Todd Van Poppel (2015)

I just answered a very similar question below, but the tl;dr. I think it's exciting fans can do this, but I'm ambivalent about the ability of consumers to determine the natural life of a story. Community, for all intents and purposes, seemed done to me at the end of season five (even if I hated the finale), but now it's back, and it seems a little unsure of the fact that it is. I'll keep watching, because I love the show. But I would dearly love to see what Harmon and McKenna do next, too.

Sure!

S2 premiere > S1 premiere > S3 premiere > S5 premiere > S6 premiere >>>>> S4 premiere.

Weirdly, would not be surprised if those end up being my season rankings as well. Huh.

I would be lying if I said no. I would also be lying if I said yes.

I DO NOT miss the weekly grind of having to come up with something new to say about dozens of different shows. I enjoyed doing it, and I enjoyed the shows I covered (mostly), but now that I can write about more varied things, I'm loving the fact that I can just drop in on, say, Agents of SHIELD (as I did today) when it does something really interesting. I like having that freedom and flexibility.

On the other hand, I do miss feeling like a part of that episodic recap conversation. And I expect once Vox has more latitude in this area, I will get back to doing at least a few of these. (I still really want to write about Mad Men weekly and probably will.) But right now, we're a staff of four, and I just can't make the majority of what I write episodic reviews, especially when I'm ALSO writing about film.

Great question!

Let's see...

Toy Story: This is a weird one, but it came out right when I was in high school and trying to be "cool." I went to see it, and I adored it, even though most of my friends thought it was stupid. I stood up for it and realized that I didn't particularly care what they thought, so long as I liked it.

Moolaade: Though basically nobody has seen this film from Senegalese master Ousmane Sembene, it was the first time I really felt like I had to tell people about a movie on the extreme outskirts of the release schedule. Of course, at the time, I lacked a mechanism to do so, so here I am, 11 years later, telling people in a Reddit comment.

It's a Wonderful Life: I have stuck up for this film in argument after argument after argument, as the perfect movie about both sides of what we believe to be true about America. It's a place of wondrous opportunity, but it's also a place where that opportunity crushes so many people. This is a dark, dark film, with a glimmer of light. And, hey, that describes most of the stuff I like.

The feedback has been very kind! I've been especially happy with how fellow adoptees and parents of adopted children felt the piece came at least somewhat close to their own experiences. And even those who fundamentally disagreed with me on one point or another, as it pertained to their experiences, were very kind in their pushback.

The definitive ranking of Todd's cats:

Linus > Sally > Pippa = Boo > Riley

But they are all great.

I was late answering this question because I just got off the phone with a BIG-TIME PRODUCER who works with REAL HOLLYWOOD ACTORS about adapting Frank Fisticuffs in Moon Fury.

I actually have worked from home for both the A.V. Club and Vox, so my experience has been largely identical at both. Vox has Slack, though, and Slack is great. So that's a big leg up.

My favorite colleague is my cat Linus and/or my wife, whom I briefly edited at AV Club before leaving. Is that a cheat? Yes.

I sort of wonder if Netflix isn't going to burn itself out with this strategy, but I think it can probably maintain if it keeps up a smart mix of acquisitions (like The Fall) and original shows (like Bloodline). I find Netflix in general sort of exciting, even if they haven't figured out entirely what they're doing creatively. They remind me a lot of early FX — cool business strategy, programming that's all over the map.

In terms of recent shows, I roll my eyes at House of Cards, but I love The Fall and really like Kimmy Schmidt. I don't think Bloodline is going to be for me (having seen a few episodes), but I really enjoyed another prominent Netflix release that's coming in April that I cannot mention by name just yet. I had a devilishly good time with it.

I am looking forward to Sense8!

No.

I sometimes catch it at the Laundromat. Which is how I watch all shows I feel ashamed of once giving a good review.

A few things!

1.) The ability to be comprehensive. TV Club could cover pretty much anything we wanted to, because it commanded legions of writers. Hopefully Vox Culture will get to that point someday, but we're still technically in our first year of existence. (It doesn't seem that way to me either, because the site's so great.) With a team of four, we have to let a lot of stuff slide, and that goes against my very nature.

2.) Instant feedback. In the wake of Gamergate and other incidents in the past year (some at AV Club), I've become much more of a comments agnostic than I used to be. I think great comments sections are cool, but most sites don't have the time to curate their sections and prevent trolls/misanthropes from taking over. And when a community reaches a certain size, it's all but certain they will. But I do miss posting an article and immediately having a legion of reactions to read through. Now, I have Twitter, but that's not quite the same. It's why I'm trying to get into Tumblr.

