations when you constantly step up to be my favourite waste of time. :) You are, and remain, a scholar, a gentleman and a pleasure to disagree with. (A bit of advice: Skip the light beer and go straight to making out with boys. Much more fun.)