What is Yes, We’re Still Watching?
Yes, We’re Still Watching is a newsletter for anyone who thinks often and only about TV past and present — a lifestyle that is excellent for your health and wellbeing, as any scientist, doctor or Gwenyth Paltrow, even, will tell you.
Growing up, we soaked up hours of the small screen, turning the channel to VH1, to WB and — believe it or not — to TNT. We were bravely bearing witness, watching Flavor of Love’s Pumpkin spit on New York (so iconic they gave NY a spin off!) and Jessica Biel try to kiss her brother on 7th Heaven. We were agonizing over Lauren Conrad shedding that one single black-mascara tear on The Hills, and rooting for Meredith Grey to not set off the bomb that had somehow lodged itself into her patient’s chest cavity.
We learned so much, and at the same time, so little. All of it probably altered the state of our brain chemistry, but that’s for someone else to look into — we don’t get paid for this! For better or worse, TV shaped who we are and how we interact with the world. As the prophet (New Yorker writer) Emily Nussbaum said, “There was something alive about the medium to me, organic in a way that other art is not. You enter into it; you get changed with it; it changes with you.”
So it’s time to revisit the TV that raised us: the lines we can’t forget, the plot points that never made sense, and the characters that had so much potential but got squashed by writers’ strikes, loved/hated showrunners, and cursed seventh seasons. We talk about that one Hulu show we missed from two years ago that was actually really good. We also dive into the giants you’re watching today like Succession, Yellowjackets, The Last of Us and White Lotus.
We solve mysteries, like how Lorelai Gilmore possibly made enough money to be a Connecticut homeowner. We pose questions like, why is everyone writing characters inspired by Joan Rivers but no one will just write a goddamn show about Joan Rivers? And why did we all let Netflix off the hook so quickly for creating Insatiable? We try to pinpoint why childhood show reboots are making us so uncomfortable, and why Rob Thomas (not Matchbox 20 Rob Thomas) made Veronica Mars flirt with her dad like that. We request justice for some of our faves (like Sharp Objects, which should have gotten the reverence given to True Detective) and revisit the characters who deserved more. We mix it up because, like Ms. Kim Cattrall, we don’t want to be in a situation for even an hour where we’re not enjoying ourselves.
We write for the viewers who — because no one said to them, “hey, maybe read a book for once” — watched so much TV it filled up their frontal cortex and they actually can never learn a foreign language or tell you a single fact about the planets. If you’ve ever gotten too hooked on a Criminal Minds fan theory, or asked yourself who (besides Kendall Roy) is “babygirl,” or responded to a very common life scenario with “it’s giving [insert hyper-specific scene from a TV show]” … We Hear For You.
If you fall into this category you might be entitled to compensation; please contact an attorney. But also subscribe and follow along as we dissect this high art form.
If you were only allowed to watch PBS and actually went outside, you probably know all about important things like photosynthesis. But you might also like this newsletter — it’s not such a wild idea! Okay, love you, let’s get watching.
Who are we?
That’s one secret we’ll always tell. We’re two friends who met in journalism school and only survived thanks to hours of ignoring our assignments in favor of analyzing the Ryan Murphy Cinematic Universe. Yes, we’ll talk about The Newsroom at some point, but that show came out over a decade ago and we’re still recovering. (Alexa, play "Fix You" by Coldplay.)
XOXO Mallika and Rachel
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