3.) Dumb running jokes.

All I can say is stay tuned. Libby and I are working out a new format that will be easier to produce on a regular basis. Since I started at Vox and she started writing full-time, we have a lot less time to just screw around than we used to. But we're committed to getting TVOTI up and running again because we love doing it.

(If you're unaware, you can check out my podcast [here] (http://tvoti.net).)

I love the horror boom we're in right now. Babadook was on my top 10 last year, Guest was close, and it will have to be a really great year for film for It Follows to miss my list this year. Horror is probably my favorite genre (if I have to choose), so it's great that so much amazing stuff is happening there.

I would say to any prospective horror directors and writers that the best way to make sure this horror boom (which I very much think is real) continues would be to make sure that what you write is grounded in something real. I don't mean by this that the monster should have a logical explanation — of course it shouldn't. What I mean is that the monsters in Babadook and It Follows are both grounded in very real, very terrifying emotions every human being feels at one point or another. We've all had to deal with an annoying child or with unforeseen consequences of a romantic encounter. These movies just heighten that idea and take it to a terrifying place. Horror is always best when it's playing up things we already feel, and I think directors and writers should remember that.

(You didn't ask, but my pitch for an It Follows sequel: '70s swingers. Make it like The Ice Storm as a story of marital malaise, but have a monster there killing people.)

I am deeply ambivalent about fan-driven projects. On the one hand, it's great that consumers can so directly drive the marketplace as to effectively be gatekeepers. On the other hand, consumers generally just want to keep consuming, until they realize they stuffed themselves hours ago and have just kept eating. I wasn't a big fan of the Veronica Mars movie for this reason — it never suggested a solid reason to exist other than the fact that the fans wanted it to exist. And, arguably, the fans being so gung ho for it hurt the story Rob Thomas had originally wanted to tell.

On the other hand, I think we'll eventually come to a place where this evens out, so I'm not too worried about it.

In a word, yes! Vox is a general interest site, so it's easier to branch out and write about other stuff than it was at A.V. Club. I'm sure the people I worked with there would have loved the adoption piece, but there wasn't really room for it without a pop culture hook. (Indeed, I took some of it from the Nerd Curious I wrote about Superman, which I stripped a bunch of personal material out of in the editing process.)

I will hopefully be writing some other non-entertainment pieces in the very near future. I don't want to say what they are just now, for various reasons, but keep an eye out.

My favorite show to review weekly has always been Mad Men. Because AMC doesn't send out screeners, there's a race aspect to it, and there's also the fun, performative, puzzle-solving aspect of it. It's a delight.

I will still primarily be writing about TV, yeah! And I'm hoping to write a more overarching thing about what Yahoo is up to in the very near future.

I suspect what you're asking about, though, is more traditional episodic reviews, in which case the answer is ... sort of, but not probably what you expect. That space is very crowded with sites that do that very well (in particular The AVC and Vulture), and we have a very small staff at present. My hope is to write SOMETHING about shows of note every week after new episodes. What that something will be will change from week to week, though.

I will inevitably forget someone, but--

It's impossible to do what I do and be the age that I am and not be a LITTLE influenced by Siskel and Ebert. One of the great joys of my life was having sporadic email contact with Roger Ebert when I had a newspaper job and would occasionally email his editor corrections. (Hey, I was a copy editor. It was my job to catch this stuff before it went to print.)

And I would be nowhere without Matt Zoller Seitz and Keith Phipps, who both took huge chances on me and helped me develop into the writer I am today. I went back and reread some of my early email correspondence with Matt the other day, and I was such an eager beaver kid, irritating and over the top, and he kept grinding out drafts with me. I will be forever grateful for that.

Finally, I do what I do because Alan Sepinwall did it first and best. That he's now a good friend is something 2005 Todd is a little blown away by.

As far as critics I read, it's a long list. I really love any piece that argues something I completely disagree with incredibly well.

I actually don't really have that problem. Because I'm kind of hardcore about breaking shows down to structural components, I can always just fall back on, "They were trying to do this, but it ended up doing this instead." That usually leads to other approaches.

I guess if I had to pick a type of TV I have the most trouble with, it would be reality. I'm not great at straight recaps with ample snark, and that's a genre that really benefits from it.

In general, any British show that hasn't debuted in the US yet is a show I'm not going to touch, for hopefully obvious reasons. (I get that torrenting has opened up the world of television in exciting ways, and I've used it to acquire imports as well. But I think we should also reward programmers who acquire adventurous stuff from overseas by giving them press on their release timetables.) So any time somebody is, like, "You need to review Utopia right now!" I shake my head.

