Television Without Pity

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**Television Without Pity**

URL	http://www.televisionwithoutpity.com
Commercial?	Yes
Type of site	Online collection of television series recaps and related discussion forums
Registration	Optional
Owner	Glark Industries
Created by	David T. Cole, Tara Ariano, Sarah D. Bunting, various contributors

Television Without Pity (often abbreviated TWoP) is a website that provides detailed recaps of certain television dramas and reality TV shows, often by mocking them, as well as forums in which members can discuss a myriad of television related topics. The site began by recapping the television show Dawson's Creek and was originally called Dawson's Wrap; later it broadened its scope and changed names to Mighty Big TV before settling on the current moniker. The site is notable for its wide usage of the word "snark" to describe its typical style of sarcastic review. Their official motto is "Spare the snark, spoil the networks," a takeoff on "spare the rod, spoil the child."

Some actors and producers have been known to visit the website. The West Wing creator Aaron Sorkin posted in the forums, and his experience is believed to have inspired the episode "The U.S. Poet Laureate". In this episode, a character posts on his fansite and is vehemently attacked by members of the forum for his beliefs and his violation of the forum rules [1]. In contrast, Veronica Mars creator Rob Thomas has more fully embraced the TWoP message board community, with a discussion thread in his show's forum [2] open to directly communicate with viewers.

For the past few years, posters at the site have organized "TARCon" in New York City which is a viewing party for the season finale of the Amazing Race. The party has been attended by many of the show's contestants from current and past seasons.

The site's mascot is Tubeelzebub (a portmanteau of tube and Beelzebub - "Tubey" for short), a demonic television set replete with horns and a pointed tail. Questions can be asked of Tubey and are sometimes answered in the Ask Tubey section of the site.

Recaps differ in styles: some of the recappers write shorter, more concise recaps while others write more comically, inserting references to their personal life, for example. Naturally, each style attracts different readers, with some preferring to use the site as information for episodes that they have missed, and others preferring the more humorous ones, which can be equally (or more) enjoyable to those who also watched the episode.

Shows cancelled by the network (or deemed to be unpopular with the readers of TWoP) are considered to be in permanent hiatus, a status which is rarely reversed. Big Brother is one such exception, having been included as of June 2006 among active shows for the first time since its third season. Readers are encouraged to chat in their forums about current and past shows. As of now, the 2005 remake of Night Stalker holds the record for the shortest run on TWoP having been PH'd after only one recap, although the 2005 series Sex, Love & Secrets was expunged before even one recap, due to incredibly low viewer response in the forums. The shows covered are almost exclusively American, with the exceptions of Doctor Who, which is a British import to US television, and the original UK version of Queer as Folk, which was a British import to Canadian television. (Both are Russell T. Davies productions.)

The recaps and forums have their own jargon, detailed in the site's FAQ ([3]. Recappers also commonly coin nicknames for show characters. For example, the CIA secret agent played by Greg Grunberg on Alias was nicknamed "Agent Sean" in recaps in honor of the character he played for four years on his previous show, Felicity.

1 Staff
2 Recappers
3 Now or Never t-shirts and related merchandise
4 Criticism
5 External links
6 References

[edit] Staff

Sars, Wing Chun, and Glark are the founders of the site, and also serve as "Heads of Programming" at TWoP.
Glark was the first official member of the TWoP site and is mainly in charge of its organization and maintenance.

[edit] Recappers

TWoP's writers and the shows they currently review:

Al Lowe	Deadwood, Gilmore Girls
Couch Baron	Farscape, Veronica Mars
Daniel	Lost
Demian	Supernatural
Drunken Bee	Friday Night Lights
Erin	Heroes
Evany	Desperate Housewives
Jacob	American Idol, The Apprentice, Battlestar Galactica, Doctor Who, Farscape
Jeff	Project Runway
Jessica	Ugly Betty
Joe R.	American Idol, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip
Keckler	Top Chef
Kim	The Nine, The Sopranos
Lauren S	Grey's Anatomy
LTG	Grey's Anatomy
M. Giant	24, Rock Star, Rome
Miss Alli	The Amazing Race, Big Brother, Survivor
Omar G.	Smallville
Potes	America's Next Top Model
Sara M.	House, The O.C.
Sobell	Prison Break, Big Love
Mr. Sobell	Kidnapped
Strega	Farscape, Jericho

[edit] Now or Never t-shirts and related merchandise

Every month, in conjunction with clothing vendor Glarkware, Television Without Pity prints a set of limited edition t-shirts with an obscure reference to one of the shows covered by their reviewers. The company also produces accessories relating to TWoP, including buttons and magnets (collectively referred to as thingees) as well as messenger bags. Though various series have been referenced in the Now or Never line, among the most frequently noted are Alias, with four related shirts and two thingee items; and Veronica Mars and The Simpsons, with three related shirts each. Multiple selections have also been produced relating to Battlestar Galactica, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, House, and Lost.

[edit] Criticism

The forums are known for their strict moderation and elaborate rules. As a result, the community has been criticized at times as cliquey, elitist, and self-congratulatory. Posters who do not adhere to the many rules and standards posted in the site's FAQ are given warnings and may eventually be banned from the site. TWoP explains that this policy is necessary to ensure decorum, but many banned members disagree with the claim. They believe application of the rules is inconsistent or selective, and causes discussions that tend to parrot the moderators' viewpoints out of fear that the poster will be banned. According to some posters, the forums' increasingly firm moderation and TWoP's growing popularity in recent years have led to a decline in the quality of the site.

Largely as a result of these disagreements, several anti-TWoP groups have been created. Posters at these sites can express their reasons for dislike of TWoP and share jokes about the site, whether their complaint be with the forums or the politics of the site as a whole.

The forums are not the sole target of these groups' criticism. The recaps have also come under fire by those who find them unnecessarily smug and vicious. While the very name of the site suggests a lack of pity toward the shows, the recaps are considered to be rude merely for the sake of rudeness. More damaging is the claim that the site's increased popularity has caused the recappers to write far less controversial recaps, with much of their snark far more safe, inoffensive, and conservative than in its early years.