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Was that drunk knight a Baratheon or a Tully? Did that patient have necrotizing fasciitis or necrotizing dermatitis? Isn’t that soldier a younger version of that one guy from the other thing?
And why exactly did Carrie and Aidan break up again, again?
These questions were inspired by the TV series “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms”; “The Pitt”; “It: Welcome to Derry”; and finally, “And Just Like That …” They were answered in The New York Times’s recaps of the episodes. (For the record: Baratheon; fasciitis; Dick Hallorann, who is killed as an old man in “The Shining”; it’s complicated.)
Recaps became a key component of television coverage in the early part of the 21st century, as shows like “The Sopranos” kicked off an ambitious new era of TV distinguished by complicated storytelling, highly serialized narratives and provocative material. A barrage of shows based on books, earlier series and other media brought abundant Easter eggs and rabbit holes. Stories got denser, richer, more complex, more worthy of discussion.
The best recaps are entertaining while providing helpful context, deepening viewers’ understanding of a show and its themes and giving them a spot in the comments forum to share their own impressions. The same readers often return week after week, following along as the story develops.
Recaps probably peaked as a phenomenon a few years ago, when screens were dominated by blockbusters like “Game of Thrones” and “The Walking Dead,” sprawling sagas that captivated millions of viewers with dozens of characters and subplots. (Of course, I recapped both of them, so I might be biased.)
Streaming has atomized television and its audience. Recaps, usually written in advance off episode screeners and then published after the episode airs, are still a big part of our weekly coverage. But time and resources are finite, so we’re strategic about what shows get them.
What is the strategy? Glad you asked!
Do you just recap the most popular shows?
Not usually, particularly when the most popular shows in a given season are sitcoms or crime-of-the-week cop shows and other procedurals.
TV was simpler back when everyone watched the same three or four networks. Each week wacky families solved homework dilemmas and clever detectives solved murders by the closing credits. The broadcaster made some ad dollars — Hot Pockets weren’t going to sell themselves — and viewers went to bed satisfied.
Prime-time parents and police officers still do their thing, and much like the occasional Hot Pocket, that thing is still satisfying. But with rare exceptions, sitcoms and procedurals don’t really call for further interpretation. For many viewers, the fact that you can watch these shows, enjoy them and then not think about them afterward is part of the escapist appeal.
We also almost never recap reality shows. We’ve dabbled, but mostly leave it to the experts — some of the most entertaining recappers at other outlets specialize in snarky breakdowns and takedowns of sundry Housewives, Bachelors and Traitors.
What about Netflix? Everybody watches Netflix.
Again, not really.
Netflix has plenty of shows worth talking and writing about, but with its full-season episode drops, people watch them on their own schedules. This is great for personal convenience but less so for a regular periodic discussion of a series.
Even if you’re able to write all the recaps in advance and publish them when the show premieres, the bingers rarely seem to go back and read them, and you risk spoiling things for viewers still catching up.
So while we occasionally do a mega season or finale recap for super popular Netflix shows like “Stranger Things,” we mostly skip their series. We do cover lots of Netflix shows in various other ways, and we also recap streaming shows that release each week, like “The Pitt” on HBO Max.
So what kinds of shows do you recap?
Those decisions are ultimately based on a kind of guesswork that considers a show’s popularity, narrative ambition, plot density and other factors.
Franchises, for example, have built-in fan bases. “Game of Thrones” was huge, and many people still watch “House of the Dragon,” so we were going to recap “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms” unless the screeners were terrible. (They were not.)
Other easy yeses included “It: Welcome to Derry,” a prequel series based on the work of Stephen King; Amazon’s “Lord of the Rings” series; and “Alien: Earth,” the latest extension of that face-sucking, chest-bursting sci-fi franchise. “And Just Like That …” was, by most definitions, not good. But “Sex and the City” fans are legion.
In general we pick series that seem primed to catch on and generate lots of chatter. These are usually infused with intoxicating mystery, have irresistible characters, grapple with broad cultural concerns or do all of the above. I like to think that, as with another difficult-to-define cultural product, we know ’em when we see ’em.
That’s not always true, however. “Heated Rivalry,” the horny hockey show, caught us by surprise. If I had a time machine, I would go back and assign recaps of “Severance” — no wait, I would go forward and watch the end of the show and see if it’s actually worth recapping.
But I can’t do either, so I’ll just keep looking for TV I think readers will want to talk about and hope I’m right.
Jeremy Egner is the television editor, overseeing coverage of the medium and the people who make it. He joined The Times in 2008.
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