I have mostly fallen off of Glee entirely in the last two seasons. I kept up with season four, for the most part, but it was also clear all involved were circling the drain around that point.

I will probably watch the finale.

Glee is almost certainly going to be one of those shows where I wish it had gone differently. There was so much potential there. So much squandered potential.

THESE LINES OF LIGHTNING MEAN WE'RE NEVER ALONE. NEVER ALONE. NO NO.

(Have you seen the music video for "Accidentally in Love"? It's insane.)

Cinnamon.

The sadness here is that it is basically impossible to get any more.

I have so many fond memories of going to Happy Chef, a small restaurant chain in the Midwest, and ordering a scoop of cinnamon ice cream to complete my meal. All is loss, children! All is loss!

Fascinating TV shows people probably haven't heard of:

1.) Sons & Daughters: This 2006 ABC sitcom is what Modern Family should have been.

2.) He and She: The prototype for the '70s sitcom revolution. Aired for one season on CBS in the late '60s.

3.) Rev.: One of the best shows of the new decade. And it's on Hulu!

If you're looking for a drama, consider St. Elsewhere. I often find people just haven't checked it out, and it meshes very well with modern sensibilities. I also love Route 66, which is on DVD and has a great back-story: it was actually filmed all over the country.

From having talked with my Vox colleagues about comments at their old sites, it is 100 percent the case that I got spoiled at AV Club.

I actually made a top 100 at my old blog, South Dakota Dark, which aimed to take into consideration personal opinion, historical importance, and general critical regard. I missed a lot in that list, but I'm still proud of the top 10, which strikes me as a list of shows you could watch and have a pretty good overview of television as a whole. It was:

1.) The Simpsons
2.) The Mary Tyler Moore Show
3.) The Sopranos
4.) The Wire
5.) Deadwood
6.) Hill Street Blues (hugely underrated at this point in time)
7.) Buffy the Vampire Slayer
8.) Cheers
9.) The Twilight Zone
10.) Freaks and Geeks

Believe me, these outlets are well aware. In many cases, they're more aware than viewers are.

I think as time goes by, the notion of remakes will become less of an instant solution for American broadcasters. Already, we've seen Sundance have some success with the original French Returned, and Hulu has apparently done well with foreign imports. Netflix, too, has had a lot of luck with British stuff.

I think the tide is turning here. It's just a matter of time. But I may be too optimistic on this point. After all, HBO is remaking Utopia (granted, with an all-star behind the scenes team).

I don't listen to nearly enough podcasts, I'm afraid. It's an area that I have just let slip.

When I do, though, I tend to listen to stuff that's not about TV. I like the little bite-sized podcasts that focus on one ultra-specific topic, like The Memory Palace. I just like that NPR aesthetic, because I am exactly the person you would expect from hearing that I am a 34-year-old white guy who lives in California.

Thank you for the compliment!

See elsewhere for a podcast answer. Libby and I will hopefully return very soon.

As for number 2: It's been weird! In particular, trying to balance both film and TV means I'm always catching up on both. (I've become, by default, one of our main film AND TV writers.) I'm blessed to have such talented people working with me. Alex always knows what's happening in comics and comics-related industries, and Kelsey has introduced me to so much great music while also allowing me to proclaim my love of Taylor Swift without shame. Brandon's area of expertise — religion — lines up less with mine, but I've loved hearing about how he sees that world, and he's a tremendously promising young film and TV critic, too. So it's been hard but fun.

And, yes, we need to write more about books. That's my next thing to tackle.

Movies, probably, but I would be very sad about it.

My brain is just built for long-form storytelling in ways that I don't entirely understand. The movies were my first love, and will probably always be my most passionate love, but I would probably miss television too much.

I love the work archivists do, and I'm always trying to give it more attention. Just last year, Kelsey wrote a great piece about music archiving that you should all [go and read right now] (http://www.vox.com/2014/10/13/6840233/music-archiving-disappearance-history). So, yes, I would always enjoy a visit to an archive. I just have to find time to do it.

As for the first question, I find that having somebody you love to talk to as much as I love talking to my wife helps with collaboration. There is nothing I write that I don't run by her, and she is the smartest person I know about stuff like this. It's been fun to go on our frequent walks and talk about pieces we're both wrestling with, and that will only increase as we take over the planet.

I am not worried in the slightest about Mad Men having a bad final season. I suppose it theoretically could, but I feel like the show has made very few missteps, and it won't start doing so now.

I want Don to end the show where he's always been — on the cusp of realizing that no thing can make him happy, but falling just short of the ultimate revelation.

Or Tony Soprano, stoned out of his gourd, in the desert, crying, "I get it!"

