A TV.commentary
After years of lurking, and furtively sneering at the lousy tastes and even worse opinions of the TV.com-iverse, I finally decided to enter the fray. You see, it's all part of my plan to create the most awesomest SMF in the world… gyu-HaHaHA-HA! Ahem— but then I found out about TV.com's insidious scheme concerning their avatar/banner/profile image policy. If you elect to go rogue by not settling for their pre-vetted icon-set, there are a few caveats that come with this decision. First, they insist on rather rigid file-size parameters. I suppose this is a reasonable and perfectly aboveboard attempt to save the bandwidth of their servers as well as the load times of their visitors, which must be monstrous for such a popular site. So I quickly met their specifications, uploaded everything, and hit refresh. This is what I got (see Figure 1).
Figure 1: This is just a simulation, but you get the idea.
At first, I thought the culprit was my usage of a GIF instead of a JPG; because they never mentioned what file formats were supported, I assumed a GIF was acceptable, but after a bit of troubleshooting and incessant refreshing — across various browsers and machines, I'm embarrassed to admit — it became clear that the blame laid squarely on TV.com's shoulders. Once I checked the convenient welcome letter emailed to me, I found out what went wrong. You see, on TV.com it's best to use an image hosting site for a measly 80x80 icon. A service offered by many… like Photobucket; because when it comes to uploading images, TV.com is, I quote, "a bit on the flaky side."
So I said fuck it, and joined up and just barely dodged Photobucket's attempt to get me to shell out for their premium service. After going through the motions of providing as little personally identifiable information as possible, I was back in business. The rest of the process was straightforward from there.
Membership Has Its Privileges
Once I got the whole avatar thing worked out, I started making myself comfortable, so I could start levelling up. Yeah, TV.com has a levelling system kind of like BuddyTV.com, but less pointless. The more often you post, the higher your rank. When you start, you're just a lowly Weatherman (Level 1), but as you progress you get accompanying titles such as Caveman… (Level 5) or Door… (Level 9) — I have no idea what that signifies, though I can't wait to find out. Posting reviews is the single fastest way to level up, but fear not, things like length and quality aren't a factor. Volume is the name of this game.
Other than that, membership provides the user with some useful options like the ability to have the episode guides of each show listed in a more logical numerical order, i.e., seasonally. For example, "2-6," "2-7," etc. Why they don't offer this display-style right out the gate is beyond me. If I'd know this was one of the "perks" that came with membership I wold have joined a hell of a lot sooner. Even more baffling (and annoying) was TV.com's decision to start arranging their episode guides in descending rather than ascending order, so that you get the most recent episode placed first and have to scroll backwards if you want to go through the series in chronological order. There should be a way to toggle this, if not before, then certainly, after a user signs up, but there isn't.
They offer a bevy of features, most of which I haven't tried yet, so this commentary won't be as comprehensive as it should be. For instance, members can create their own blog on the site, a feature I'd been largely ignorant of after all these years — I mostly went on there for episode guides, air date info (which TV.com used to excel at, but has been recently wanting in), TV news, and the staff articles. The site also has a Listings function that allows you to get the television schedule for your area without having to leave the site. Even better is the new My WatchList feature that lets members select any of the current shows (this means no My So-Called Life reruns). When these shows are currently airing, they appear on a daily list of airtimes on the top right-hand corner of the TV.com homepage. It's like a show-centric TV guide. You can also click on the My WatchList option at the top of the screen anywhere on the site to bring up a more detailed view of your shows. Pretty cool.
Less cool is the the malfunctioning Favorites list. This is where users can list their all-time favorite shows, you know, like all those classics that have finished their broadcast run. But this feature was out of order when I signed up on the 19th of Feb, and has remained broken as of this writing. This is a shame, because it would have gone a long way toward making me feel at home, and setting me on the path toward reviewing.
No Representation? If you can stand the bloat, get on the boat
If you're a TV addict, like myself, who visits TV.com on a regular basis and feels like his or her opinion isn't getting the representation it deserves, then it might be worthwhile to sign up. Longtime visitors are well aware of the bevy of ads and scripts that have bloated the site since since its mutation from TV Tome to the flashier, whored out version of today, but these issue might turn off newbies. If these problems make anyone want to look elsewhere for the latest and greatest on the small-screen, then signing up won't help one bit. Beyond these issues and the unfortunate glitches I encountered, I've enjoyed my membership so far and look forward to actually doing something with this particular account because it lends itself well to this couch potato's lifestyle, and genuinely fosters regular participation. And any site that manages such a rare feat can't be all bad.
Update: As of February 25th, 2010, the Favorites function has been fixed.