As a former 20something newspaper copy editor, I feel your pain! Breaking into culture writing is tough, because so many people want to do it, and because the paths to success are so often fluky. So here is my advice.

1.) Blog. Or Tumbl. Or whatever it is you kids are doing these days. The thing you need to be doing is developing your voice. Culture writing is SO dependent on voice, and that's something you can't fake. A lot of people think culture writing is about your opinions and how intelligent they are, but it's not. It's about how well you express them.

2.) Network! Fortunately, Twitter has made this easier than ever before. Be polite and respectful, but definitely respond to people who have careers you would like someday. Just remember they're super busy/bombarded with @ replies and may not always see you.

3.) Figure out what you do that makes you different. You like making GIFs? Do that. You like doing shot-by-shot analysis? Great. You like writing about stuff through a feminist lens? Cool! Any or all of these are great approaches. But above all, find out what makes you you and start applying that to your writing as often as possible.

4.) Write something at least four times a week. Ideally five. Ideally daily. When I was blogging for free (on top of a day job), I was typically writing 10-15 posts per week.

5.) Be ready. When the opportunity comes — and it will, eventually — have your clips ready. Have your pitches ready. Be ready to walk in the open door. Too many people trip on the doormat. Don't be them.

Too few! I have watched some with friends I could not tell you the names of, and I have plans to watch more for a book project I keep putting off.

I have watched the usual suspects when it comes to anime films, however.

Keep an eye on our [careers page] (http://www.voxmedia.com/careers).

I am not QUITE caught up on this season, but I think it's been a very interesting experiment. It's also prompted me to have some thoughts that I will express in a piece Monday morning. I kind of love how the season has been about the various characters having to confront mostly functional human beings and realizing how they fall short. And that's caused Hannah to do some serious self-reflection, while causing, say, Marnie to spin even further off her axis.

I don't remember that far back! But I believe they're mostly on the internet, with a little judicious googling.

I love both publications and love my jobs at both!

So I mean this as no slight against AV Club, which is one of the best publications on the internet. But it was built out of a print publication, and it maintains a lot of vestigial inefficiencies that come from that, particularly in its editorial process (deadlines are still a week in advance, for the most part, etc.). Vox doesn't really have that issue, because it's been built from the ground up for the internet.

Of course, Vox also doesn't have to deal with freelancers to the degree that AV Club does, so I'm sure that plays into it to a great degree as well.

I think there will always be room for the Christmas episode or the Halloween episode or etc. There will always be room for stories based around particular holidays, which come with built-in moods and tones that shows can then coast off of. One of the things I'm loving about Fortitude, for instance, are the occasional hints that all of this horrible stuff is going on while it's Christmas.

Read and learn as much as you can about as much as you can, but particularly literature, film, history, psychology, and religion. These five items are the building blocks of most TV, and if you have them at your disposal, you'll be in good shape!

There is no set career path to writing criticism for a living. Roger Ebert, for instance, trained as a sports writer, and I was unemployed when I randomly sent the AV Club a pitch document. The best thing you can do is learn what you can and hone your skills.

Or, put another way (and cribbing from the great James Rocchi), you're not really writing about TV. You're writing about life. So learn as much about that as you can.

I am sadly unfamiliar with Applause. I have been mainlining the Bridges of Madison County cast album, though, thanks to the influence of one David L. Sims.

And I'm hoping to get back to NYC very soon. When I do, Fun Home will be on the list (and maybe Hamilton if I can snag a ticket).

Most adoption stories are crafted metaphorically. I actually thought Mom did a really good job telling a straight-up story about a teenage girl giving her baby up to a couple last season, and I liked the Parenthood arc about the same thing in season three. (The Victor stuff was sometimes kind of a mess, and it largely ignored how Victor felt about the thing, which was a problem.)

I always found Lloyd Alexander's Prydain Chronicles a really great symbolic telling of a typical adoptee narrative.

Louie: It's by far the most influential program of the new decade, even if nobody watches it. And in its willingness to blow up TV templates, it reminds me most of The Sopranos.

The Americans: I think this will come to stand as THE drama of its era, even as right now, it's pretty much ignored. Desperately hoping it's not canceled.

Hannibal: I feel like this might be recency bias, but this and Americans are just ... where it's at for me in recent years.

I'll do two more.

Orange Is the New Black: Here's where the streaming model proves its relevance. Complicated, beautiful, moving. Telling stories nobody else is.

Rectify/Girls: Two different shows coming at the same ideas in some very different ways. Love 'em both.

See elsewhere, where I gave some hopefully helpful tips!

A lengthy interview process.